7: "Father Figure" — professional slavery and the cost of success

In this episode, we dive into “Father Figure” — a song that dramatizes the complex dynamics between a young, vulnerable artist and the powerful adults who offer guidance and protection. We also explore why she credited George Michael and her own battle for creative control. 

As the final track in Act 1 of this unfolding drama, “Father Figure” shows our heroine at a crossroads, faced with a difficult choice between two less-than-ideal options: surrender to the forces that want to keep her small, or claim her power and risk losing her soul?

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Transcript

1:18

Welcome to Lit one 12, the Life of a Showgirl where we treat Taylor Swift's latest album like a novel, i'm your host, Mara Eller, a literature and writing teacher with 16 years of experience at the high school and college level. I just retired to focus on editing and book coaching, but when I started getting requests for this series on social media, I couldn't resist. Whether you're a veteran swifty or just an AP lit nerd like me who happens to like her music, all are welcome here. I've even got something for you. Writers, creative prompts inspired by the subject of each lesson. You can find them at the end of the episodes. So grab your metaphorical notebook and let's unpack this record together, chapter by chapter, song by song. Today we're diving into father figure track four, and what I see as the end of act one. if you haven't seen my episodes on tracks one through three, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to those so that you're all caught up and ready to dive into this pivotal moment in our narrative. in case we didn't know, this is an album for grownups, father figure makes it very clear. It's the first, but not the last track on the album with explicit language. So bear that in mind as you continue with this episode. But it's not just the D word that makes it PG 13, it's also the subject matter. This track explores. The phrase father figure immediately invokes mentorship and protection, but also some complicated, potentially problematic power dynamics. It suggests intimacy, trust, and authority all tangled together. It also happens to share a title with George Michael's 1980s Hit Father figure, though that is pretty much where the similarities end. That's led a lot of people to ask. Why did Taylor credit George michael as a songwriter but not any of the other dozens of artists she's clearly drawing inspiration from on this album? Song titles aren't protected by copyright, so that's not the reason. More likely Taylor credited him because of his famous court battle for the rights to his masters, a fight he ultimately lost, and to understand why that matters, we have to look at her long fight for artistic ownership. In case you're not familiar with it, here's a recap. Taylor signed a 13 year six album contract with Big Machine in 2005 at age 15. Like most music contracts, this one gave the company ownership of her masters, the original recordings of all her songs. She probably thought little of it at the time, but it became a huge deal to her after her first few albums made it big. Owning your masters means you control how your music can be used in films, ads, documentaries, and you also take home a much bigger percentage of the royalties. Think 50% instead of the usual 10 or 15, which means that while record companies make a fortune, artists don't usually see much of that financial success themselves, at least not directly from their music when Taylor's original contract was set to expire, she approached them about buying back her masters, but they would only agree if she signed another contract for six more albums under their label. She refused. Most likely, big machine was trying to strong arm her into resigning with them by using the masters as bait, knowing she was unhappy with them. Variety supported that Swift's catalog constituted around 80% of big machine's revenue, so they really couldn't afford to lose her. but she didn't resign with them. She found a new record company instead, and then Big Machine was sold t o Scooter Braun, whom Swift described as an incessant manipulative bully. That comment was in reference to the debacle with his client, Kanye West in 2016, which I won't go into, but suffice it to say it was bad. Swift said, essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it. This was a huge betrayal that her music was being sold to someone she despised whom she felt had attacked, not only her character, but also her musical legacy. And she felt certain that big machine former owner, Scott Borchetta, knew how she would feel about that. She said,"anytime Scott Borchetta heard the word scooter Braun come out of my mouth, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing. They both did." After that they quote, exercised tyrannical control over those masters. She said, quote, the message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up, or you'll be punished. Interesting in light of this