In 2021 when Taylor Swift released the re-recording of her 2012 album, Red, she included a 10 minute extended version of the track All Too Well. The original All Too Well was included on the original Red album and runs about 5 minutes in length. I won’t go into too much detail on the song’s history, but what the uninitiated need to know is the idea of an extended 10-20 minute draft version of this song that was later cut down for official release had been floating around the fanbase for almost a decade. This idea was backed by interviews with Swift and co-writer Liz Rose during promotion for the album. The original 5 minute song had become a fan-favorite deep cut over the years since its release, with Swift herself even acknowledging its status and subsequently how great it has been to perform for fans. Needless to say, there was a lot of anticipation for the release of the 10 minute version, and everyone had their own expectations for the song.
When the 10 minute All Too Well dropped, it was met with fairly universal praise and rocketed to the top of the charts. But that’s not what this post is about. A longer song means additional verses, and additional lines to make up those verses. One line in particular stuck out to people (well, a lot of lines did, but this one especially). There’s a moment in the second verse where Swift exclaims, “you were tossing me the car keys, fuck the patriarchy“! For many fans, “fuck the patriarchy” became the new favorite line to scream during concerts and plaster on home-made merch. Hell, there was even an official “fuck the patriarchy” keychain Christmas ornament being sold in the online Taylor Swift store.
However, the “fuck the patriarchy” line has also received some criticism in pop music circles, namely for it being anachronistic to the time period of when the song was originally written (early 2011), often being cited as evidence that the additions to the 10 minute version weren’t actually taken from that early draft. But that’s also not what this post is about.
The line has also been called cringe and awkward. I’ll admit, I found it jarring at first. But upon further listens and reading over the lyrics, that line, and moreover the whole verse, really began to grow on me. It is a great example of Swift’s mastery over literary devices and cross-song motifs to convey complex personal experiences and emotions. And that’s what this post is about! I’ll be breaking down the “fuck the patriarchy” line in question and the following lines that I believe to be most related to it (so four lines in total) to show why this line and this portion of the verse work so well.
If you haven’t heard the song before or haven’t heard it in a while, I recommend listening to or watching through the song’s lyric video. I will be referencing other parts of the song as well as other Taylor Swift songs as I make my analysis. Let’s get started!
Here is the full verse with the portion I’ll be focusing on in bold:
Photo album on the counter, your cheeks were turnin’ red
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed
And your mother’s tellin’ stories ’bout you on the tee-ball team
You taught me ’bout your past, thinkin’ your future was me
And you were tossing me the car keys, “Fuck the patriarchy”
Keychain on the ground, we were always skippin’ town
And I was thinkin’ on the drive down, “Any time now
He’s gonna say it’s love,” you never called it what it was
‘Til we were dead and gone and buried
Check the pulse and come back swearin’ it’s the same
After three months in the grave
And then you wondered where it went to as I reached for you
But all I felt was shame and you held my lifeless frame
Firstly, the infamous line itself:
And you were tossing me the car keys, “Fuck the patriarchy”
This line is doing a number of things. It’s continuing the car imagery that appears in the first verse, “we’re singin’ in the car, getting lost upstate” and chorus, “You almost ran the red ’cause you were lookin’ over at me”. This is evoking the car as a motif that Swift has previously established as symbolism for a relationship in her other songs. A notable example is in the opening line of the title track of the album, Red, “Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street”.
Consequently, this line contains a possible double meaning. In prior songs, Swift has hardly, if ever, positioned the narrator as holding the keys to and thus driving the car, “I was ridin’ shotgun with my hair undone/In the front seat of his car”, “He opens up my door and I get into his car”, “I watched you laughin’ from the passenger side”. (Interestingly, the few times that she does position the narrator as driving the car, she is either alone or pining after the subject, such as in You Belong With Me and Bye Bye Baby). The subject tossing her the car keys could be interpreted as the subject letting her take the lead in the relationship. This is a subversion of the traditional concept of letting the man in a heterosexual relationship initiate things or decide to do something, thus the narrator (or the subject) is saying “fuck the patriarchy”.
However, this interpretation is immediately turned on its head in the following line.
Keychain on the ground, we were always skippin’ town
With the use of an enjambment, Swift reveals that it was not an exclamation of “fuck the patriarchy”, but rather a description of a keychain, presumably one attached to the car keys being tossed in the previous line. Instead of landing in the narrator’s hand, however, said car keys (and keychain) find themselves on the ground, needing to be picked up in order to start the car and skip town.
This could be interpreted as the subject not even bothering to make sure the narrator had the keys in hand, simply opting to toss them at her. With the “car = relationship” metaphor in mind, the narrator must pick up the lead in the relationship to get things started, as her lover can’t seem to care enough to put in the effort himself. His behavior in this situation ends up enforcing patriarchal social dynamics. The lack of care and consideration of the male subject towards his female lover makes the existence of a “fuck the patriarchy” keychain ring hollow, highlighting the vapidity of the subject.
Swift has actually made some other clever uses of enjambments later into her career, notably on Champagne Problems, “I made a joke, ‘Well, it’s made for me’ how/evergreen our group of friends” and Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, “If you would’ve blinked, then I would’ve/Looked away at the first glance”.
And I was thinkin’ on the drive down, “Any time now
He’s gonna say it’s love,” you never called it what it was
Continuing the car metaphor, “on the drive down” parallels the line from the first verse, “we’re singin’ in the car, getting lost upstate”.
The first verse describes a more blithe point in the narrator and the subject’s relationship when it had no where to go but “up”, back when they were both content to let things happen as they got “lost” in those emotions to the point of carelessness, “You almost ran the red ’cause you were lookin’ over at me”.
However, the narrator knows their relationship is love, stating definitively, “what it was”. As their relationship begins to go “down” and things aren’t going as well, the narrator becomes more eager to hear a confirmation of reciprocal feelings from the subject as a way to stabilize the relationship. She thinks this, but doesn’t say it, because if the subject felt that way he would let her know on his own…
The remainder of the verse makes an about-face, dropping the car metaphor and illustrating a different extended metaphor comparing the subject’s renewed interested in the narrator after their relationship has ended to digging up a dead person from their grave. The subject does eventually acknowledge what they felt was love, but only once their relationship is “dead and gone and buried”.
Within the context of the song, the “fuck the patriarchy” line genuinely adds a lot of nuance. It brings the narrative laid out in the first verse full circle and provides meaningful insight into the nature of relationship between the subject and the narrator. So with all that being said, even if that line in particular wasn’t originally written in 2011, or it might sound cringe on its own, I think that’s okay. It works for what it needs to do in the song in 2021 and beyond.
1/27/2024: Edited for clarity and consistency.
I always interpreted it the same as you. It was just a continuation of them going on car rides together and the “Fuck the Patriarchy” keychain is the actual description of the keychain itself. Also, it could be interpreted as well that HE was letting HER drive so he was not being too macho in that the man has to do all the driving. It’s one of my favorite lines in the song.