What do Taylor Swift, The Beatles & Springsteen have in common? Why Wood alludes to Norwegian Wood & Dancing in the Dark

Summary

Decoding Taylor Swift

Episode Summary: "What do Taylor Swift, The Beatles & Springsteen have in common? Why Wood alludes to Norwegian Wood & Dancing in the Dark"

Podcast: Decoding Taylor Swift
Hosts: Joe Romm & Toni Romm
Date: December 16, 2025

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Overview

In this lively episode of Decoding Taylor Swift, father-daughter duo Joe and Toni Romm delve into the song "Wood" from Taylor Swift’s "The Life of a Showgirl," exploring its web of puns, clever double/triple entendres, and allusions to legendary artists like The Beatles and Bruce Springsteen. With their characteristic wit and depth, the Romms decode the storytelling tools Swift deploys and unpack why this cheeky song is far more than just a string of risqué jokes. Along the way, they draw actionable lessons for communicators, disconnect the notion of fate, and highlight Swift’s mastery of multi-layered narrative—a skill rivaling Shakespeare.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Taylor Swift as a Modern-Day Shakespeare

• Joe opens by naming Taylor “a modern-day Shakespeare,” emphasizing her lyrical complexity and layered narratives (00:15).
• Lesson: Taylor, like Shakespeare, targets multiple audiences with double meanings and hidden Easter eggs in her lyrics (34:26, 36:04).

The Song "Wood": Initial Impressions & Double Meanings

• Debate over whether “Wood” is “beneath Taylor Swift” or a playful, clever entry in her discography.
  • Toni: “I think people need to like, I don’t know, get a life. I think it’s funny.” (00:51)
  • Joe: “She has some hidden meanings here to tell people to loosen up. She’s not the only great artist who does this sort of thing.” (00:56)
• The song stands in a tradition of artful innuendo used by the Beatles, Springsteen, and more (01:09).

Allusions to The Beatles: "Norwegian Wood"

• Joe: Taylor’s choice of song title is a direct callback to The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” itself a song about sex and infidelity told through dense metaphor and wordplay (03:00–04:19).
  • “There aren’t many famous songs with just the word ‘wood’ in the title... The most famous is ‘Norwegian Wood’ by The Beatles... also a song with double meanings... about sex.” (03:28)

Dissecting Lyrics: Superstitions, Alliteration & Assonance

• Swift references classic superstitions (“Daisy’s bare naked... Penny’s unlucky... stepped on a crack, black cat laughed”), using them both literally and as metaphors for luck and love (04:19–06:39).
  • Joe: “She is making fun of [superstitions]... also instead of just saying, ‘pick the last thing’ she says ‘Daisy’s bare naked’... Daisy is a girl’s name... maybe there’s this implication she caught her boyfriend in the act.” (05:05)
• Use of assonance and alliteration is cited as a typical Swift songwriting trick (“crack, black cat laugh”) (06:06).

Reframing Fate: “You Make Your Own Luck”

• The episode underscores Swift’s recurring message that we shape our destinies—“you make your own luck”—instead of being tied to omens or superstition (06:49–07:33).
  • Joe: “One of the main themes of this album... a much healthier attitude to think you make your own luck...” (09:05)
  • Quoting Louis Pasteur: “Chance favors the well-prepared mind.” (09:13)

Layered References: Springsteen’s "Dancing in the Dark"

• Swift references Dancing in the Dark, drawing double entendre parallels and cementing herself among songwriters who master suggestive ambiguity (10:03–11:03).
  • Joe: “‘Dancing in the Dark’... is about, you know, sex... the line ‘this gun’s for hire’—very similar to some of the double entendres about to happen. Magic Wand, Redwood Tree...” (10:26–11:03)
• Connection to the music video with Courteney Cox, linking Taylor’s network and layers of pop culture (14:27).

The Art of the Pun: Literal vs. Double Meaning

• The podcast frequently returns to Taylor’s use of puns and why some fans call the song’s sexual lyrics “uncharacteristically literal” (17:28–18:04).
  • Joe: “This is one they picked out because it’s uncharacteristically literal...” (17:28)
  • Toni: “But of course, when she is literal, she uses pun as a literary foil...” (17:56)

Triple Entendre & Sexual Wordplay

• In-depth breakdowns of specific lines, emphasizing triple puns:
  • “Girls, I don’t need to catch the bouquet to know a hard rock is on the way.”
    Possible meanings: marriage engagement, sexual innuendo, and dance/rock music (20:52–22:04).
  • “By the way, the curse on me was broken by your magic wand. New heights of manhood” (23:04–23:17). Magic wand as a sexual euphemism, “new heights” as both emotional and physical.

The Song’s Structure & Brevity

• "Wood" is notably short (~2:30), paralleling classic Beatles song lengths; brevity doesn’t lessen its impact (29:36–30:30).
  • Joe: “Norwegian Wood... is like one minute 58... There’s nothing wrong with a short song—Yesterday is one of the greatest songs of all time.” (29:49–30:18)

Taylor as Unreliable Narrator

• The hosts point out Taylor’s penchant for coyness and secrets, making her an unreliable narrator by leaving out key subtexts in interviews and liner notes (31:00–32:41).
  • Joe: “She’s coyly omitting half of what this song is about—and this makes her an unreliable narrator, which we have pointed out before.” (31:00)

Storytelling Techniques and Audience Engagement

• Discussion around Swift’s use of storytelling tricks:
  • Easter eggs, metaphors for “secret” plots (31:36–34:26).
  • Irony and multi-audience writing, as in Shakespeare, built up through puns and layered meanings.
  • Joe: “Probably the single greatest thing you can learn from Taylor [as a communicator]... is things that have double meanings.” (34:26)

Shakespeare and the Double Meaning

• Parallels are drawn between Swift and Shakespeare, especially the famous line from Romeo and Juliet: “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man,” as an example of layered punning (36:47–37:23).

