On Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve, Taylor Swift released the music video for her song "Out Of The Woods", the 6th single off of her hit album 1989. Out Of The Woods was released quite awhile ago on October 13th, 2014; it was the first promotional single from 1989. Jack Antonoff, former member of Fun and current lead singer of Bleachers, is credited for co-writing the song, as well as doing some backing vocal. Overall, the song seems to be an underrated fan-favorite off of 1989. If you're a big fan of Taylor Swift, follow her life closely, and are up-to-date on the details of her past relationships (like me or many other fans), you see the parallel comparisons in Out Of The Woods to Swift's relationship with One Direction's Harry Styles.
"Your necklace hanging from my neck"
"Two paper airplanes flying, flying, flying..."
"Remember when you hit the brakes too soon? Twenty stitches in the hospital room"
Their skiing vacation that turned into a trip to the emergency room for Harry...
So, this being said, there was quite an amount of speculation when a video was announced for Out Of The Woods; would there be a romantic male lead in the video? Would he be the spitting image of Harry Styles? Will the video literally take place in the woods? Would the video take place in New York City, where the couple was most often spotted? Would the iconic "Haylor" references be addressed directly?
The questions circling around were nearly endless.
Taylor hyped the music video in the days leading up to New Year's Eve, by posting the following pictures on her social media accounts.
So, live on ABC on the evening of December 31st, Taylor Swift released the following music video. If you feel so inclined, watch the music video so you accurately understand the rest of this article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLf9q36UsBk
Due to fairly strict copyright standards/rules that Taylor upholds, I won't post any pictures/screen caps of the video. Her team is very intense about the privacy of her songs and videos; I wouldn't be able to find screen caps from the music video on google images even if I tried. I really don't want this article to be taken off of the internet due to copyright infringement, so just watch the video please.
The video begins with Taylor on a beach, facing the ocean. The vines of the woods starts to rise out of the sand, and at exactly 16 seconds you can see the vines spelling out "Out Of The Woods". Creative and sneaky, Taylor. I see you.
The first verse and chorus of the song, Taylor is running barefoot through the woods wearing a simple blue dress and being chased by a pack of wolves. Coincidence or chance, One Direction released a song in 2015 titled Wolves. The parallel comparisons/analogies seem never-ending.
The second verse portrays Swift, still wearing the blue dress and still barefoot, on a snowy mountain top. The wolves reappear as Taylor rips her necklace off and throws it off of a cliff (paper airplane necklace?? It is never clearly pictured, but the symbolism of the necklace is very present).
Taylor jumps off said cliff and into a body of water, like the first promotional picture listed above. The scenes change rapidly, from the water to a desert to the woods. In all scenes, Taylor is clearly in despair and confusion.
For the dramatic bridge of "Out Of The Woods", Taylor fiercely crawls on the floor of the forest in a mud puddle, where the second previously referenced promotional picture comes from. She's caught in the middle of a thunderstorm, which seems to match her violent and angry movements perfectly.
The storm clears up, and Taylor is suspended in the air and covered in vines. At exactly 3:12, when the vines untangle around Taylor's wrist, you can see a blurry "HS" written on her wrist. So sneaky, Taylor, we see you.
A montage of Taylor in all various nature settings proceeds, and it soon becomes clear that the woods is on fire. Taylor stands in the burning forest and begins to find her way out. The flames clear, and she finds her way out of the woods (I tried to phrase this differently, but it just didn't sound right). As she walks on the shore towards the ocean, the woods behind her shrinks down into the sand, where it rose at the beginning of the video. Dirty, muddy, matted-hair Taylor finds herself standing facing the ocean, the exact way the video opened. Taylor reaches out to her former-self, and the screen goes black.
Next, a quote appears on the screen that is more than symbolic to Taylor and her fans. This quote, in Taylor's handwriting, appeared on the jumbo-trons every single night on the 1989 World Tour, after Taylor took her final bows and left the stage after "Shake It Off".
"She lost him but found herself and somehow that was everything."
This quote is very representative of the 1989 era. It's no secret that in the past 2 years, Taylor has truly come into her own entity. She moved to New York City, cut her hair, changed the genre of her music completely; and it worked for her perfectly. Taylor openly talks about how happy she is recently, and how she wasn't so happy in the past. You can see it when she performs onstage especially, how happy she has become.
Comparison:
Red Tour, 2013
1989 Tour, 2015
The music video for "Out Of The Woods" tells a story. A story of struggle, confusion, and turmoil. Loosing yourself and finding yourself. Taylor realized, looking back on the situation once she was out of the woods, that she found herself in the end. If finding herself meant losing someone in her life because of it, that's fine, it's worth it. Taylor did an excellent job with this music video, and I'm proud of the personal story it portrays. And above all, I am happy that Taylor is happy with her life and referenced her new-found happiness with a personal touch of her quote at the end of the video.
