I’ll be your father figure. In this Show and Tell episode, Jenn, Jodi, and Maansi unpack masculinity as a cultural construct, from powdered wigs and heels in 18th century France to Travis Kelce happily playing the less famous partner on New Heights.

Jenn kicks things off with Better Man, flipping every one of the ex's flaws to sketch the man Taylor actually wants (grateful, consistent, kind, and secure enough not to talk down to anyone). Jodi brings The Man and gets real about the double standards that turn a woman's "edge" into a man's ambition, plus why leaning in never quite worked. Maansi closes with Father Figure, tracing every Jaguar, chateau, and glass of brown liquor back to the patriarch. (And yes, she researched the history of dick measuring contests. For science.)

Along the way, the hosts map R.W. Connell's hegemonic masculinity, Aragorn versus Commodus, the Byronic hero, Hemingway's code hero, and the colonial baggage packed into a single word like "conquest." Pour yourself a whiskey (or don't, it tastes like fire) and press play.

• 00:59 Intro to the topic
• 11:36 Jenn's pick, Better Man, plus its Little Big Town backstory
• 22:35 Jodi's pick, The Man, and the rebranding of female ambition
• 37:48 Maansi's pick, Father Figure, and the patriarch in the title

• The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
• Masculinities by R.W. Connell
• When Women Lead by Julia Boorstin
• Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Browse every book we've mentioned at our Bookshop.org storefront.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Gladiator
• Casino Royale
• The Godfather

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Substack: free subscribers get episode updates. Paid subscribers get After School: bonus episodes, our full written archive, and a vote in what we cover next. Subscribe: http://aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe

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Intro music by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.

AP Taylor Swift is an independent podcast and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Taylor Swift, her management, or her record labels.

"I took your matches before fire could catch me" This week we're going line-by-line through Taylor Swift's "Dear John" (Speak Now, 2010). We go through the WWII-era history behind the title, the epistolary letter form, and how a breakup letter becomes an act of reclaiming her own story. And surprisingly, we walk away realizing (spoiler alert) maybe this song isn’t as sad as we thought!

Two ways to get more of AP Taylor Swift:

Substack: free subscribers get episode updates. Paid subscribers get After School: bonus episodes, our full written archive, and a vote in what we cover next. Subscribe: http://aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe

• First 50 people to grab a Substack After School annual plan get 40% off: https://aptaylorswift.substack.com/wishlistmemberdiscount

Apple Podcasts: paid subscribers get ad-free episodes, early episode access, and bonus episode

Stay up to date at aptaylorswift.com

Mentioned in this episode:

• Dear John, Nicholas Sparks (novel)
• Dear John (2010 film)
• "A Dear John Letter" — Jean Shepard & Ferlin Husky (1953)
• The Correspondent, Virginia Evans (novel)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone — wizard's chess scene
• "Your Song," Elton John
• AP Taylor Swift: "Dear Reader" episode

Episode Highlights:

[01:19] Why "Dear John" is such a track five

[01:42] What a Dear John letter actually is — the WWII-era origin of the phrase

[05:55] "Long were the nights"

[10:39] "You paint me a blue sky and go back and turn it to rain"

[17:48] "don't you think I was too young to be messed with"

[36:33] "I took your matches before fire could catch me"

[45:53] The turn from "I should have known" to "you should have known"

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• YouTube → youtube.com/@APTaylorSwift
• Link Tree → linktr.ee/aptaylorswift
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• Libro.fm → tinyurl.com/aptslibro

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Affiliate Codes:

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This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.

I wanna be your end game. Roll the dice, pick your teams, and pull up a chair, because this week is all about games (decidedly not sports). Taylor reaches for game metaphors constantly, and once you start looking, you find chess boards, poker hands, and team rosters all over her catalog.

Jenn kicks things off with the big thinkers of play, from Johan Huizinga’s magic circle to Roger Caillois’s four types of play to game theory, the field that treats every board game as a tiny model of human decision making. Then Jodi takes us inside the chess game of “Dear John,” where somebody else keeps changing the rules. Jenn lays her cards on the table with “Foolish One” and explains why showing your hand first is a classic game theory mistake (hello, sucker’s payoff). Maansi closes with “End Game,” tracing “end game,” “first string,” and “A-Team” back to chess, medieval archery, and the US Army, and landing on a very different kind of game where both players finally sit on the same side of the board.

Along the way we detour through Jumanji, Lord of the Flies, Alice in Wonderland, The Queen’s Gambit, a Garry Kasparov masterclass, and the ancient Indian roots of chess. Grab your game pieces and play along!

• [01:27] Jenn sets the stage with games as a core part of being human
• [09:44] Jodi on “Dear John”
• [22:46] Jenn on “Foolish One”
• [37:28] Maansi on “End Game”
• [52:57] Honorable mentions lightning round

• Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga
• Man, Play and Games by Roger Caillois
• Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
• The Mahabharata

Browse all our picks at bookshop.org/shop/apts

• The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)
• Jumanji (1995)
• The A-Team (1983)

• Website aptaylorswift.com
• Instagram @APTaylorSwift
• TikTok @APTaylorSwift
• YouTube @APTaylorSwift
• Linktree @APTaylorSwift
• Email aptaylorswift@gmail.com

Rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen, and tell us your favorite game reference in the comments!

We barely scratched the surface on games (we didn’t even get to video games). Find more extra credit on our Substack at aptaylorswift.substack.com, and join After School, our paid tier, for bonus content from all three of us.

Intro music by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.

AP Taylor Swift is an independent podcast and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Taylor Swift, her team, or her record labels.