something some people miss in this song is the deeper meaning of the line: "use my best colors for your portrait" Sure, it can mean she is painting real pictures of him with her best oil colors, but my interpretation is also the picture of him she paints to other people, meaning she only uses her best descibtions of admiration for him when she speaks about him to other people. She only portraits him with her best compliments to other people and never says a bad word about him. Love your reactions to Taylors music😍
i think it also means that she gives the best thing him, like she the makes sure the plates shine, if she makes a portrait she uses the best colors… but what you said also makes sense
Definitely, I agree with you! "Painting a picture of someone to someone else" is such a great figure of language and Taylor is soooooo good at using those! I also think it relates to the previous line, in a way: "I wait by the door like I'm just a kid/ Use my best colors for your portrait". I relate that to a sort of innocent love and admiration, like a kid has for a parent or guarding figure, you know? You know how little kids make pictures of others to show affection? She likes this man so much that she would only use her best colors for his portrait, like a kid trying to get an adults affection would. That emphasizes how vulnerable she feels in relation to him and how disproportionate the power dynamics between them is. She's doing her very best, but really all she can do is use her best colors in his portrait and hope that he notices it and doesn't see it as just another childish scribble.
"I sit and watch you" at the end is such a subtle, heartbreaking lyric. Like the whole song is a train of thought while she's watching this person sleeping. Having all of these thoughts about how she's merely tolerated, and about how she could just run away from it all, but she doesn't. She stays.
This was literally my marriage for 10 yrs... he didn't want me to even speak to him, actually got annoyed if I talked to him---I divorced him, against the wishes of everyone around me. He wasn't "beating me" or cheating so no one, even my family, thought I was making a good decision to leave. But he was making me feel worthless.
The fact that the line in the song is “I sit and watch you” is just so heavy because even thou in the bridge she considers leaving this person , she’s not doing it , she’s just sitting there and watching him.
Unimportant sidenote: In the novel "Rebecca" (a classic 20th c. Gothic novel) that inspired Taylor, the "tolerated" wife knows her older husband is a widower--she mistakenly believes Maxim, her husband, still pines for his deceased wife and only tolerates his new young bride. But actually, he had (sympathetically) murdered his previous, nefarious wife when she had blackmailed him. In the end, we find out Maxim absolutely adores his new bride but had been consumed by his secret. He does tell her, to quote Taylor, "that she had it wrong somehow." Whatever. Totally inconsequential to Taylor's brilliant song. But ""Rebecca" is an awesome novel (plus a couple decent film versions over the years). And as I'm a long-ago English major, it does my heart good to know Taylor consumes good literature--which also helps you understand her great lyricism. In the final Folklore song (deluxe version), Taylor has lovely allusions to 19th c. English poetry. Go Taylor! And go Nick! -- thanks very much for your delightful reactions.
I read Rebecca when I was 12 in the 80s. It definitely pulled me in. It’s such a hauntingly dark story. Now knowing she wrote this song inspired by this book it really matches the theme. So creative. Taylor is such a master lyricist. Nice reaction. ❤
@@nickforell1 I forgot to mention, Taylor was named after James Taylor, her parents were fans. Taylor has had him as a guest singer on one of her tours (maybe 2 times ?), and she mentions James Taylor in one of her songs "Begin Again" from her Red Album.
She never said this but I believe it could be about how she felt when she was with Jake Gyllenhaal since he was much older than her and in the song all too well she says “ I am a soldier who is returning half her weight” and here she said “ gain the weight of you then lose it”
This song kills me every time I listen to it. For me it relates to all relationships. Romantic, platonic, and even family. You put so much of yourself into someone but they don’t give you the same.
This ballad is emotionally wrenching (or just wrecking, depending on my mood when I hear it). Couple the heartbreaking lyrics with her affecting vocal delivery, and you have the makings of a classic Taylor track 5.
This was my 13 year long relationship with my daughter's father. Each year that went on was worse than the year before. She showed me this performance on the Era's Tour video and i cried my eyes out.