song. Father figure, right? In response, taylor did something no one had done before. She rerecorded the songs from her first four albums. She couldn't reclaim the original recordings, but as the songwriter, she did own the lyrics and musical compositions. By rerecording, she devalued the old masters and reclaimed total creative control over the new ones. It was a public battle, bitter, emotional, and by most people's estimation justified. Taylor was angry and she found a way to exercise that anger by hitting scooter Braun where it hurts. in his bank account. Then fast forward to June, 2025 after the company was sold again, swift announced that she has successfully purchased the Masters for all of her six first albums with full autonomy, her goal all along. By then, she'd also become a broader advocate for artists' rights, which we can see play out in subtle ways on this new album, specifically through her choices about interpolation. That's when an artist incorporates existing musical ideas, like a melody or a chord progression into a new song. Taylor does it several times on this record, nodding to the Ronnettes, Fleetwood Mac, Jackson, five, and many others. So why give George Michael songwriting credit Partly to ensure his estate earns royalties, which happens from songwriting credits, but not necessarily from other types of credits that could be given, that might go instead to the record labels, but also, to spotlight his experience with artistic exploitation to make sure we realize that father figure is about a specific kind of exploitation. It's about what happens when a young vulnerable artist is discovered by a powerful older man who promises to make her a star and then profits from her and controls her consigning her to, as George Michael called it, professional slavery. And that brings us to the song itself, a clever, unsettling dramatization of that same power dynamic. It is no accident. I think that on the first Listen father figure immediately made me think she was singing about a pimp. He finds her lost in the cold, takes her in, teaches her the tricks of the trade, and soon her name is known on the streets. All he asks for is her loyalty, code for obedience. Is sexual exploitation really what the song's about? I don't think so, given the George Michael tie in, But that aspect is present nonetheless. The song is definitely about power and about gendered power imbalances. Taylor said it's a song about the way men move through the world with a sense of power. You kind of can't tell if I'm singing from the perspective of the ingenue or the father figure mentor character, and that's by design. The lack of clarity in this song about who is speaking adds another layer to our unreliable narrator concept. If you haven't listened to that one, go back. I think it's our second full episode. We have to constantly ask in this song, whose perspective are we getting right now, and should we trust what they're saying? Let's dive in. If you listen really closely, there's some background noise at the beginning of the track, almost like you're in a crowded restaurant, but maybe in a back room because the noise is really dim and distant. I didn't hear it until I was listening in complete silence, so that might be something to check out. It adds an interesting nuance to the setting for this story. The music itself starts with a very sparse accompaniment, just the simple drum line, and then a sort of distant, faint accompaniment from an almost unidentifiable instrument, maybe a keyboard. Verse one. When I found you, you were young, wayward lost in the cold. So this is the mentor talking to the protege, maybe the music producer who found our showgirl in track one and pulled her out of melancholy, catapulting her to stardom. She was young confirming that assumption we made based on Ophelia's character in Hamlet. She was wayward, meaning difficult to control or predict because of unusual or perverse behavior. It's an important word choice here that this mentor is calling her wayward. Lost in the cold. Not only lost before she was found, but cold perhaps contrasting with the fire he pulled her into, mentioned in track one. Pulled up to you in the Jag, turned your rags into gold. Jaguar, meaning an expensive car turns your rags into gold. has that internal rhyme with Jag and Rag there. she was given wealth, gives the image of the aspiring showgirl walking on the street, and he pulls up beside her in his fancy car and says, come with me. It's kind of creepy, just like some of the lines we discussed in the fate of Ophelia. The winding road leads to the chateau. Chateau is the French word for a palace or a mansion, maybe even a castle. So there's some fairytale connotations there of like making dreams come true, but also whose chateau hers? His, is he bringing her to his mansion? If so, for her, what exactly? You remind me of a younger me. This line in the written lyrics is in quotation marks, implying the mentor said this to her in the past since he's saying all the rest of this to her kind of in the songs present. So, I