Comparing the Storytelling in Taylor Swift’s Love Story to But Daddy I Love Him

I would like to take a moment to personally recognize anyone who remembers that fate-filled September day in 2008 when Taylor Swift blessed our lives with the one, the only, “Love Story.”

“Love Story” was the lead single from Taylor’s second studio album Fearless, and it was a pivotal moment for her career, as well as her songwriting. Before “Love Story,” Taylor Swift was a fairly niche up-and-coming country artist. Not only did this song become her first number 1 hit worldwide, but it also catapulted the success of her sophomore album, which came out two months later and led to her first headlining tour. “Love Story” charted extremely well on the country charts and the pop charts. This would be the true start of her crossover success and where the genre-blending seeds were planted.

The Storytelling Power of “Love Story”

Descriptive writing and the ability to tell stories through songs have always been some of Swift’s most potent gifts. The genius of “Love Story” is twofold: it plays into the diaristic, autobiographical songwriting that resonated with so many listeners, but it also uses an extended metaphor with a well-known literary reference — Romeo and Juliette.

Ironically, Taylor had no idea that a fight with her parents about a boy they didn’t want her to date when she was seventeen and 25 minutes of writing in her bedroom would change her life so drastically, but it did.

Comparing the dynamic of her forbidden teenage romance to the tragic literary love story that everyone knows instantly allows listeners to understand her feelings on a deeper level. Like two star-crossed lovers shooting through the sky, the world was trying to keep soul mates apart, but this young love was destined. Taylor’s imaginative way of inserting her hopeful, hopeless romantic energy into a classically doomed story makes the song particularly unique and captivating. We all know how Romeo and Juliette ends (spoiler alert - they don’t end up together but both end up dying for the other).

One aspect of the song’s major appeal is Taylor’s clever ability to create a form of fan fiction of her own life by re-writing Shakespeare. The ‘love story’ starts familiar, with Taylor setting the scene in the first verse and chorus:

“That you were Romeo, you were throwin' pebbles

And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet"

And I was cryin' on the staircase

Beggin' you, "Please don't go, " and I said

Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone

I'll be waiting, all there's left to do is run

You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess

It's a love story, baby, just say, "Yes""

However, the song catches listeners by surprise once it nears the end because, if you didn’t know, a love story for 17-year-old Taylor Swift had to have a happy ending, even if that’s not how Shakespeare wrote it. And so we get the iconic, and now classic, romanticization of princes and princesses falling in love, engagement rings, and wedding bells.

“Romeo, save me, I've been feeling so alone

I keep waiting for you, but you never come

Is this in my head? I don't know what to think

He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring

And said, "Marry me, Juliet

You'll never have to be alone

I love you and that's all I really know

I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress

It's a love story, baby, just say, "Yes""

To this day, “Love Story” feels bigger than just a song. It represents the power of Taylor Swift’s pen, the belief in a love so much bigger than herself, and the whimsical world that lived in her mind and poured out into her songs for so many years. Of course, as a teenage Swift grew into a 20-something who experienced various nuances of romantic love, navigating the not-so-Disney reality of relational dynamics, her songs evolved and her lyrics represented many shades of gray. However, “Love Story” will always be a very poignant reminder that the girl who believed in Prince Charming and the hope of a fairytale ending still lives inside Swift somewhere.

“But Daddy I Love Him” Is The Rebellious Older Sister of “Love Story”

Flash forward from 2008’s “Love Story” to 2023, when 33-year-old Taylor Swift thrusts herself out of a years-long relationship with actor Joe Alwyn and into a whirlwind romance with the 1975’s highly controversial Matty Healy.

People were not happy about this, particularly Swifties who felt a moral responsibility to hold Swift to a higher dating standard. If that sounds ludicrous, it’s because it is. The parasocial relationship fans have with “Taylor the celebrity” is intense. But, once again, a forbidden love story landed in Taylor’s lap, gift-wrapped, with a bow on top. So, she did what she does best — she wrote it down.