I tend to like her pop albums more but this song is one of my favorite songs of all time. I've been in relationship like this when I was much younger and just as you said this song is both sad and strong as the same time.
Thanks, the wound has healed since it was lmany years ago. Despite my account name and pfp I mostly listen to rock (I haven't seen it yet but it's awesome that you did a Linkin Park song, I've seen them live and they were awesome) and 80s pop so most of my pop comes from Taylor Swift since she's so amazing not only at lyrics writing but her vocal melodies are top tier (I've been a fan since 2007). My favorite Taylor pop song is Blank Space, which you have probably heard but I would recommend her accoustic performance at the Grammy Theater or her song Cruel Summer which was in my opening the best pop song of 2019. Thanks for the kind answer. EDIT: I don't know if you like Def Leppard but Taylor played 9 songs with them in a duet show called Crossroads back in 2008. It was awesome, their performance of Photograph, Pour Some Sugar On Me And When & Hate Collide are all worth watching.
I really love and relate to this song. I think it can speak to many different types of relationships where one goes unappreciated. It's also interesting that while the narrator does talk about what if "I break free and leave us in ruins." It ends with "I sit and watch you." Which makes me question if the narrator is still stuck in this uneven relationship. It's so hard to leave and really appreciate your own worth sometimes.
this is one of my favorite songs of Taylor. its so hurting but in a beautiful way. my favorte phrase is "I made you my temple, my mural my sky, now I´m begging for footnotes on the story of your life
the last "I sit and watch you" makes me think that she's sat there with him while she was contemplating all of these thoughts that she sang about. It really rounds up the song because she starts by sitting and watching him as he was reading a book ignoring her.
Don't apologize for pausing I actually really appreciate that you do. There's some lyrics I don't understand and you have helped me with it! Thank you for doing these videos. 😊
@Nick Forell seconding- I prefer the pauses to really appreciate each lyric, only found you today but I've been binging your reactions for 3 hours and just subscribed to patreon too. My fav reactors are the ones who DO pause and break it down and you do that wonderfully
What's also really cool about her music is that she has a lot of references to the same situations and themes and other songs in all her albums, like a callback. Once you've listened to her whole catalog, a lot of the songs take on such deeper meanings because of building on the ones that came before. She even sometimes puts the same melody on a line in a song that is a callback to a song on a previous album.
Her storytelling and the way she manages to articulate feelings lyrically is unmatched in the music industry. She is truly one of the best songwriters ever! You should listen to 'The Last Great American Dynasty' from Folklore and 'No Body No Crime' from Evermore. Two of my favourites that tell stories so well just like in 'Tolerate it'.
about possible influences to her writing tolerate it, many fans have different theories on which relationship she drew from and honestly there are quite a few that fit- so some think it's elements of multiple. In terms of the age difference paired with the unappreciated love it could be linked to John Mayer/Jake Gyllanhall as she's written in songs like Dear John about the age gap and fighting for his approval in the relationship all the time as well as the line about drawing reminds people of a famous interview with John before they dated when he commented on watching her drawing like a little kid. As well as for Jake songs like All too well (10MV) and we are never getting back together of the struggle of the age gap being used against her and how he never liked her music and she was fighting for him to even call it love in the relationship. Other links fans have found are Calvin Harris as she talks in getaway car and high infidelity of how ungiving he was in the relationship and how it felt like she wasn't receiving any love. Just in general there's been a pattern of her experiencing this kind of situation, like even in Teardrops on my guitar and story of us from her earlier work she continues to reference this kind of pain of her feelings being tolerated and not embraced/reciprocated. Even in her newest song about her relationship with Joe ending (you're losing me) she writes of how she feels like giving up on the relationship because she's not getting the energy back that she needed.
This song is different from all other of Taylor's songs in that it's in 5/4 time signature. Whereas 4/4 songs have a rhythm to them and 3/4s are waltz beats, the awkwardness of 5/4 with a brooding piano adds exponentially to the emotions in the lyrics and melody. And I totally agree with your opinion on ranking her songs. I liken that to ranking one's kids in order of the love you feel for them.
ive been watching a lot of your videos today, and i’ve been throughly enjoying them! if you haven’t seen it yet, you should check out her performance of tolerate it on the eras tour. it’s absolutely amazing. keep up the good work, can’t wait for more vids!