mean, think about it. How would you feel if someone really impressive said that to you? It'd be pretty flattering, right? But it takes on a different light once the true nature of this mentor is revealed. I saw potential. That's what every aspiring artist wants, right? But there's also the implication that the potential has to be developed, and because of the sinister quality of many of the other lyrics on this track, this line becomes questionable too. I saw a potential that you couldn't have turned into real talent without my help, and don't you forget it. Then we get our first chorus. I'll be your father figure. okay, so what is a father figure? Someone who takes care of you, protects you, has your best interests at heart, guides you, stands in for the father, you may be missing. It introduces that family element. We are like a family. It implies love. Also a long-term relationship. I drink that brown liquor. Why brown? It makes me think of whiskey, which is traditionally a male drink. It's the one the men drink in the back offices while they're making shady deals. I can make deals with the devil because my dick's bigger. One of the most shocking lines on the album. Not something most of us ever thought Taylor Swift would say, right? This vulgar phrase is a common idiom, meaning a non-literal saying with a specific meaning that is generally understood within a given culture. It is a way to express dominance, superiority power. that interpretation of the phrase is reinforced by her choice in the clean version to replace Dick with check implying financial domination and power. It's not literally about the size of someone's penis, but it is a very gendered idiom, obviously. Men can talk this way, but women can't, historically. There's no female equivalent. Male parts have been used in many ways to indicate positive, powerful things. Wow. He's got balls, for example, meaning, you know, courage. What's the female equivalent? She's got ovaries. I do hear some people say that now, but it's this intentional way of taking back this overtly gendered, misogynistic language. Likewise, there's no good way to turn this idiom, my dick's bigger, into a female version. It's a phrase that automatically cuts women out of the equation. They can't even compete in this size competition. So he says, I can make deals with the devil because my dick's bigger. I can do shady, unethical things that benefit me and get away with it because I'm rich and powerful. And by extension, if a man is saying this to a woman, you can't because you're not, and you can never hope to be. Next line. This love is pure profit. Another of my favorite lines on the album, this love quote unquote, is pure profit. It goes back to the idea of them being a family love, but now he's showing his cards a little. I imagine it like the young starlet hears this the first time and is interpreting it like he's saying, this is gonna be so great because our close relationship is gonna make us both rich and make your dreams come true. But then it's also revealing his true motivations. He's in it to make money, and if that benefits her too, great. But that's secondary at best because from his point of view, this is all pure profit. Just step into my office, come into the back room with me, creepy again. Also the place where deals are made. So he's saying like, let's make a deal. Just sign on the dotted line, and now you're mine. I dry your tears with my sleeve. I'll comfort you. You poor little thing. It's a moment of tenderness, intimacy. They are physically close if he's using his sleeve, yet in contrast with the previous lines, it's highly suspicious. it also might be a direct reference to Scott Borchetta comforting Taylor when she cried about the scooter-Kanye stuff. Then we come to the post chorus, leave it with me. I protect the family. You're part of my family now, so you can trust me. I'll take care of everything. Don't worry about it. Don't concern your pretty little head with the details. Just sign here and go do your show. The chorus particularly has this intense contrast between these sinister lyrics and the fun lighthearted melody. This sort of laid back casual vibe with breathy, Almost disinterested vocals. I find myself bopping along to the beat and singing the lyrics and then catching myself because they're like legitimately disturbing. It creates a cognitive dissonance, a mental discomfort between these two things that clash, but we have to hold them in our minds simultaneously. It's just one more example of the discomfort she plays with throughout the album. Now, verse two. I pay the check before it kisses the mahogany grain. I hear this as him reminding her that he pays for everything that she owes him. It also has connotations of luxury and a certain smoothness like he's used to doing this. He doesn't even let the check hit the table. Only he says, kiss the table, which is kind of a sexual word. Next line said, they wanna see you rise, they don't want you to reign. Another of my favorite lines. so he told her this in the past. This one's in quotation marks