Too Late to Apologize: Mistakes and Maturity in “Back to December”
Maybe love and loss is just how you learn lessons.
Most of Taylor Swift’s love songs from her first few albums covered topics including falling in love, unrequited love, and being wronged by someone. When she released “Back to December,” which became a Speak Now single, she broke this pattern by adding something new to the mix: guilt and apology.1 In this song, the speaker reflects on her own mistakes in a relationship with regret and remorse, and Swift’s musical choices make it an effective wintry heartache ballad.
Awkward Interactions
The first verse opens with the speaker relaying a conversation with her ex: “I’m so glad you made time to see me / How’s life? Tell me, how’s your family? / I haven’t seen them in a while.” Swift situates the listener in a dialogue, immediately establishing the personal nature of the song and the speaker’s perspective in approaching the muse. Her vague questions are indicative of her discomfort and are both ways of avoiding the directness of “How are you?” since she is wary of the answer. The casual acknowledgement that she hasn’t seen their family in a while leaves unspoken the fact that they haven’t seen each other recently. She summarizes their response and the awkward situation: “You’ve been good, busier than ever / We small talk, work and the weather / Your guard is up and I know why.” The speaker can tell that they don’t want to have a deep conversation, instead resorting to the safe topics of “small talk.” In effect, they’re talking to each other but not saying anything.
In the pre-chorus, the speaker explains that she was at fault in the relationship: “Because the last time you saw me / Is still burned in the back of your mind / You gave me roses and I left them there to die.” She doesn’t provide much detail about what she did wrong, but in any case, it caused a sudden shift in their dynamic. The word “burned” indicates that their last interaction left the muse scarred; she perceives her actions as having a long-lasting negative effect. The “roses” prompt both literal and figurative interpretations of the third line. Literally, the speaker either purposely failed to acknowledge the gift after she broke off the relationship or received it and then forgot about it, leading to a point of conflict. Moreover, when read as a metaphor, this lyric tells of the speaker not appreciating the love and affection she was given. She turned away from her partner, and the feelings “die[d]” because she hadn’t tended to the relationship like one would “flowers.”
Self-Sabotage
The chorus centers the speaker’s feelings of guilt and regret: “So, this is me swallowing my pride / Standing in front of you saying I’m sorry for that night / And I go back to December all the time.” The first two lyrics hover around one note with fast-paced rhythms, emulating the energy of her speech laced with nervousness and shame—the alliteration of “s” sounds adds to this effect. To swallow one’s pride is an apt idiom, but here the image also gives the listener a visceral impression of the speaker’s discomfort in apologizing. There is then a vocal pause as she collects her thoughts before summarizing her feelings with the simple statement of longing to “go back to December.”
She wishes she could turn back time and fix it: “It turns out freedom ain’t nothing but missing you / Wishing I’d realized what I had when you were mine.” The word “freedom” insinuates that the speaker left the relationship in pursuit of fulfillment through independence—or at least used this as her excuse. She now regrets that desire for deceptive “freedom” because she gave up something good and has found herself lonely; the frustration in these lines stems from her own naivete and resultant self-sabotage. Realizing that she took the muse for granted, she returns to her thesis statement: “I go back to December, turn around and make it alright / I go back to December all the time.” With these lyrics, her wish paradoxically becomes a reality in her imagination. Swift’s use of the present tense allows the speaker to turn back time at will within the narrative that she has created in the song, even if it’s not real.
Lives Change Like the Weather
In the second verse, the speaker doubles down on her introspection: “These days, I haven’t been sleeping / Staying up, playing back myself leaving / When your birthday passed and I didn’t call.” She is torturing herself with the memories of her regrets and an inability to understand her own actions. With the idea of “playing back” these moments, she watches them in her mind as if detached from herself—her current vantage point is so far removed from the person who made these decisions. Melodically, unlike in the first verse, there are no rests between the first and second lines. This mirrors the fact that the speaker’s torment is constant and relentless. Her anecdotal fragment about missing the birthday leaves a lot unsaid—whether this was before or after or a cause of the breakup—and is a simple statement of fact. All of its accompanying emotions are implicit in the melodic space and ringing out of the word “call.”
Swift uses the seasons to symbolize the evolution of the relationship: “Then I think about summer, all the beautiful times / I watched you laughing from the passenger side / And realized I loved you in the fall.”2 In this half of the verse, she sings a new melody, with a faster pace and slightly higher register to capture the excitement and happiness of that summer memory. The speaker “realiz[ing]” she was in love is also telling of her introspection; she is contemplating not just what happened, but how she processed her emotions at different points in time. Her feelings parallel nature through these different stages of infatuation and love, which inevitably came to an end.
The speaker’s narrative returns to winter: “And then the cold came, the dark days / When fear crept into my mind.” Following on from the other seasons, she equates winter with sadness and “dark days” rife with “cold” feelings. The phrasing of “fear crept” personifies the emotion, rather than the speaker, as the active agent. Despite her apology and attempt to take responsibility, she is still tempted to blame an external factor. As a result of this “fear,” she laments that: “You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye.” This is a more direct rewording of the corresponding line from the first pre-chorus with the roses; she wouldn’t accept the love she was given and chose to abandon the relationship out of fear instead.
Acceptance?
After the second chorus, the bridge delves further into the storytelling with specific memories: “I miss your tanned skin, your sweet smile / So good to me, so right.” As the speaker catalogues these details about the muse, she places an emphasis on their kindness, with the implicit contrast to herself and her hurtful actions. She cherishes the feeling of being comforted, loved, and cared for: “And how you held me in your arms that September night / The first time you ever saw me cry.” She was able to let her guard down and be vulnerable enough to cry openly in front of the muse, which marks a high degree of intimacy. Still, all these positive memories are about how they treated the speaker, not the other way around, which adds to the implication that she took advantage of the relationship.
A jarring sequence of staccato notes interrupts the vocal line, effectively snapping the speaker out of her fantasy: “Maybe this is wishful thinking / Probably mindless dreaming.” Back in reality, she sets her expectations low and tells herself that this apology won’t win the muse back. She teeters on the line between hope and practicality: “But if we loved again, I swear I’d love you right / I’d go back in time and change it, but I can’t / So, if the chain is on your door, I understand.” By framing “love” as an action, the speaker emphasizes the intentionality necessary for romantic relationships to work. She highlights the song’s ultimate paradox with the admission that she “can’t” actually “go back in time,” despite that being its core subject. Rather, she can only accept her mistakes and try to go forward, with or without the muse, who has become a means to her own personal growth. After being hurt by her, she imagines they would figuratively lock her out of their life with the “chain” and be unwilling to trust her again. In these final lines, the music calms back down and the melodic pattern repeats itself a third lower, descending to replicate the speaker’s defeat.
After the emotional rollercoaster of the bridge, Swift sings a very meek beginning of the chorus before building it back up to a passionate final rendition: “I go back to December, turn around and make it alright / I go back to December, turn around and change my own mind / I go back to December all the time / All the time.” This extended ending combines lyrics from the first two choruses, the repetition strengthening the speaker’s desperation. Her will to “change [her] own mind” exemplifies her feelings of regret and disappointment in her past self. The final “[a]ll the time” makes it clear that it will take a lot to forgive herself for this mistake that has been at the forefront of her mind. In effect, the whole song is a reflection on an experience. Whether or not she can win the muse back, the speaker has learned a lesson in growth and maturity, leaving her now at this new vantage point with herself.
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Since this is my first December post, I figured it was the perfect time for this song!
Swift uses a similar conceit in "All Too Well," from autumn to winter.