La-La-La-La-La: How Taylor Swift Blocks Out the Voice of Reason in Foolish One

The Basics: 

Taylor Swift sings about being somebody’s back-up girlfriend. The voices in her head tell her she should “Stop checkin’ [her] mailbox for confessions of love / That ain’t never gonna come.” Swift does not listen and has to “learn the hard way instead of just walkin’ out.” 

Literary Device: Exemplum

An exemplum is an illustrative example used to make a point. Taylor Swift begins Foolish One with a game in which her cards are on the table, but her opponent’s cards are in his hand. This card game – whether it is an actual game or purely a metaphor – opens the song with the idea of operating without complete information. Swift has a distinct disadvantage in this game – her opponent can move forward with complete certainty, but she must guess since she does not have all of the facts. 

Analysis

Foolish One is a deeply epistemological song. Like its spiritual predecessors Tied Together With a Smile, Stay Beautiful, and Invisible, Foolish One explores how the attainment of knowledge can be prevented. Most obviously, Swift’s access to information is blocked by the gentleman in question. To continue the playing card exemplum, he does not show his cards. Swift writes in the first verse that he “give[s] me just enough attention to keep my hopes too high.” Similarly, he know[s] how to keep [her] waitin’.” In these examples, Swift’s opponent does not share his true feelings. He manipulates her access to information in order to keep her guessing and hoping.

Swift’s deeper epistemological inquiry, however, concerns how a person can conceal information from herself. Swift sets the tone for this exploration by creating distance between herself and her own thoughts. She describes “voices of reason in her head” as an entity separate from herself throughout the song. The voices call her a “Foolish one” who “will never learn her lesson.” Swift digs down in the second verse, when she writes “when my head is on your shoulder / It starts thinkin’ you’ll come around.” Swift adds a layer of distance between herself and her thoughts by attributing the thoughts to her head. 

In the environment of Foolish One, then, thoughts are considered an external source of information. Some of those thoughts are positive, and some are negative. Swift’s “Wishful thoughts forget to mention when something’s really not right.” In this case, Swift’s positive thinking obscures the complete truth, not unlike her opponent above. These wishful thoughts are responsible for her visions of the future: “maybe, someday, when we’re older / This is something we’ll laugh about.” These wishful thoughts interpret missing information in a positive light. Swift sits “‘round waiting for confessions of love”, believing that they will come. 

On the other hand, Swift has more realistic, negative thoughts. These voices interpret the lack of information differently, realistically acknowledging that the “confessions of love / … ain’t never gonna come.” They worry that Swift will “learn the hard way instead of just walking’ out” as she should. Swift initially actively blocks out these negative thoughts while simultaneously acknowledging that they are correct: “I will block out these voices of reason in my head.” In the bridge, Swift briefly acknowledges that no news is bad news. “Oh, you haven’t written me or called” is compared to a “goodbye screamin’ in the silence.” The silence here means goodbye, instead of keep waiting. Although the “voices in her head are tellin’ [her] why”, Swift persists in blocking them out for two more choruses. At one point, she even sings “La-la-la-la-la” repeatedly. One can imagine her actively blocking out negative thoughts with these nonsense syllables. 

At one point Swift wonders “How could I not see the signs?” Swift implies that if she had had enough information, she could have made a better choice. Swift, however, is culpable for her own lack of information. She actively chose to ignore arguments and evidence that she didn’t want to hear, even while acknowledging them as the “voice of reason.” A few songs back, in Electric Touch, Swift argued that an epistemology of hope is necessary to begin a romantic relationship. When all prior relationships have failed, profound optimism is required in order to begin a new one. In Foolish One, Swift explores the dark side of that approach. Profound optimism does not serve Swift in the midst of a brutal situationship – in this case she would have benefited from listening to reason.