On AI, Writing, and Changing Language

• The Romms digress into a discussion about AI’s effect on writing, the loss of certain punctuation (em dashes), and the importance of personal, creative expression (28:23–29:24).
  • Joe: “If you give over all your writing to AI, you are going to lose the ability to write.” (29:06)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On allusions and influences

  “The most famous song that has the word wood in the title is Norwegian Wood by The Beatles... also a song with double meanings and about sex.”
  (Joe, 03:28)

• On Taylor’s intentions

  “This whole song, half of this song is about pooh-poohing, this whole idea of fate.”
  (Joe, 07:16)

• On multiple interpretations

  “You could imagine a hard rock as being something of a sexual organ, but there’s a third... Rock and roll used to be also seen... as the sex act also. So we’re talking... a triple entendre.”
  (Joe, 21:32)

• On double meanings as a storytelling tool

  “That is the core storytelling device that Taylor uses in her songs—things that have double meanings.”
  (Joe, 33:44)

• Toni’s comic take on adult themes:

  “She wants to physically walk over to him, give him a hug… my 18 year old daughter is very naive in the ways of the world.”
  (Toni/Joe, 17:19)

• On Taylor’s artistry and connection to Shakespeare

  “Taylor does a very similar thing as Shakespeare does, which is... one surface meaning, and the underlying meaning, because he’s going for two different audiences.”
  (Joe, 34:26)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:51 – Is “Wood” controversy justified?
• 03:28 – Allusion to “Norwegian Wood” by The Beatles
• 06:06 – Analysis of alliteration, assonance, and wordplay
• 09:13 – “Chance favors the well-prepared mind” – Pasteur quote on luck
• 10:03 – Allusion to Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark”
• 17:28 – Why “Wood” is called uncharacteristically literal
• 20:52 – “Hard rock is on the way” and its triple meaning
• 23:04 – “Magic wand,” “manhood,” and layers of sexual punning
• 29:49 – Song lengths: Beatles vs. Taylor
• 31:00 – Taylor as unreliable narrator
• 33:44 – Double meanings as Swift’s core storytelling device
• 34:26 – Taylor vs. Shakespeare: writing for two audiences
• 36:47 – Shakespeare’s “grave man” and the double meaning
• 41:19 – “We do be shaking it off.” (closing lightheartedness)

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Tone & Flow

The episode is light, fast-paced, pun-laden, and full of self-aware, generational banter. Toni's humor and Gen Z references balance Joe’s encyclopedic lyric analysis. The pod’s meta commentary on both songwriting and podcasting itself (e.g., "We're actually both AIs!") keeps the tone playful and slyly critical, even as they wade through deep waters of literary theory and musical influence.

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Practical Takeaways

• Aspiring songwriters and communicators can “make their content go viral” by embracing double meanings, allusions, and the unreliable narrator model.
• Paying attention to alliteration, assonance, and wordplay can create more memorable, layered storytelling.
• Don’t be afraid to mix humor, self-awareness, and cultural commentary—great communicators toggle between audiences, like Taylor and Shakespeare do.

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Final Comments

This episode offers a thorough, engaging, and entertaining decode of “Wood”—one of Taylor Swift’s most debated new songs. Joe and Toni Romm show how Swift crafts complexity of meaning, ties in pop culture and literary allusions, and teaches valuable lessons in communication—while joking about bouquets, "hard rock," EM dashes, and even the French. Whether you’re here for Taylor, The Beatles, or Springsteen, you'll come away seeing pop lyrics, puns, and storytelling in a whole new light.

Transcript

[A]

Hi.

[B]

This is Decoding Taylor Swift where we dig into the deeper meaning of the life of a showgirl. One song each week. Today we will transform how you think about wood with the help of my Swifty father, a storytelling expert recognized by Rolling Stone magazine.

[A]

I'm Jo Roam and my daughter Antonia is great at decoding lyrics, writing and making people laugh. And Taylor Swift is a modern day Shakespeare. But this controversial song has much more going on than just dirty jokes. So you're going to want to stay to the end since we're not only going to explain all the double and even triple meanings, but we're also going to discuss the storytelling trick that Taylor uses here that you can use in your own writing and speaking. You know, this song has sort of been a dividing line for a lot of people. Some people really like it and some people think this is sort of beneath Taylor Swift.

[B]

I don't know, I think people need to like, I don't know, get a life. I think it's funny.

[A]

I think it's funny too. And I think she has some hidden meanings here to kind of tell people to, to loosen up that she's not the only great artist who does this sort of thing.

[B]

You know, everybody love Sabrina Carpenter's influences.

[A]

Yeah. And guess what? The Beatles and Bruce Springsteen and all the great artists did it. And so we're gonna get into that. And there are some really, really clever lyrics here and some allusions to songs that I don't think everyone has caught. And you know, we could talk about at the end, unless you want to talk about the beginning a little bit. Is the two first episodes of Taylor Swift.

[B]

Well, let's. Well, we can talk about it now. I thought that they were really good. Yeah.

[A]

This is the episodes that of Disney's six part series.

[B]

It kind of made me remind myself of how excited I was when I saw the Heiress tour. I really liked it. You know, I thought that it was really quite amazing. And I'm actually staring in front. In front of me is the little light up thing that Taylor gave to her fans.

[A]

And guess what? Guess what? I. I saved it and I saved the energy. If you put the thing back in it, it still works. Yep, it still glows. So there it is. Proof that we were in fact at.

[B]

The Toronto Eras tour.

[A]

Yes. And yeah, I think that if you weren't at the Eras tour, I think it's going to give you a sort of a feel for it. Obviously you can watch the concert movie now.

[B]

In fact, by the way, you know, we're red Blooded Americans. We're not. Not. No Canadians. But we did have to go up to Canada because the American shows were freaking expensive.

[A]

They were crazy. It was like you could buy two tickets or you could buy a car.

[B]

It's true. And I still would have really liked a car, but just. It's okay. I mean, it was fun to see Taylor Swift, dad. It was fun to see Taylor Swift.

[A]

Well, just to let you know that really, the car was never really an option.

[B]

You could have gotten a used car. You really could have.

[A]

I could. That is true. That is good. But would the used car give you the memories of a lifetime?

[B]

Yes. I'll be able to drive my friends around.

[A]

Yeah. That's what had got me worried. Let's dive into this song. So the title of the song is.

