Analysis: ‘Clean’ by Taylor Swift | Storytelling in Songs #2

I am beyond excited for 1989 TV to come out!! Four more days!!! Surreal. So obviously I thought: How about analyzing one of the strongest metaphor songs I know? And now here we are to talk about ‘Clean’, the closing track off of the original ‘1989’ album by Taylor Swift.

When I was trying to figure out which track to start with for this album, this was the first one that popped to mind. Obviously there are other strong candidates, this album is a pop masterpiece, I believe people also call it the pop bible, and honestly, so valid. ‘1989’ is the cream on top of the pop cake. Don’t know where that metaphor came from… :,) What I’m trying to say is, there are a lot of really freaking amazing songs on this album, and ‘Clean’, well, ‘Clean’ is probably the best closing track, like, ever. If you know, you know. And if not, you’ll understand once you read this and listened to the song.

I remember a time where I didn’t really give this song a chance. I don’t know why exactly, but I just didn’t. Until I did. And let me tell you, this song. THIS SONG. Thank god I got to my senses. And who would’ve guessed, it was the lyrics that brought me around:,) If I tried to justify silly little past me that just didn’t get it, I’d say that I’d heard it before but never ACTUALLY listened to it and paid attention, and therefore was confused about the story this song is telling as a whole because I didn’t see how the pieces fit together, I didn’t understand the overall plot. As soon as I properly listened to what she was saying I realized that it is an extremely cleverly written song, the metaphor and imagery are constructed masterfully.

It’s a metaphor song, yayyy!! What I call ‘metaphor songs‘, are songs based around the idea of comparing something (a situation or object or person or idea or whatever) to something else, suggesting a likeness and creating an analogy or comparison between them.

Let’s take a deep dive, shall we? I strongly recommend listening to the song while reading this, so go ahead, put it on. You can put it on repeat or, like me, listen to the part that I’m talking about and then pause it, whatever you prefer but do give it a listen, it’s so worth it. If you’ve never heard of it before, you’re welcome. 🙂 Actually, wait till Friday and listen to Taylor’s Version.

This song was produced by Taylor and Imogen Heap. I love that sound it starts off with, some kind of percussive element but almost bass-like with the way it resonates with your core. What can I say, I’m a bass fan. Might be Calum Hood’s fault, but man, I’ve always loved when you can feel the music in your body, when it feels like your insides are vibrating, reverberating the sounds. If you know what I mean(?). And there’s this kind of bell-like melody over it that comes in, that sounds like a xylophone, creating quite a unique overall sound. And then, everything except for that deep percussion cuts out again right before Taylor’s vocals come in, which creates this eerie, haunting, uneasy atmosphere. Chef’s kiss. I don’t feel like this intro is appreciated enough. Though obviously, if you’ve paid any attention at all while you read this paragraph, I’m not even close to being an expert at production HAHAHHA.

The drought was the very worst
When the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst
It was months and months of back and forth
You’re still all over me
Like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore

Verse One

Right off the bat, the water motif starts. Taylor’s vocals are so… forward. Like, she’s right there, in my ear. And the whispers in the back. The way the oh-ohs give the lyrics so much space to really settle in. The way she stretches certain vowels, like the o in forth. SO GOOD.

The on-again-off-again that the narrator goes on to describe fits very well with lyrics of other songs on 1989. Like literally the entirety of ‘Style’ and ‘Out of the Woods’ for example:

It’s been a while since I have even heard from you (heard from you)

And I should just tell you to leave ’cause I
Know exactly where it leads, but I
Watch us go ’round and ’round each time […]

And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style […]

I say, “I heard,
That you’ve been out and about with some other girl (some other girl)

He says, “What you heard is true, but I
Can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout you” and I
I said, “I’ve been there too a few times”

Style, Taylor Swift

We were built to fall apart
Then fall back together
(Back together)

Ooh, your necklace hanging from my neck
The night we couldn’t quite forget
When we decided, we decided
To move the furniture so we could dance
Baby, like we stood a chance
Two paper airplanes flying, flying, flying
And I remember thinking

Are we out of the woods yet?