again. So maybe it was like a warning. They want to see you rise probably to stardom, but they don't wanna see you reign. They don't wanna see you in charge. They don't wanna see you with power. So who's they? The fans, the public, the shareholders in the company. It makes me think of that line, about the crown in the fit of Ophelia. Like she's supposed to wear the crown with all the pressure and weight that comes with it, but she's not supposed to actually have power or agency. She's supposed to look like a queen, but act like a good little princess. I showed you all the tricks of the trade. She wouldn't be here without him. All I asked for is your loyalty, my dear protege. So all he asks for in return for everything he's given her is her loyalty, her obedience. Not questioning him, not pledging her loyalty to anyone else, including perhaps herself, if we remember her line from the fate of Ophelia. Protege is a word for someone who is guided by an older, wiser mentor. It comes from the same root as protect, meaning someone who is protected, which ends up having a bit of an ironic twist by the end of this song. Then we go back to the chorus. I'll be your father figure. I drink that brown liquor. I can make deals with the devil because my check's bigger. This love is pure profit. Step into my office. They'll know your name in the streets. This last line is new. You'll be famous. Everyone will know your name. If you just do what I say, leave it with me. I protect the family. Then going into the bridge, we have harp, backup singers, this lush accompaniment, this sort of like sweeping feeling of the showgirl entering the scene like she is talking now. I saw a change in you. back up singers, repeat that. I saw a change in you, my dear boy. She is speaking his words back to him now, speaking to him the way he always spoke to her, belittling, demeaning. He probably called her girl my dear girl, but now she's calling him a boy, even though she's younger. They don't make loyalty like they used to. She has these gorgeous vocals in this section, just very commanding vocal presence compared especially to what it's been like up until this point in the song. They don't make loyalty like they used to. This is a reference to his earlier statement that loyalty is all he asked for from her, but she says they don't make it like they used to. It's something a godfather would say, right? A mafia boss. But now she's saying it kind of ironically, because she's the younger one. Is she referring to her own loyalty? It's no longer blind loyalty that basically means you have to let yourself get walked all over? Or is she saying that his loyalty is in question? Maybe both. Your thoughtless ambition sparked the ignition on foolish decisions, which led to misguided visions that to fulfill your dreams, you had to get rid of me. Your ambition, your greed, led to foolish decisions, she says. Mistakes that then led to misguided visions or bad ideas. That in order to fulfill your dreams, you had to get rid of me. Sounds a lot like murder, but getting rid of someone is always about keeping them quiet, which is what I think she's implying here. Had to make this problem go away, silence her. Maybe also end her career. Definitely put her in her place and then that whispered, I protect the family. I imagine her leaning in close, almost seductively and whispering this into his ear. It's so menacing. And then we have the modulation into the final chorus where it goes up a half step. We're in a new key, signifying a new era for the showgirl. I was your father figure. We drank that brown liquor. This final chorus has some subtle changes that we have to pay close attention to, and I think it's worth playing with the intonation on these lines. Because it's a song, the way the lines are sung is dictated by the song. But if you take it out of the song and read them like you might in a play, some interesting things happen. I was your father figure. In what ways might she have acted like a father to him? Maybe provided for him financially? We drank that brown liquor, meaning she drank it too. An implication of equality or like she drank the magic elixir and perhaps it changed her. She says, you made a deal with this devil. Turns out my dick's bigger. You made a deal with me. she's calling herself a devil here in a way. Turns out my dick's bigger. I'm the one with more money and power. Now you wanna fight. You found it. I got the place surrounded. She's prepared. It's a whole setup and she's no longer all alone in the cold, implies that she has some allies. You'll be sleeping with the fishes before you know you're drowning. Sleeping With the Fishes is a famous gangster euphemism for being dead. It's used in The Godfather movie. You'll be dead before you know what's hit you. It brings back in that drowning motif too. Who's drowning now? It's a threat. If you try to fight me, you'll end up dead, literally, or figuratively. Whose portrait's on the mantle she asks. I imagine this referring to her portrait being up on the wall along with all of the other famous performers