[B]

Wood, which is a very good building material used in various cultures.

[A]

It is a good building material. There are people who speculated this might be a dirty song back when they first heard the title. And others were like, nah, Taylor would never do that. And then I was like, well, you know, there's Norwegian Wood. Right. One of the great. There aren't many songs that have the word famous songs that have the word, just the word wood in the title. There's some with the word woods.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But the most famous song that has the word wood in the title is Norwegian Wood by the Beatles. And I would urge people to listen to it. It's a great song. I once had a girl or should I say she once had me? So it's also a song about sex. And in fact, if you look it up, it's actually a song that John Lennon wrote about infidelity. He was unfaithful to his wife more than once. And this was meant to be a sort of opaque and double meaning kind of a song to hide that fact. But I think that the reason Taylor picked the name Wood is to call back to Norwegian wood because that also was a song with double meanings and also a song about. Yes, Sex. People having sex or people not having sex.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So let's dive into the lyrics. Let's dive in, which are. Start right away. Daisy's bare naked. I was distraught. He loves me not. He loves me not. Penny's unlucky. I took him back and then stepped on a crack and the black cat laugh.

[B]

She's just cramming a bunch of superstitions and stuff in here. A little kind of cultural things. Obviously Daisy's bare naked, you know.

[A]

Well, the Daisy's bare naked is sort of a clever play on words because she's basically, you know, you pick out the little pieces of the. Daisy loves me, loves me not. And then when there's none left, you're done. And if the last one is he loves me not, then in theory, this.

[B]

He loves you not.

[A]

This flower has determined your fate. Doesn't matter if you really loved him and he really loved you, you picked it out last. He doesn't love you. So she is making fun of that. But also instead of just saying, you know, pick the last thing she says. Daisy's bare naked. And so some have said, well, Daisy is a girl's name.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

That she has used in her previous song sometimes. And maybe there's this implication that Daisy is. She caught her boyfriend in flagrante, that is to say, in the act. And because she was bare naked, she saw him and it's like. So that's sort of a little underlying possibility. Same for Penny's unlucky, since Penny is also a girl's name.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I took him back. And of course she takes him back, which is a theme of Cardigan. Right. One of her most famous songs, Cardigan she keeps. And you came back. And he came back. And he came back.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Y. Of course, that's not really lucky for her. She ends up with a guy who keeps leaving her. So, you know, I think there's a lot of reference here. Stepped on a crack. And another thing I like is stepped on a crack and the black cat laughed. So it's the assonance, the ass sound. Crack, black cat laugh. So this is how she writes songs too. And I think that's another, you know, we talk about the use of alliteration. Repeating the word, the letter of the beginning. But repeating the interior vowel sound is also a classic technique.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And baby, I'll admit I've been a little superstitious Fingers crossed Until you put your hand on mine.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So that's kind of a visual image that maybe they're interlocking hands so she can't cross her fingers. Very romantic. Seems to me that you and me, we make our own luck. Well, that's the theme of Opalite, Right. This is one of the main themes of this album. Right. You make your own luck. And I think this has been, I would say, one of the two or three main messages Taylor wants to leave us with this entire album. Right.

[B]

Exactly right.

[A]

You make your own luck. And so this whole song, half of this song is about pooh, poohing, this whole idea of fate. And. And then she says a bad sign is all Good. I ain't gotta knock on wood.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

So, you know, we all. Sometimes we say something and you know, you say you've gotta knock on wood to presumably chase out evil spirits or something. I don't even know what the original is.

[B]

Yeah, just knock on wood.

[A]

So this is all sort of normal and the song is gonna transform pretty soon. All that bitchin' Wishing on a falling star Never did me any good I ain't got to knock on wood. So this is a reference to the previous song also where she says, watch. I spent my life. What is it? I've wished on every star. Right.

[B]

In prophecy.

[A]

No, no, in. In.

[B]

Oh, Wish list.

[A]

Yeah, in Wish List.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. Doesn't she say, there we go, I made wishes on all the stars?

[B]

That's true.

[A]

Right. So in that song. Right. Please God, you know, bring me a friend who's hot. So this is a song about I don't need to wish. Right. The wishing doesn't do any good, which is a good realization, by the way. Yes. And the prophecy is a good callback song because again, that entire song is like. She feels she's cursed.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Right. And again, not a healthy attitude to go through life.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Thinking you're cursed. Cause.

[B]

And it can feel kind. I mean, she's been in a very isolated, you know, circumstance and she was like in her teens. So I'm sure she can feel like when she has to deal with love, it can be a little bit hard.

[A]

No, no, I. I get it. I'm just saying this is a healthier attitude.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's a much healthier attitude to think that you make your own luck than to think that some outside forces.

[B]

And mathematically you do. I mean, it's true. You can make your own luck.

[A]

Well, glad you brought that up. Because the great chemist Louis Pasteur, who actually was responsible for many vaccines and of course for pasteurization, famously said, chance favors the well prepared mind. Right. So this is the other theme of yes, you do make your own luck. Because if you are ready to seize opportunities as they appear before you. Right. That's luck. If you are blind, you walk through life not noticing, hey, this is a great guy over here or whatever it is. Right. You don't take chances, anything like that. So it's you and me forever Dancing in the dark all over me it's understood I ain't got to knock on wood Now Dancing in the dark.

[B]

Famous Bruce Springsteen song.

[A]

Right. This is an illusion. So in a world where the title of the song would. May be an allusion To Norwegian Wood by the Beatles. Great songwriters. This is, I think, a much more obvious.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Because Dancing in the Dark is, in.

[B]

Fact, one of the most famous Bruce Springsteen songs. And it's about, you know, sex. It's about relationships in general.

[A]

Yeah. Well, he. And the line that he uses in that song is this. Gun's for hire. Even if we're just dancing in the dark. So Gun for hire is very similar to.

[B]

Some have a double entendre.

[A]

Right. It's a double entendre.

[B]

He's saying his penises for hire. Uh. Oh, you guys.