Out of the Woods, Taylor Swift

The last lyrics of the first verse introduce the theme of alcohol, or drugs. They also remind me of the song ‘You all over me feat. Maren Morris (Taylor’s Version) [From the Vault]’ on the album ‘Fearless’, where she says the same thing, that she can still feel this person’s influence no matter how long gone they are, they are still all over everything she does and feels.

Wine stains are very hard to remove, if at all. It takes a great deal of effort, and usually it never completely goes away. She’s comparing that to the memory of this person, and the love and loss that is hard to get over, which also feel like they won’t ever go completely away. It’s a metaphor for how this relationship is permanently ruined and has stained her, like wine stains a dress. He is still under her skin.

This first verse describes what the relationship was, which then leads us to the first pre-chorus:

Hung my head as I lost the war
And the sky turned black like a perfect storm

Pre-Chorus One

Very self-explanatory. The relationship ending. This is kind of a case of pathetic fallacy, which basically means that human feelings are attributed to inanimate things in literature, like in this case the weather reflecting her mood. She is losing, she is feeling defeated, stormy, and the sky reflects that by turning black. It’s also a simile, but anyway.

Losing the war, to me, reflects multiple things. Arguments between the two of them, a battle to keep the relationship going, to keep the flowers alive. Internal battles between wanting to hold on and letting go. And maybe also losing the war against the media, losing it to the spotlight in a way. Because in ‘I Know Places’, which is the track preceding this one, she’s exploring how it was a constant battle to keep the relationship going because they got so much media attention and paparazzi following them everywhere. Assuming both songs were written about the same person.

Love the harmonies in the distorted vocals in the background, especially on ‘sky turned black’. So fitting.

Rain came pouring down
When I was drowning, that’s when I could finally breathe
And by morning
Gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean

Chorus

I also love the way she’s essentially saying that she is drowning and then it rains and she can breathe again, which obviously doesn’t make sense if you take it literally. I think that’s what makes it such a powerful lyric, it makes you stop and really think about what she is saying. Because she needed to drown in order to breathe again because the drought was killing her. She was dying in the relationship with the uncertainty of it, but now that it’s finally properly over, even though it’s excruciatingly painful and she is flooded with emotions and hurt and grief, there is also relief. She’s feeling the pain and that’s how she’s moving through it. She’s facing the pain, and she feels like she’s drowning in it, but that’s how she comes to the point where she can breathe again. If that makes sense. It reminds me of ‘TEARS!’ by 5SOS.

I’ll feel better when I let myself sink deeper, deeper
I’ll feel better when I let myself see clearer, clearer

Crying eyes
I don’t need a reason to get high tonight, high tonight
I just want to feel alive
Crying eyes (crying eyes)
Diamond tears, I want to see the other side (other side)
I just want to feel alive

TEARS!, 5 Seconds of Summer

But anyways, I really like the way she incorporates the water motif, it’s pretty cool. The imagery in the chorus in ‘Clean’ is so strong, I can see her drowning in the sea and the waves sloshing and slopping over her head. It’s raining, it’s storming and she comes up desperate for air before going under again, and fighting up again, until the storm wears off and the sea is calm and she is exhaustedly floating but she survived. And also, she doesn’t talk about crying in this chorus, but tears are water as well, right, so somehow I always think of that moment when you’re crying so hard you can’t breathe and you gasp for air. I don’t know why, but that’s what this chorus feels like to me. And, I always relate the final lyric of the chorus back to the lyric about him still being all over her. Now, he’s washed off.

Honestly, if you listen to this chorus and think that Taylor Swift is not one of the best song writers of this decade, and the last decade, and one of the best ever, you’re wrong. You are just wrong. That is such a good chorus. So catchy, you just know the lyrics right away. You’re hooked. And the metaphor is just *chef’s kiss*.