I disagree that it ends on a positive, hopeful note. She knows things aren't right, knows she should leave, but still sits there watching it still happen. I think the "Believe me, I could do it" is her trying to convince herself she could.
Fellow Swifties, I had a thought: could this song be connected to bejeweled? Like, Bejeweled could kinda be part 2 of “Tolerate it”? 👀 Can you see it? Like how they could be correlated ? ☺️
You must react to Augest this song about side chick persecutive.Side chick also have feelings even if the situation wrong.I don’t think I ever heard artist sing about woman who is trying to take boyfriend or husband in good way which is true she also has feelings not just gf or wife.
Are you going to go back and do The 1 from Folklore? I know you said you were doing them in order and I saw #2 Cardigan, #3 Last Am Dynasty… but, I don’t see #1 The 1.
Oh this song is so good. Evermore. Oh. The forgotten sister of folklore. FYI. Most, not all, but most like evermore better than folklore. Tolerate it is sooo good. The highs on evermore are higher. The title track evermore is lovely. But Marjorie is special , it is a lyric video but with home movies of her grandmother, Marjorie. Folklore & evermore are 50% autobiographical. This is one of them. Her grandmother Marjorie. She passed away when Taylor was 13 traveling to Nashville trying to make it. It’s a gem. Please, listen to it.
I personally love evermore more.. I think the album was heavily overshadowed by folklore's success as folklore was released in July and evermore was released December of the same year. And Taylor barely mentions evermore which is kinda sad as it is one of my favorite albums of her 😭
@@nickforell1 Yes, both are surprise albums, which means Taylor announced it the day before its formal release, which is incredible because both Evermore and Folklore performed so well in the charts and were nominated for album of the year (each are nominated in a different year but only folklore won the grammy for album of the year)
Literally the story of my marriage that ended in 11 mos. after I asked him if I had the problems in our relationship wrong. I didn't, he wasn't in love with me... I "removed the dagger and she'd those pounds. So painful, but so good. 😭🫶💯
something some people miss in this song is the deeper meaning of the line: "use my best colors for your portrait" Sure, it can mean she is painting real pictures of him with her best oil colors, but my interpretation is also the picture of him she paints to other people, meaning she only uses her best descibtions of admiration for him when she speaks about him to other people. She only portraits him with her best compliments to other people and never says a bad word about him. Love your reactions to Taylors music😍
I mean that's how I see it too. ☺️
I have never thought of this, but wow!
i think it also means that she gives the best thing him, like she the makes sure the plates shine, if she makes a portrait she uses the best colors… but what you said also makes sense
Definitely, I agree with you! "Painting a picture of someone to someone else" is such a great figure of language and Taylor is soooooo good at using those! I also think it relates to the previous line, in a way: "I wait by the door like I'm just a kid/ Use my best colors for your portrait". I relate that to a sort of innocent love and admiration, like a kid has for a parent or guarding figure, you know? You know how little kids make pictures of others to show affection? She likes this man so much that she would only use her best colors for his portrait, like a kid trying to get an adults affection would. That emphasizes how vulnerable she feels in relation to him and how disproportionate the power dynamics between them is. She's doing her very best, but really all she can do is use her best colors in his portrait and hope that he notices it and doesn't see it as just another childish scribble.
I believe Taylor has synesthesia where she sees color when she’s hearing notes
"I sit and watch you" at the end is such a subtle, heartbreaking lyric. Like the whole song is a train of thought while she's watching this person sleeping. Having all of these thoughts about how she's merely tolerated, and about how she could just run away from it all, but she doesn't. She stays.
I like it when people pause while reacting and share their opinions rather than talking over and missing stuffs.
This was literally my marriage for 10 yrs... he didn't want me to even speak to him, actually got annoyed if I talked to him---I divorced him, against the wishes of everyone around me.