[A]

Right. And it's much like the double entendres that are about to happen. Right. Magic Wand, all the ones that we're about to hear. Redwood Tree. Right. So again, Taylor is sending another message. Hey, Bruce Springsteen's. One of his most famous songs. Seems to be a double entendre.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

And Dancing in the Dark entendre Entendre is.

[B]

I take Spanish, so I don't know. I hate the French. I just want to say that I think we mentioned that a little bit in the last episode.

[A]

The Surrender Monkeys.

[B]

Yeah. I feel like they just didn't do much in the way of, like, I don't know, they just kind of seem like. Like, what's their deal?

[A]

Well said. As Steve Martin once said, it's like they have a different word for everything.

[B]

Everything. Oh, my gosh. It's frustrating.

[A]

Interesting. If you look up double entendre entendre. It's not. It has no meaning in French. It's not. It's not grammatical in French.

[B]

Entendre.

[A]

Yeah, there's no. You can look it up. Double entendre has not been used by the French for a long time.

[B]

That's because they're dumb. They just don't know how to use language exactly there. Because, you know, they don't even know how to. They don't. They don't know English. I mean, that's stupid.

[A]

No, man, we just.

[B]

What the heck are you doing?

[A]

We pretty much dissed on the British and now the French. Yeah.

[B]

Canadians are cool, though. Canadians are like. They have French, but they also speak English.

[A]

But there is one. One point I wanted to make the lyrics here. It's you and me forever dancing in the dark is the line. And then the next line is all over me comma, it's understood I ain't got to knock on wood and so this all over me appears to be just hanging there. But it isn't really hanging there if you just stick it on at the end of the Previous line. It's you and me forever dancing in the dark all over me. Right now it's a little more explicitly them having sex.

[B]

Yeah, right. I don't know what that is, though. So really interesting that you brought that up. Is that like the prefix for the.

[A]

Number six when two bees or two flowers really love each other, there's pollination. In fact, the bees. This is kind of. It's actually polyamorous because the bees have to help the flowers pollinate. Right. So it's all of them together. So that's really what sex is.

[B]

So Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have.

[A]

Sex with a bunch of people, you know? Yeah. If they did, would it be so wrong?

[B]

I don't know. I mean, she just talks about. She has a lot of friends in the industry. You know, there's a lot of conspiracy theories.

[A]

Well, look, we, we. Look, we. We just did.

[B]

I'm surprised that you know what sex is.

[A]

You know, I had it once.

[B]

Once. Only once.

[A]

Once. That's how you got here.

[B]

That's enough. I think is only once.

[A]

But remember, we know.

[B]

Oh, it's the thing where we were talking about the big hug where you just hugged me. Each other and then all of a sudden you get pregnant.

[A]

I don't get pregnant. But the woman does get pregnant.

[B]

You didn't get pregnant?

[A]

No, no. Actually, turns out only women get pregnant. Oh, okay.

[B]

Some. Sometimes you can be, you know, trans guy and get pregnant.

[A]

Well, and. And speaking of, are you trans?

[B]

You never really told me.

[A]

I. I don't think so, no.

[B]

You don't think so?

[A]

I don't think so.

[B]

What if your parents did a little trans at birth thing?

[A]

Switched at birth?

[B]

Yeah, like trans at birth. Like they switched. Instead of your physical body, they switched your gender. Like you were. You were.

[A]

I think we're going to get back to the song right now.

[B]

Anyway, the point is, sex and gender are very different. And sex is what Taylor Swift has with Travis Kelsey.

[A]

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. And make another point here, just since we were talking about Dancing in the Dark, the music video famously has. At the end, he pulls on stage.

[B]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[A]

He pulls on stage.

[B]

Who? Bruce Springsteen?

[A]

Yes, Bruce Springsteen pulls on stage. Courtney Cox. Right. In the video, the. A young Courteney Cox gets pulled on stage and he dances with her. It's meant to look like it's just a random occurrence, but she's like professional model at the time, actress, whatever, you know, pulls on stage. I just mention that because Courtney Cox is friends with Taylor Swift.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

Yes. And since we're diving really deep in here, Courteney Cox's daughter, who is a singer, did a cover of Cardigan.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Which we just talked about.

[B]

Courtney Cox's daughter.

[A]

I forget her first name, but there's. You can. You can find a video online of actually Courteney Cox playing piano, I think, while her daughter sings part of Cardigan. So it's all connected. I'm sure that.

[B]

Well, I mean, there's only so many famous people in the world.

[A]

This is true. And we were just watching in fact, on the Errors tour documentary. Right. She wants to get a choreographer for the Florida. And by the way, it's just there's this amazing. In episode two, Florence and the Machine.

[B]

Yes. She's so amazing. Florence Welch. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. She comes up and practice for the final London show at Wembley Stadium. Florence is there singing. And you see in the ERAS tour docuseries, the rehearsal really, really.

[B]

It's really phenomenal. It really is really interesting to see how it's done. Yeah, it kind of reminded me a little bit of musical theater at my high school. A little bit. So we had really elaborate productions with, you know, set design building happening at the same time as production. We had, you know, one, two, two hours of it to learn choreography for one song. Then we just, you know, practice it. Sometimes we do two songs. One practice. Yeah, we did Hadestown last year, so it was pretty. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

She is a. My daughter is a modest musical theater superstar. But now we get to. So we just finished this part. Dancing Dark's all over me it's understood now the song is kind of gonna switch. It was mostly superstition stuff and some sex stuff. And now it's just gonna go crazy. Forgive me. It sounds cocky. He omitized me and opened my eyes Redwood trees It ain't hard to see his love was the key that opened my thighs yeah.

[B]

And by opening her thighs, she usually, you know, ride a motorcycle when you do that or, you know, sometimes like you're just like kind of doing like a big jump. You're taking a leap, a leap of faith, which is what you need for relationships, is what she means by that.

[A]

Well, let's face it, it's hard to walk around without your thighs. If your thighs.

[B]

Yeah, she's just.

[A]

She's just be very uncomfortable.

[B]

She's walking to Travis. She wants to physically walk over to him, give him a hug.

[A]

My 18 year old daughter is very naive in the ways of the world.

[B]

I don't know what he's Talking about.