There was nothing left to do
When the butterflies turned to dust that covered my whole room
So I punched a hole in the roof
Let the flood carry away all my pictures of you

Verse Two

And instead of slowly dying in this room and hiding from the storm outside (or rather inside her) that she knows is brewing, she punches a hole in the roof. (Also, love the echo of ‘roof’.) She lets the anger and the pain out, she doesn’t cage it in and try to control it, that’s why I like that she says ‘punches’. She releases all these emotions in her, empowering her to break free. And at the same time, she lets the storm in. As in, she is accepting her anger, tears, and sadness, she is feeling her emotions, letting them in, instead of pushing them away. She’s not trying to avoid this pain, she welcomes it. She lets it wash over her and wash all the feelings and memories away. And that’s how she gets through it. And, symbolized by the pictures in her room being washed away, that’s how she lets him go.

Ugh, what is “in” and “out” is a bit confusing here but you get it, right? Basically, it’s all inside her, these are her emotions that are the storm and the flood and the room as well. That’s how I take it anyway. It’s all about feelings. The way this verse intertwines the imagery of the stormy sea and of being in your bedroom with pictures everywhere so well is just prime metaphorical writing, honestly, it’s so good.

The water filled my lungs, I screamed so loud
But no one heard a thing

Pre-Chorus Two

Personally, I also always take this as her masking her pain. Maybe because that’s something that I tend to do when I’m hurting. I only let it take over me when I am alone, I try not to let it show. Feel it I do, because you can’t control feelings that easily, especially not this kind of misery, but try not to show it. And usually it does show in little ways, little signs, little hints in your behavior and if someone really knows you, they’ll notice that you’re off. But apparently no one knows her well enough to see the pain she’s in. Hence, she’s screaming on the inside but no one is hearing it. Which also makes sense if you take it in a way that is very specific to Taylor’s life, in that she can’t talk to many people about it because she doesn’t want the public to know, obviously.

I love how the pre-chorus builds up this suffering and emotion again and then the chorus just feels like acceptance, like letting go. There’s a short post-chorus where she repeats the ‘think I’m finally clean’ line, which re-enforces that even though there is still pain, she is further in the healing process now. It sounds like she is finally breathing as well, with the ‘huh’ und the ‘ahh’s. The placing of this post-chorus when there wasn’t one before makes so much sense. After all this, it’s some space to just breathe.

And then, of course, comes the bridge, and we all know about Taylor Swift slaying bridges, and this is no exception. This has probably always been my favorite part of the song.

Ten months sober, I must admit
Just because you’re clean, don’t mean you don’t miss it
Ten months older, I won’t give in
Now that I’m clean, I’m never gonna risk it

Bridge

This is where, quite explicitly, drugs and addiction come up again. The way she plays with different meanings of the word clean in this song is one of the best things about it. Here, she compares her ex to a drug that she was addicted to and hasn’t used in ten month. When she says that she’s clean, this time she means off all drugs.

The bridge really opens up the meaning of the whole song. Especially for people who have struggled with addiction, mental illness, and abuse. I just- This song means a lot. To a lot of people. And the bridge is a big part of that.

The drought was the very worst
When the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst

Breakdown

Sound familiar? (Well, actually it sounds quite different this time because it’s much more eerie and haunting with the subtle production and the background vocals, but) That’s because it is. These are the opening lyrics of the song. It’s a thing that Taylor does in her songwriting that I appreciate SO much, bringing back lyrics that wouldn’t song-structurally be expected to be repeated. Thereby emphasizing their importance. It also means so much more now that she’s saying it again with all this hindsight and insight that the rest of the song has given you. It’s like she is looking back to where she was ten-ish months ago, and realizing that she is better off now. Because the drought was the worst. Not the storm, not the flood, not the drowning, it was the drought that was the worst. And that is why she won’t risk going back again.

The hidden message for this song was “She lost him, but she found herself, and somehow that was everything.” And that explains it all, really. That’s what this song at its core is about.

Finally clean
Think I’m finally clean
Think I’m finally clean

Outro