He wasn't "beating me" or cheating so no one, even my family, thought I was making a good decision to leave. But he was making me feel worthless.
So sorry you had to go through that. People don’t emphasize that emotional abuse can be just as bad
The fact that the line in the song is “I sit and watch you” is just so heavy because even thou in the bridge she considers leaving this person , she’s not doing it , she’s just sitting there and watching him.
Yeah, it really shows the staying power people have when they are in love
Unimportant sidenote: In the novel "Rebecca" (a classic 20th c. Gothic novel) that inspired Taylor, the "tolerated" wife knows her older husband is a widower--she mistakenly believes Maxim, her husband, still pines for his deceased wife and only tolerates his new young bride. But actually, he had (sympathetically) murdered his previous, nefarious wife when she had blackmailed him. In the end, we find out Maxim absolutely adores his new bride but had been consumed by his secret. He does tell her, to quote Taylor, "that she had it wrong somehow." Whatever. Totally inconsequential to Taylor's brilliant song. But ""Rebecca" is an awesome novel (plus a couple decent film versions over the years). And as I'm a long-ago English major, it does my heart good to know Taylor consumes good literature--which also helps you understand her great lyricism. In the final Folklore song (deluxe version), Taylor has lovely allusions to 19th c. English poetry.
Go Taylor! And go Nick! -- thanks very much for your delightful reactions.
I read Rebecca when I was 12 in the 80s. It definitely pulled me in. It’s such a hauntingly dark story. Now knowing she wrote this song inspired by this book it really matches the theme. So creative. Taylor is such a master lyricist. Nice reaction. ❤
The folklore and evermore albums helped so many people, by taking their minds off of Covid. Great reaction, you are doing fine.
I can see that! A gift to fans. Thank you Violet
@@nickforell1 I forgot to mention, Taylor was named after James Taylor, her parents were fans. Taylor has had him as a guest singer on one of her tours (maybe 2 times ?), and she mentions James Taylor in one of her songs "Begin Again" from her Red Album.
@@Violet316 Oh, that is awesome to hear. He is one of my idols :)
But the final line, she doesn't leave, still clinging to hope. Its heartbreaking.
She never said this but I believe it could be about how she felt when she was with Jake Gyllenhaal since he was much older than her and in the song all too well she says “ I am a soldier who is returning half her weight” and here she said “ gain the weight of you then lose it”
Ah yes, good insight. I didn't even know they dated but he strikes me as much older/has his own life. Appreciate you dropping by
@@nickforell1 If you decide to react to Red, you will receive an education on Jake G.
This song kills me every time I listen to it. For me it relates to all relationships. Romantic, platonic, and even family. You put so much of yourself into someone but they don’t give you the same.
I love how much you pause! I really like your attention to the lyrics
Thank you Ellen, I appreciate you tuning in!
This ballad is emotionally wrenching (or just wrecking, depending on my mood when I hear it). Couple the heartbreaking lyrics with her affecting vocal delivery, and you have the makings of a classic Taylor track 5.
It definitely lived up to the track 5 theme people have talked about!
Watching you slowly but surely become the biggest swiftie has really turned my week around, thank you.
Glad to hear it Bret =)
Taylor Swift notoriously makes her tract 5 the most emotional song on the album 😅
This was my 13 year long relationship with my daughter's father. Each year that went on was worse than the year before. She showed me this performance on the Era's Tour video and i cried my eyes out.
The fan edit/music video of this song over The Crown clips showing Charles’s & Diana’s relationship totally encapsulates this!
Thank you Dustin that was such a major compliment. Harry is truly one of a kind and such a great person on top of it
I tend to like her pop albums more but this song is one of my favorite songs of all time. I've been in relationship like this when I was much younger and just as you said this song is both sad and strong as the same time.
Any pop songs you'd recommend? Sorry to hear that by the way, hope you're okay
Thanks, the wound has healed since it was lmany years ago.
Despite my account name and pfp I mostly listen to rock (I haven't seen it yet but it's awesome that you did a Linkin Park song, I've seen them live and they were awesome) and 80s pop so most of my pop comes from Taylor Swift since she's so amazing not only at lyrics writing but her vocal melodies are top tier (I've been a fan since 2007).