[A]

No, exactly. And I don't. But what's interesting is this lyric, when people glommed onto two or three lyrics of this album when it dropped to say, oh, Taylor Swift has lost the ability to write lyrics. This is one they picked out because it's uncharacteristically literal for Taylor. This entire song, for instance, is an overabundance of puns and double meanings.

[B]

Well, but of course, when she is literal, she uses pun as a double. As kind of the literary foil for her. Sure.

[A]

It's just somewhat ironic that. I mean, look, we live in an era.

[B]

There was a time and a place for subtlety, and that time was before Scary Movie.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

So, frankly.

[A]

Well, look, I think that Dan Harmon.

[B]

Was correct about that.

[A]

We do live in this world where you can drop an entire album and people can take out of context two or three lyrics that appear to be fairly lame. And maybe they are lame. I'm not disputing that. This may not be her best lyric because in the cleaned up version of.

[B]

This, the fact that she said dick natized people.

[A]

Well, she says amatized instead of dickmatized. Yes.

[B]

I mean, but she's not dating anybody named Richard, to my knowledge. I don't know what. Why that would be.

[A]

Well, sometimes couples have nicknames.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

They have nicknames.

[B]

So she's like. He's like Dick, and she's like. I don't know. Like what? George?

[A]

Well, Penny or Daisy, perhaps.

[B]

Not like George and Dick. Like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Yeah, those are. That's the famous pair, right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I bet they had sex. They gave each other hugs a lot.

[A]

I don't think that either Dick Cheney or George W. Bush were very touchy feely people.

[B]

You never know.

[A]

I never really got. Actually, George W. Bush was touchy feely. I take that back.

[B]

Isn't that a whole thing?

[A]

Yes. He was too touchy feely.

[B]

A little bit too touchy feely.

[A]

Right. And that's a classic couple. Right. One of them's very touchy feely. One of them's.

[B]

That's so cute. People should write fanfics about them. I'm sure they exist.

[A]

Oh, there's fanfics about everybody's, I think.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I think the clean version of this song on Spotify, instead of saying, open my thighs from open my eyes. So, no, it says open my skies.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

Which is nice. That actually might have been a better lyric because it's a little more metaphorical. Right. He opened my skies. At least that's. That's you can interpret it both ways and.

[B]

Oh, I guess open my eyes as a previous lyric. Yeah, open my skies.

[A]

Yeah, open my skies. Which I think is nice, actually. So.

[B]

I mean, also, because, you know, not to. Not. Not to wax dirty, but, like, you know, I guess open your skies. You know, it rains out of the sky and, you know, it's like wet and whatever.

[C]

Well.

[A]

And by the way, some people have hypothesized when you say his love was the key that opened my thighs, back in the Middle Ages days, there was this.

[B]

Oh, my God, a husband lock. Is that what you're talking about?

[A]

A chastity belt?

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

Yeah, a chastity belt. Which I don't know how popular or how real they were, but yes, in theory, back in those days, you could put a metal thing around your wife or the queen. If you're a jealous king and you had the locks for a white eye. This is a little bit of a throwback to the fate of Ophelia. Right? It's just like, oh, long time ago type of thing. Girls, I don't need to catch the bouquet to know a hard rock is on the way.

[B]

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. You know, like, people call each other their rocks, and the harder the rock, that means the more faithful the person.

[A]

Now, this one is kind of a triple pun, because if she did catch a bouquet at a wedding, that would mean she'd be the next to be married and she would get a diamond ring. And diamond is, of course, the hardest of stones. So that's the hard rock. But hard rock could also mean a, you know, dirty reference to.

[B]

Yeah, like, hard water is a lot of metal.

[A]

Like, you know, like, that's another option, too. But so.

[B]

So it is dirty because the water usually, with.

[A]

You could imagine a hard rock as being something of a sexual organ, but there's a third. I think this is actually a triple play on words. Because rock and roll used to be also seen. And dancing in general, as we've already heard about the dancing in the dark. Right.

[B]

Well, Elvis freaked people out by just.

[A]

Dancing by rocking his hips famously. And that's why on the Ed Sullivan show, you couldn't. They didn't show the part below the waist.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

So hard rock, if you visualize a hard rock back and forth, like an igneous. Yes. You could see that as the sex act also. So we're talking about. Listen, this is a triple entendre.

[B]

All of this stuff is really freaking me out, man.

[A]

I know. It's so. It's so shocking to know that your parent might know something about sex that's disturbing. But I've read some I've about it.

[B]

You've heard about it? Okay, I've heard about it too. They told us about it when we were reading the Awakening by. By what's her face? Ketropan. Right, yeah, we were talking about that and then they. They talked about something called sex. I thought that it was just some sort of like prefix for the number six that sometimes appeared like sextillion air. It was a weird class. I went to a weird woke school that talked about sex. People who are 18 in AP literature. It's a bit odd.

[A]

It's just crazy. It's just crazy.

[B]

It is a little crazy what they're doing these days.

[A]

So now just get even weirder. And baby, I'll admit I've been a little superstitious.

[B]

Just kidding.

[A]

By the way, the curse on me was broken by your magic wand.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Seems to me that you and me, we make our own luck. New heights of manhood.

[B]

Okay, okay.

[A]

So again, the double or triple pun here, obviously.

[B]

Because a pee pee can get really tall.

[A]

Yes, the manhood, obviously. The sexual organ.

[B]

She likes pointing out how small people are. Like the smallest man who ever lived.

[A]

Well's penis was like low key small and new heights. Of course.

[B]

The podcast.

[A]

The podcast again was referenced in the very first line of the first song on the album, the Fate of Ophelia. Yeah, I heard you on the megaphone.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Right. So again, this. We were promised that these songs would be interconnected. Yeah, right. And it's pretty clear that most songs either connect backwards to the fate of Ophelia or forward to the life of Showgirl and sometimes act as an interconnect between both. Exactly. So as with the last song we discussed, wishlist, there's two layers to what's going on in this song. Six or seven. There's six or seven layers going on in this song.

[B]

Lord.

[A]

Six or seven. I'm surprised Taylor doesn't do six or seven more, as we've discussed, because six plus seven equals 13. And by the way, today is December. We're recording this on December 13th. Right. So this is. Happy birthday, Taylor.

