I’ve been thinking about what war and pandemic mean together as I’m working on my Porter essay, as well as thinking on my own personal experience with the pandemic. For me, much of 2020 is set to the soundtrack of Taylor Swift’s album, folklore. If you aren’t familiar with the album, I want to encourage you to listen to her song, epiphany. It explores the parallels between war and illness, and reminds me of our own conversations.

Keep your helmet, keep your life, son
Just a flesh wound, here’s your rifle
Crawling up the beaches now
“Sir, I think he’s bleeding out”
And some things you just can’t speak about

With you I serve, with you I fall down, down
Watch you breathe in, watch you breathing out, out

Something med school did not cover
Someone’s daughter, someone’s mother
Holds your hand through plastic now
“Doc, I think she’s crashing out”
And some things you just can’t speak about

Only twenty minutes to sleep
But you dream of some epiphany
Just one single glimpse of relief
To make some sense of what you’ve seen

With you I serve, with you I fall down, down (Down)
Watch you breathe in, watch you breathing out, out
With you I serve (With you I serve), with you I fall down (Down), down (Down)
Watch you breathe in (Watch you breathe in), watch you breathing out (Out), out (Out)

Only twenty minutes to sleep
But you dream of some epiphany
Just one single glimpse of relief
To make some sense of what you’ve seen

It also reminds me of the conversations we didn’t quite have. For those of you in the 12:30 section, I want you to recall Carleigh’s reaction when Professor Scanlon brought up March of 2020. And how Professor Scanlon apologized to her for even bringing it up. “Some things you just can’t speak about.” I find that at the end of this class, this song adds something valuable to my own modern interpretation of events not yet that outdated. Honestly, I could parse the ways this song relates to our class conversations for hours, but I’ll spare you that.

And now, because I’ve already namedropped Carleigh once in this post, I’m going to do it again. Sorry, Carleigh. She also mentioned in our final class today how her view of truth in literature has shifted, and how several of the works in this class have asked us whether objective truth is really more important than personal truth. To that end, I’d like to share with you part of the introduction to this album –

“A tale that becomes folklore is one that is passed down and whispered around. Sometimes even sung about. The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact. Myths, ghost stories, and fables. Fairytales and parables. Gossip and legend. Someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold.”

I don’t think it matters to me what was “true.” Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a work of fiction, but I think it is far more honest to Porter’s experience than if some omnipresent observer handed us a list of events in her life from before her experience with the flu through her recovery. Why should truth in that form be any more true than what Porter knows of her life?

Anyways, this post is my way of fighting off the urge to write about Taylor Swift in my Porter essay. Thanks for reading!