my tears ricochet

Mood

Production Style

Background

Track five on folklore and the first song Taylor wrote for the album, 'my tears ricochet' was produced by Jack Antonoff. Taylor has confirmed it was inspired by a professional betrayal, and it uses the extended metaphor of a funeral — attending the burial of something you once shared with someone who destroyed it.

Meaning & Interpretation

Widely understood as Taylor's most direct response to the masters dispute with Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records, the song imagines a relationship between an artist and the institution that owned her work. The 'funeral' is for the catalog, the partnership, the trust — and the cruelest detail is that the person who killed it has the audacity to show up and mourn. The admission of not going with grace is both an apology and a refusal to apologize.

Personal Connection

The song resonated far beyond its specific context, becoming an anthem for anyone who has been betrayed by someone who was supposed to protect them — and who refused to make that betrayal easy or quiet.