[B]

Not to reveal to you guys that we have dates where we record. And we're not just in some sort of trans dimensional vortex.

[A]

No, well, we are, but we send partly analogous to we send our avatars here to do the podcast. We are ethereal. We are of course, interdimensional creatures.

[B]

We're actually both AIs. Can you even believe that? Yeah. Dad is Grok, which is why he acts.

[A]

No, don't call me.

[B]

I'm Gemini.

[A]

That's just. Just not nice. That's really not nice. That's. Of all the things that you could.

[B]

Say to me, my heart was in the right place. I may have made a disturbing comment, and maybe it wasn't okay to say that, but at the end of the day, you have to recognize that it's okay.

[A]

Well, let me tell you something.

[B]

See how good I am at imitating AI responses to. When you do something like shitty. I'm great at it. I did it for my friends a few days ago. They got really freaked out.

[A]

Yeah, you were just pretending to be an AI.

[B]

Well, one of them was like. One of them was like, I could kill you. I could kill you right now. After I'd made a joke about them, about their haircut. It was a nice joke, a funny joke, even, and.

[A]

Which is the.

[B]

We were also talking point of jokes. Yeah, right. Exactly. And it. What was it? It was like. It was a joke about how their haircut looked. AI and they were like, I could kill you right now. And I was like. And your heart would be in the right place. That was an unkind comment made by somebody that you really like and respect. And it's okay. Maybe. Maybe your action went a bit too far. But ultimately, that person had to understand that they cost a boundary and they crossed a line and they broke your trust.

[A]

You could make a lot of money just pretending to be an AI.

[B]

I know. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm thinking that instead of ChatGPT, it should be Chat GP Tony, lock in.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

Lock in. I really think I could. I honestly could. I mean, I'd get probably the accuracy of most things the same.

[A]

Well, look, I think.

[B]

What's the human equivalent of the Turing Test? Who would that be? That would be, like, the what? The Musk test? Well, look, if you could pass for.

[A]

AI, I just want to say one thing about Grok. Grok. Elon Musk. You can say many things about him, which I have said elsewhere, but he has destroyed a very nice word. The word Grok comes from a Robert Heinlein book called Stranger in a Strange Land.

[B]

Oh, my God. Stranger in a Strange Land, mentioned. Okay, continue.

[A]

Yes. One of the great science fiction books of all time.

[C]

To read it.

[B]

Everybody tells me about it.

[A]

It is. In fact, when I was in middle school, I did an art thing where I illustrated several of the scenes. I have that somewhere. It's really kind of with toothpicks no, no, it's one of those toothpick glue thing, you know, it's really quite. Because I don't have any artistic talent, but anyone can glue toothpicks. Gluing toothpicks onto paper is a great way to make art. But grok means to. It's not a word that translates into English well, because it's an alien word. But it basically means to understand something at a very deep and comprehensive level. Right. So it entered the English language from Robert Heinlein's book. As if someone says I grok you. Right. That's more than saying, I understand.

[B]

And by the way, just to be queer, to be clear.

[A]

To be clear or be queer to be queer.

[B]

I mean that too, to be clear. What the hell? My brain is broken today. I just got back from college.

[A]

And not only that, why would he do that? But also, as we've said, one of the other terrible things about AI is I can no longer use EM dashes. I know, because if I used to use EM dashes all the time when I blogged, it was one of my main things. It was a go to thing. I think it's a very good. A punctuation mark. I think it's infinitely better than a semicolon. I'm sorry. It's much more useful than parentheses, which is. It's the closest to are lame. No one uses parentheses.

[B]

Parentheses don't carry the. Punch the weight.

[A]

No, because they don't stop you right there and say, this is important. But thank you, AI. Now, anytime I use a few EM dashes, people write, write me back. What? Am I wrong? You wrote this with AI, didn't you? No, I didn't. I just like EM dashes.

[B]

It's true. He never uses AI to write. And I also don't. I'm a little shocked when people do because it's like, I don't know, what's the point?

[A]

Do not use AI.

[B]

This is when people like. I think my school specifically is one where people don't tend to use AI to write essays. Because we all understand that's not why we are at this specific university. But I've heard a few cases of people who do that. And I'm like, no, why? Why?

[A]

You'll lose the ability to write. It's already been shown. If you give over all your writing to AI, you are going to loosely be able to write. And if you loosely build a right, you won't even be able to tell if the AI is putting out good writing or not. Yep. Right. So, okay, let's get back to the song.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, you know, new heights of manhood, I ain't got a knock on wood. And then, you know, the, the rest of the song goes the same.

[A]

You know, all the bitching, wishing on a fallen star never did me any good. Right.

[B]

And he sounds cocky. He omitized me, which may or may not be.

[A]

I go, you know, it's not clear. This song has a bridge. Yeah, it's sort. This is a very short song, by the way. This is one of her shorter songs. This is two and a half minutes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now Norwegian Wood, the song, by the way. Two minutes. No, it's two minutes. It's like one minute 58. Yeah. Norwegian woods. Yeah. Back in the day, Beatles, you know, they put out, you know, that was the day you wrote two two and a half minute songs. Very, very common.

[B]

Well, I mean, I mean, hey Jude and like Eleanor Digby.

[A]

Right. So they did write longer songs, story based songs. Yeah. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with the short song. Paul McCartney famously wrote yesterday. I mean, Yesterday is one of the most covered greatest songs of all time. And it's just, it's not a long song. It just packs a punch. So. Yeah. So this song is short and, you know, I think it's entertaining.

[B]

Yeah. I also think it's entertaining. I think it's fun. I think it's silly and goofy. And Taylor herself says, you know, the song Wood is about a love story, you know, kind of using as a plot device superstitions, popular superstitions, good luck charms, bad luck charms. All these different ways that we have decided are good or bad luck. Like knocking on wood, seeing a black cat. And that's the kind of way I decided to explore this very sentimental love song.

[A]

Right. This, this was her coy introduction to the song of.

[B]

Where she talks about peepees a lot.