My favorite Taylor pop song is Blank Space, which you have probably heard but I would recommend her accoustic performance at the Grammy Theater or her song Cruel Summer which was in my opening the best pop song of 2019.
Thanks for the kind answer.
EDIT: I don't know if you like Def Leppard but Taylor played 9 songs with them in a duet show called Crossroads back in 2008. It was awesome, their performance of Photograph, Pour Some Sugar On Me And When & Hate Collide are all worth watching.
I really love and relate to this song. I think it can speak to many different types of relationships where one goes unappreciated. It's also interesting that while the narrator does talk about what if "I break free and leave us in ruins." It ends with "I sit and watch you." Which makes me question if the narrator is still stuck in this uneven relationship. It's so hard to leave and really appreciate your own worth sometimes.
this is one of my favorite songs of Taylor. its so hurting but in a beautiful way. my favorte phrase is "I made you my temple, my mural my sky, now I´m begging for footnotes on the story of your life
the last "I sit and watch you" makes me think that she's sat there with him while she was contemplating all of these thoughts that she sang about. It really rounds up the song because she starts by sitting and watching him as he was reading a book ignoring her.
I always think of Prince Charles and Princess Diana when I hear this song
Aha, yes that's pretty accurate
I sit and watch you at the end to me is her contemplating and reflecting her options while she watches him.
Don't apologize for pausing I actually really appreciate that you do. There's some lyrics I don't understand and you have helped me with it! Thank you for doing these videos. 😊
I appreciate that :)
@Nick Forell seconding- I prefer the pauses to really appreciate each lyric, only found you today but I've been binging your reactions for 3 hours and just subscribed to patreon too. My fav reactors are the ones who DO pause and break it down and you do that wonderfully
What's also really cool about her music is that she has a lot of references to the same situations and themes and other songs in all her albums, like a callback. Once you've listened to her whole catalog, a lot of the songs take on such deeper meanings because of building on the ones that came before. She even sometimes puts the same melody on a line in a song that is a callback to a song on a previous album.
It’s a track 5 (historically in her discography the 5th track in her albums are particularly sad and vulnerable)
Her storytelling and the way she manages to articulate feelings lyrically is unmatched in the music industry. She is truly one of the best songwriters ever! You should listen to 'The Last Great American Dynasty' from Folklore and 'No Body No Crime' from Evermore. Two of my favourites that tell stories so well just like in 'Tolerate it'.
You should see this on her "Eras Tour.." Holy shit.
The video from the eras tour just amplifies the whole song vibe.
about possible influences to her writing tolerate it, many fans have different theories on which relationship she drew from and honestly there are quite a few that fit- so some think it's elements of multiple. In terms of the age difference paired with the unappreciated love it could be linked to John Mayer/Jake Gyllanhall as she's written in songs like Dear John about the age gap and fighting for his approval in the relationship all the time as well as the line about drawing reminds people of a famous interview with John before they dated when he commented on watching her drawing like a little kid. As well as for Jake songs like All too well (10MV) and we are never getting back together of the struggle of the age gap being used against her and how he never liked her music and she was fighting for him to even call it love in the relationship. Other links fans have found are Calvin Harris as she talks in getaway car and high infidelity of how ungiving he was in the relationship and how it felt like she wasn't receiving any love. Just in general there's been a pattern of her experiencing this kind of situation, like even in Teardrops on my guitar and story of us from her earlier work she continues to reference this kind of pain of her feelings being tolerated and not embraced/reciprocated. Even in her newest song about her relationship with Joe ending (you're losing me) she writes of how she feels like giving up on the relationship because she's not getting the energy back that she needed.
This song is different from all other of Taylor's songs in that it's in 5/4 time signature. Whereas 4/4 songs have a rhythm to them and 3/4s are waltz beats, the awkwardness of 5/4 with a brooding piano adds exponentially to the emotions in the lyrics and melody. And I totally agree with your opinion on ranking her songs. I liken that to ranking one's kids in order of the love you feel for them.
ive been watching a lot of your videos today, and i’ve been throughly enjoying them! if you haven’t seen it yet, you should check out her performance of tolerate it on the eras tour. it’s absolutely amazing. keep up the good work, can’t wait for more vids!