This time, Swift’s nefarious relationship materialized into a metaphor set in a small town, filled with gossiping neighbors and judgemental onlookers, gazing down on her choices from their high horse.

“Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best

Clutchin' their pearls, sighing, "What a mess"

I just learned these people try and save you

'Cause they hate you”

What is the most scandalous thing that can happen in a small town? Besides murder, it’s usually the young Christian good girl rebelling against the morals she was raised with and winding up pregnant. Oh, the tea that would bring the thirsty spectators who love to analyze others’ lives like a sport. If the morally abhorrent bad boy is the baby daddy as well, that’s just icing on the cake.

This character Swift creates speaks directly to the stereotypes, but in a more evolved way, cleverly painting a picture of the good girl running away with the chaotic forbidden love, laughing at the turmoil it brings.

“Now I'm runnin' with my dress unbuttoned

Scrеamin', "But, Daddy, I love him"

I'm havin' his baby

No, I'm not, but you should see your faces

I'm tellin' him to floor it through the fences

No, I'm not coming to my senses

I know he's crazy, but he's the one I want”

The holier-than-thou persona seemingly represents Swift’s real-life critics, loudly typing “Speak Up Now” on their keyboards and sharing a million reasons why she needed to end her relationship with Healy, claiming this man was ruining her “good name.” Interestingly, Taylor seems to speak directly to this level of fan interference in her own life throughout the song’s post-chorus:

“I'll tell you something right now

I'd rather burn my whole life down

Than listen to one more second of all this bitchin' and moanin'

I'll tell you something 'bout my good name

It's mine alone to disgrace

I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing

Like the symbolic good girl that Taylor is writing about, But Daddy I Love Him represents a much more evolved take on the teenage tantrum, with the protagonist standing her ground, making her own decisions (we support women’s rights and women’s wrongs here), and pushing back on the idea that she is an ever malleable jewel destined to conform to the concurring opinion.

What makes But Daddy I Love Him stand out so vividly as a quintessential Taylor Swift masterpiece and Love Story successor is the happy ending. Taylor loves to write into songs the version of real-life events that she hopes would play out if she were in a movie. While neither the muse in Love Story nor But Daddy I Love Him panned out in real life, the veracity with which Swift writes about this ideal is powerful — encapsulating that child-like sense of hope that young love often elicits and the belief that eventually your parents will come around.

“Now I'm dancin' in my dress in the sun and

Even my daddy just loves him

I'm his lady

And, oh my God, you should see your faces

Time, doesn't it give some perspective?

And, no, you can't come to the wedding

I know it's crazy, but he's the one I want”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a classic Taylor Swift love story if the hope of marriage wasn’t promised at the end. The playful way Swift ties the wedding reference into the larger metaphor cleverly speaks to how the loudest nay-sayers would be more than eager to put on their fake smiles and sit in on the nuptials — even if only to gossip about it all later.

And just like that, we were given the evolution of “Love Story” — the older sister or rebellious cousin, undoubtedly Swiftian in blood. An older and wiser take on the teenage tantrum—one that is more self-assured, equally as ridiculous, and undoubtedly an immediate classic.

With vivid language and detailed imagery painting the picture, Swift has managed to check three of her quintessential boxes in But Daddy I Love Him:

• Auto biographical writing that offers insights into her own life

• Extended metaphor in the form of a literary reference or well-known trope (like the good girl running off with the bad boy)

• A happy ending that turns the trope upside down, mimics a fairy tale, and reflects the idealized version of true love through marriage

But Daddy I Love Him has become an instant classic from The Tortured Poets Department because it brings listeners back to that hopeless romantic teenager who believed in true love despite the world trying to take it away. It shows an older and wiser Taylor, still seeking her happy ending, and just as stubbornly standing her ground — okay maybe a bit more stubborn. The song is longer than the concise Love Story, with three verses, pre and post-choruses, a bridge, and an outro. Swift may have had a bit more to say this time, but fans are undeniably thrilled to be listening.