[A]

Right. Where. Where she's coyly omitting half of what this song is about. And this makes her an unreliable narrator, which we have pointed out before. And in fact, if you watch, people should watch this.

[B]

Well, she likes secrets. She really likes secrets. And that's one of the things that they talk about in the, you know, new Taylor Swift show.

[A]

Well, and. And she.

[B]

You were talking to me about that.

[A]

Earlier, the Stephen Colbert interview.

[B]

Well, I think secrets are wonderful. I think when you tell a story, I think it works better with secrets. Right. You know, stories just generally do. I mean, that's how there's no story if you know everything.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I think that a lot of her songs have the Easter eggs and have the second meaning. You know, what we examined. You know all too well in the second episode, we really dive into her use of metaphors to show the underlying secret, which is teenage sex, as you may remember.

[B]

I don't even know what that would be.

[A]

It is.

[B]

I see a lot of teenagers have.

[A]

Hugs that Taylor lost her innocence to a certain Jake Gyllenhaal. And that's what one of the meanings of All Too well is. All Too well has sort of this secret metaphor. But it's not a big secret.

[B]

Not a very big secret.

[A]

Not a big secret.

[B]

Clear a minute. Yeah.

[A]

And. And in fact, she says on. On when she's describing the kind of story she likes to Stephen Colbert, she says. She describes one and says plot twist. Unreliable narrator.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Right. So. And we just. We discussed in the song But Daddy, I Love Him.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

That that may also be a song that certainly. You know, the point I was trying to make was that song appears to be an unreliable narrator. And it. And once. And when you realize that, it kind of turns the entire song upside down. And she likes to do that. Right. Have the underlying meaning. Actually turn the real meaning completely upside down. And we've again, we talked about that in even a famous simple song like Shake It Off. Right. Song says shake it Off. It's about how you should shake it off. Taylor Swift.

[B]

Well, and puns kind of work like that if you think about it. I mean, puns are when you see something one way on the surface, but there's another meaning to it that can be unearthed and you can't always see them at the same time, but there's sometimes only upon a second look.

[A]

Right. And in fact, that is the core storytelling device that Taylor uses in her songs.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Is things that have double meanings.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Right. And irony is. Is the most famous of those which where on the surface it means one thing, but underneath it means. Could mean the exact opposite thing.

[B]

Well, people have coined these. This phrase like Taylorism, where she'll say, you know, all their hot takes are cold as ice. Or, you know, all of their. Man, what's another good one? She said man, Cruel Summer has a bunch of them, but she just. She just takes words and she kind of makes them. You know, she puts two different meanings of a word together and kind of meshes the sentence in line with. With kind of two different types of words that are the same word, but they mean different things.

[A]

And that's really what all of the great storytellers do. Right. And so you Know, I think in terms of anyone who wants to be a great writer and speaker, this is probably the single greatest thing that you can learn from Taylor. And by the way, Shakespeare did the exact same thing. That's why, you know, when I came to Taylor, having studied Shakespeare, I realized that Taylor does a very similar thing as Shakespeare does, which is that he has this one surface meaning, and he has the underlying meaning because he's going for two different audiences. And obviously, Taylor has her fans, so she can put in sort of denser Easter eggs and illusions and all these things that your average fan may not get, but she has to write a hip hop song for the mass general audience. Right? So I think that's the skill that she has, is the ability to do both of those. And, you know, these puns, at the most rudimentary level, puns are very simplistic, right? She loves puns. She said so on the New Heights podcast that they made all these puns. She became. During the pandemic, she became really good at making bread.

[B]

Yes, right.

[A]

And then she came up with these puns based on bread making in her songs. Like loafing him was bread. Right? Or it's a loaf story, baby. Just say east. Which is great, but puns don't have an underlying meaning. They're just silly, you know, using words that sound the same as another word and. And. And just doing kind of running gags. But they're not as sophisticated as, you know, the kind of stuff that you're seeing in the songs. Or, you know, the one famous line from. From Romeo and Juliet when Mercutio. Mercutio and Tybalt are. Are fencing, which my daughter now does, by the way.

[B]

That is so true.

[A]

My daughter is in. Is now started fencing.

[B]

Yes, I started fencing. I've started showing up to fencing practices at my. At my college. They just have free gear and stuff.

[A]

Well, this is really important. When two people are angrily fencing, don't try to get in the middle of them because one of them might use that opportunity to stab the other, which is what happens in Romeo and Juliet. Romeo tries to break up Mercutio and Tybalt fighting. And the end result is that Tybalt takes the opportunity to stab Mercutio.

[B]

And they forgot to have their little stoppers on the blades.

[A]

Right? Well, they were serious. And Romeo says, are you okay? And he says, oh, it's just the flesh moves. Just flesh move. And. But it will suffice. And then he says, ask for me tomorrow. This is Mercutio. Ask for me tomorrow. And you shall find me a grave man. Right, so grave as in serious and grave as in the grave. Right, so that's a. Is that a pun or is that a more sophisticated thing, which is a play on words. Right, so this is the double meaning. And I think, you know, Taylor is.

[B]

More important distinction, though. A double entendre. People, I find saying that a lot when they would say that that's a double entendre. It's not double entendres. Just that it's. One meaning is dirty.

[A]

Yeah, well, usually. Right.

[B]

That's why it's French, ultimately.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Generally speaking, because the French are sexual deviants.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

They're weirdos.

[A]

I think. I think that. I think I always thought you were more. More woke about people's different sexual identities.

[B]

No, I think it's fine to be a sexual deviant if you're not in France. I think it's weird when you're French because you're already French. So it's like, why are you doing more?

[A]

Well, I think. I think the word deviant. Deviant is. Has a negative connotation.

[B]

Do you know there's a class at my college about sexual deviance?

[A]

I did not know that.

[B]

Me and my friends are planning on taking it at some point during junior year. It's gonna be very exciting. There's also a class on porn. It's very interesting.

[A]

Yeah, I'm. I'm. I'm.

[B]

You're gonna get your money's worth, man.

[A]

I'm. I'm less. I didn't know that.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's under the English department. Literature and stuff.

[A]

Of course. Well, then it's okay.