Glad you like them! I will definitely check those out
So glad I found this channel. Love these reactions
Thank you so much 😊 you’re appreciated!
@@nickforell1 I saw you reaching 17k subs in real time while I was watching your videos!
@@neensbal13 I know it happened so fast 💨
@@nickforell1 congrats! Can’t wait to see more reaction videos. I hope you react to 5 seconds of summer as well, they are amazing
I'm a cryer of this track. this screams pain!
It's definitely a powerful track..
I think the line "if it's all in my head tell me now" is about gaslighting. You're just crazy, You're blowing things out of proportion, etc.
i love your reactions, ur amazing
Thank you so much!!
Absolutely bkew that subscriber goal out of the water 😂 Congratulations!
Thank you Daria! I know, it’s hard to believe. Appreciate you being here ❤️
I love that you’ve been enjoying Taylor Swift. Please do ‘Bigger Than The Whole Sky’ next!
If you like folklore album, you need to listen to Carolina on the soundtrack Where the Crawdads Sing. Taylor's voice is beautiful but also eerie.
lots think this is also reminiscent of her relationship with Calvin Harris
I disagree that it ends on a positive, hopeful note. She knows things aren't right, knows she should leave, but still sits there watching it still happen. I think the "Believe me, I could do it" is her trying to convince herself she could.
So so sad. Lucky to have them
Fellow Swifties, I had a thought: could this song be connected to bejeweled? Like, Bejeweled could kinda be part 2 of “Tolerate it”? 👀 Can you see it? Like how they could be correlated ? ☺️
You must react to Augest this song about side chick persecutive.Side chick also have feelings even if the situation wrong.I don’t think I ever heard artist sing about woman who is trying to take boyfriend or husband in good way which is true she also has feelings not just gf or wife.
Are you going to go back and do The 1 from Folklore? I know you said you were doing them in order and I saw #2 Cardigan, #3 Last Am Dynasty… but, I don’t see #1 The 1.
Yes, I will be getting to the 1 but I figured I'd finish folklore with it. That way I've come full circle. Hopefully, that's alright!
Oh this song is so good. Evermore. Oh. The forgotten sister of folklore. FYI. Most, not all, but most like evermore better than folklore. Tolerate it is sooo good. The highs on evermore are higher. The title track evermore is lovely. But Marjorie is special , it is a lyric video but with home movies of her grandmother, Marjorie. Folklore & evermore are 50% autobiographical. This is one of them. Her grandmother Marjorie. She passed away when Taylor was 13 traveling to Nashville trying to make it. It’s a gem. Please, listen to it.
They some how put her grandmother singing in part of Marjorie and it is such a cool song and tribute to her grandma.
I personally love evermore more.. I think the album was heavily overshadowed by folklore's success as folklore was released in July and evermore was released December of the same year. And Taylor barely mentions evermore which is kinda sad as it is one of my favorite albums of her 😭
Oh that's too bad..So they came out around the same time? Well, the beauty if music means we can enjoy the songs nonetheless
@@nickforell1 Yes, both are surprise albums, which means Taylor announced it the day before its formal release, which is incredible because both Evermore and Folklore performed so well in the charts and were nominated for album of the year (each are nominated in a different year but only folklore won the grammy for album of the year)
@@chichi3713 gotcha, well awards aside I’m just thankful for beautiful music to jam to!
Building other world , does it not mean like having another separate life like having an affair with someone else .,
You know the song is good when you apologise for PAUSING on a reaction video hahaha.
Yes hahaha
You should react cowboy like me
Literally the story of my marriage that ended in 11 mos. after I asked him if I had the problems in our relationship wrong. I didn't, he wasn't in love with me... I "removed the dagger and she'd those pounds. So painful, but so good. 😭🫶💯
Sorry you had to deal with that =(