this guy has shepherded to stardom. Who covered up your scandals? It implies she's helped keep some things quiet in the past. or just a general threat. Like I could make some things public, so you better think twice. Now, I will add here that some people have posited that these two lines specifically might be the father figure, the mentor responding to her, she makes that threat, watch out or you're gonna end up dead. And then he says, whose portraits on the mantle who covered up your scandals? Referencing the tradition in patriarchal families like The Godfather, to have portraits of the patriarch above the fireplace in a prominent position, and then maybe implying that he covered up scandals earlier in her career, so threatening her back. Something to consider. I think that ambiguity of narrator could continue into this next line. mistake my kindness for weakness and find your card canceled. Don't mistake my kindness for weakness means don't think you can take advantage of me. I do kind of read this more as the showgirl, so she's saying, You can't take advantage of me anymore. I'm giving you a chance to get out of this relatively unscathed. But it could get a lot worse. she could figuratively, cancel his card, meaning pull financial support away. She can hit him in the bank account. She says, I was your father figure. You pulled the wrong trigger. This empire belongs to me. I think this definitely has to be the showgirl singing. Otherwise, I don't think that would make very much sense. I was the one putting food on your table, but you pointed the gun the wrong direction and now it's over. Now I am in charge, clearly a nod to her power play of rerecording her first four albums and planning to do the other two. This can't actually be about buying back her masters since she wrote this song many months before that happened. Remember that was only June of 2025, only a few months before the album was released, but of course now it clearly has that ring to it. Her entire musical empire belongs to her, now. Of course, here in Lit one 12, we're focused on the character of the showgirl. So through that lens, maybe she bought back her masters or whatever the equivalent would be for her. Maybe she now owns the club or theater where she performed all these years. One way or another, she's stepping into the role of the father figure, both for herself and maybe also for the other showgirls who might be in similar situations, which is implied by the next line. She repeats. Leave it with me. I protect the family. It has a triumphant sound Now. And the song ends with, you know, you remind me of a younger me. I saw a potential. She repeats his words back to him here in these final lines. To me, it has a blatantly derisive feel like she's mocking him. even though he's older than her, she's saying, you remind me of when I was young and stupid. And I thought you had potential. But it turns out I was wrong. Pretty vicious, right? There's a pretty dramatic transformation going on here for our showgirl that the music itself underscores. I had my friend Meredith Hite estevez a doctor of musical arts, listen to this song to help me articulate what was going on musically, and I thought her commentary was really interesting. She said that the tambre of Taylor's voice at the beginning is kind of wispy and light, not fully supported with breath. And then as she gets stronger and realizes she can take control of her career, the backup singers come in at the bridge, and that's the beginning of finding clarity within herself. The music builds to that post bridge modulation where it goes up a half step, and then her voice is doubled for the final chorus where she's singing with herself, backing herself up, quite literally. The design of the song musically underpins the transformation that the main character undergoes from trusting ingenue to powerful threatening figure. But there's also a dissonance once again in this song between the tone conveyed by the music and the tone conveyed by the lyrics. The music is casual, fun, almost childish in this sing songy way, especially the chorus, Her voice is high and breathy pretty and feminine, but the lyrics are downright sinister. It once again highlights this contrast between appearance and reality in the showgirl life. I also see it as at the beginning, the mentor speaking so casually with her, like completely oblivious to the possibility that his protege might suspect anything, and then the showgirl no longer the ingenue sweeps in with her easy glamor at the bridge, making everything look effortless and lovely, all while she's threatening to kill him. The whole thing emphasizes how cutthroat the industry is behind the velvet curtains. And what it takes to survive much less thrive in that world, which is of course, what the whole album is about. Father figure comes at the end of what I consider Act one in a three Act structure. Act one would be tracks one through four, the Fate of Ophelia as the inciting incident, where the hero sets out on this adventure, in this case, into a life of stardom and