[B]

And sociology, I think they'd study it in gender, sexuality and like psychology and type stuff. But it's also like. I'm sure the porn one is probably under the literary kind of, you know.

[A]

Well, I would have said where the.

[B]

Penis placement in the shot is. Does represent a very. A myriad of things.

[A]

Well, I. Before I would have said this is just some. Some liberal college. But since.

[B]

Since my school is very not liberal.

[A]

Since Twitter and now X has been taken over by pornographic grok. An anime, you know, character woman who is the.

[B]

Well, that's part of the discussion, of course. Unfortunately, without getting into it too much here, you know, I've always had a very big problem with how young girls are basically sexualized in the form of anime.

[A]

Well, and you can now.

[B]

Big fan of cosplays, though people do them. They're very cool.

[A]

I think we're now winding down here, but once again, we do want to thank you all for getting us to have.

[B]

Don't cut out the bit about the French. I want them to know that they deserve to be punished. They. Well, maybe they'd like that.

[A]

They'd like that.

[B]

They'd like that. They deserve to be scolded a little bit, but not in a hot way. In a true, genuine way. But I do think that the French do deserve to be scolded a little bit. Not in a way that they'd like, in a way that they. They take to heart and listen to well, because their language doesn't make any sense. I just want to.

[A]

I just want to say, please don't destroy this. You're destroying. You're destroying. You have one yourself. You probably look at that.

[B]

I didn't destroy. It still works. I'm just fidgeting with it. Let me fidget. Fidget. Anyway, the point is, is that the French language makes no sense. Why is the word birds, which is. Which is wazo, spelled with a freaking X in it. Where's the X, Wazo? Well, there's literally no X. I think.

[A]

Most people look at the English language and wonder how the heck does that make any sense?

[B]

But that's more of our words are.

[A]

Useful, like the word Wednesday. Where does that even.

[B]

Well, they have to. How do you have to cope in America? We speak American.

[A]

Oh. So wanted to thank fans again for the big Spotify wrapped that we had that people are. Are listening longer to this.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

More than. More than 97. No more than 97 of other. We're in the top 3% in terms of people listening to the duration that they're listening and sharing. And sharing. And please do share this. Please do share and please do give us comments.

[B]

Yes, comment. Ask things. Say hey.

[A]

Say hey.

[B]

And if you hate us, if you really like us, you know, we welcome the hashtag haters because we do be shaking it off.

[A]

We do shake it off. Yeah, we do shake it off. We have never written a diss track and then eight years later added a whole five minutes to it. That was even harsher. Dis. Neither one of us have done that to my knowledge. Right. We shake things off.

[B]

We shake things off.

[A]

I can usually let go of things after five or six years.

[B]

Six or seven years.

[A]

Six, seven, six, seven. There you go. Excellent.

[B]

That's what I do to all my friends. They really get annoyed at me when I do that.

[A]

You're doing six, seven a lot now.

[B]

I just think there's. I think in a post, ironic kind of postmodern. Kind of contemporary way that is subversive. Yes, I do say six, seven.

[A]

You think that six, seven is post ironic?

[B]

No, I think that when I do it, it's post ironic.

[A]

You think when you do it as post time?

[B]

Yes. I'm making fun of the kind of. The kind of societal expectation that one has when one sees six, seven. I kind of do it in a little. In a little ironic way. And like, kind of. One of my friends says, oh, my gosh, we're walking up seven flights of stairs. I'm like, six or seven flights of stairs. Or they'll say like, yeah, I haven't eaten in like six hours. And I'm like, be sure it wasn't seven hours. Maybe six or seven hours you become that person. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

But in an ironic way.

[B]

And then one of my other friends, who, by the way, is the. Is the grade representative who won by the most votes. Every single time anyone ever says six or seven around him, he goes like this.

[A]

Well, I did read an article in the New Yorker which explained that there's a long history of meaningless phrases in my day and age. It was what's up? I mean, there were whole. There were whole TV commercials in which different people would say, what's up? And then someone else would say, wassup. And literally that's all it was. And it really isn't any different than 6, 7.

[B]

I think there's more meaning in what's up than 6, 7. There's literally more meaning because what's up is at the end of the day, a question. And 6, 7 are two numbers that have been placed together, but I think.

[A]

Significantly, because six plus seven is 13 and six times seven is 42, which is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

[B]

Thanks, guys.

[A]

Yes, I'm sure.

[B]

Great science fiction book. My favorite book, actually.

[A]

We are science fiction nerds as well as Taylor Swift.

[B]

I'm reading the three body problem right now, and under my chair, it's holding it.

[A]

And in fact, in the concert, Taylor has a spaceship land, right?

[B]

That is true. Because steam. Beamed up during down bad.

[A]

Yes. Beamed up during down bad. Oh, that's nice. That's a nice little. Beamed up during down bad. I know.

[B]

Isn't that beautiful?

[A]

It is. It really is beautiful.

[B]

Yeah. It's almost like she wrote it intentionally.

[A]

Right. And next week.

[B]

Next week. Oh, my God.

[A]

Canceled is canceled. British spelling.

[B]

The song I've listened to the least on the.

[A]

Yeah, it is. It's. It's.

[B]

But I like my friend. Like, I love her, but woof.

[A]

We're gonna look for the deeper meaning she put into that song and hopefully we will find it.

[B]

You guys, you guys rock. You guys roll.

[A]

You do. And sometimes in a hard rock cafe. See you next week.

[B]

You guys are our hard rocks, but only in two of the three ways that Taylor means There you go.

[A]

Ciao ciao.

[C]

From the parents behind Law and Order comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy. Patrick Picklebottom Everyday Mysteries Step into the whimsical world of Patrick Picklebottom, a precocious 11 year old with a love for reading and an uncanny ability to solve mysteries. Inspired by the beloved children's book of the same name, this podcast vividly brings Patrick's tales of deduction and everyday adventures to life as he unravels baffling enigmas and solves clever cases. Patrick Picklebottom Everyday Mysteries is perfect for kids and is just as entertaining for grown ups who love a good mystery. The whole family can listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[D]

The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the Darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadowdark, the Darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8pm Eastern on YouTube.com theglasscanon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.