performance. Elizabeth Taylor reveals the hero's inner struggles, introducing her conflicting desires for fame and true connection for someone to trust, who will love her forever, even though that seems unlikely, if not impossible, in this life of stardom. Opalite shows her first attempt at dealing with that inner conflict, trying to just be okay with it and make the most of what she has. Also brings in the family motif, shows her becoming a little jaded, but living high on a luxurious, glamorous wave of stardom. Father figure is the first turning point that always occurs at the end of act one. This is when the hero makes a decision that fully commits him or her to the journey or conflict that will unfold in Act two. It's a fork in the road moment. The hero has to choose a path and there's no going back. In the Wizard of Oz, for example, the inciting incident is the tornado that drops Dorothy in Oz. but the turning point for Act one is when she decides to follow the yellow brick road, she sets off on her journey to Oz. So our showgirl here had a choice: continue to be exploited by her mentor or turn against him, and that choice sets up the rest of the story. What does this choice mean for her? One way to read this song and by extension the whole album, is that it is an origin story for a villain or at least an anti-hero. The showgirl has taken on some of the qualities of those who've exploited her in order to defeat them, but in so doing, she risks becoming the very thing she's fighting against. Songs like actually romantic and canceled lend credence to this interpretation. Now, whether you read it that way or not, the song certainly alters the question Driving the narrative. In Elizabeth Taylor, we said the question was something like, can she have both lasting love and success slash fame? Now, that question becomes something like, can she live the life of a showgirl without losing her soul? She has faced a choice that perhaps every rising star knows: yield to the forces that seek to limit her or seek control and risk the part of herself she most wants to protect. She chose the latter, and act two will show us how that plays out. as I think we see in the next song, she may be starting to wonder, do I have to choose between being crushed under the suffocating weight of exploitation, or becoming ruthless enough to survive in this cutthroat world of show business? Is there a middle way? So we'll pick up next time with eldest daughter, but here are some discussion or reflection questions for you to ponder in the meantime. If this song is the end of act one, where do you think Act two ends? Typically, act two ends when the hero is at her lowest point. And Act three begins with the climax, the final confrontation that brings a moment of clarity for the hero. So think about where that might be in the second half of the album, and be sure to support your answer with evidence from the songs. Then who or what do you think is the villain, the antagonist of the story? Certainly in this song, the antagonist seems to be the mentor, but given that the mentor is basically defeated here at the end of act one, what does that leave us with as the antagonist for the rest of the album? I also have writing prompts for you, three for memoir and three for fiction. I'm gonna start with memoir number one, who has been a father figure in your creative, professional, or personal life? Right about how that relationship began and how it evolved for better or for worse. It doesn't have to turn toxic. Not all mentor relationships are corrupt for sure. So this could be a beautiful, happy story, or it could be one that's a little more complex. Number two, have you ever been underestimated because of your age, gender, or inexperience? Write about a time someone mistook your kindness, youth or gender for weakness and how you handled it. Number three, write a letter to your younger self about the dangers of being a good girl or good boy. What would you warn this younger self about? What would you tell her to fight for? And for fiction, our first prompt is. Have your main character, turn the tables on the antagonist using the villain's tools against him or her. Number two, write a story where a relationship that starts out as protection turns into possession. And number three, experiment with your main character becoming a villain or at least an anti-hero, someone who uses questionable methods to achieve mostly good goals. What might push that character to turn towards the dark side? And that's it for today's class. Thank you for joining me here for this literary analysis and pop culture exploration. if you're loving these deep dives. Make sure to follow the podcast or come join the discussion on social media. My links are in the show notes. I'd love to hear your questions, comments, and insights. and definitely let me know if you try out the writing prompts. class is always about bringing you into the conversation, helping you to do your own thinking and come to your own conclusions, so I'd love to see you involved. Until next time, class dismissed.