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Writer's pictureLauren Sun

Taylor Songs as Books: Little Women and Champagne Problems

Updated: Dec 3, 2022

If you're a swiftie and a Little Women fan, you've probably seen the edits of Greta Gerwig's film (based off the novel by Louisa May Alcott) with "Champagne Problems" by Taylor Swift playing in the background. There are theories that the song is actually based on the movie, and it seems to be specifically focusing on Jo's perspective and the relationship between her, Laurie, and her little sister Amy. Little Women is my favorite book and movie, and the song is also one of my favorites.

Photos from this past summer when I visited Louisa May Alcott's house and where "Little Women" was based


The song seems to be telling the story of a girl who walked away from someone she was supposed to fall in love with and marry, looking back at her life before leading up to the decision she made. And if you haven't read Little Women or watched Greta Gerwig's adaption, the story centers around four closely knitted sisters as they grow up and apart into little women.
The main character, Jo, since young has been adamant against the idea of being a dutiful, proper women and marrying herself off, joking that she would only marry ever her books. When she meets her next-door neighbor, a lonely, rich boy named Theodore "Laurie" Laurence, it doesn't take long for them to become best friends, and for him to fall in love with her. But knowing Jo and her ever-stubborn ways he keeps this to himself, and for a while, their childhood is a beautiful tableau of joy and innocence, until the inevitable happens.

 

"You booked the night train for a reason So you could sit there in this hurt

Bustling crowds or silent sleepers You're not sure which is worse

Because I dropped your hand while dancing Left you out there standing Crestfallen on the landing Champagne problems"


The first stanza of the song, similarly to Gerwig's Little Women, seems to be a moment of reflection: Jo looking back at the moment when Laurie turned to her and finally asked her to be with him, telling her how he's waited for her, given up billiards and everything she didn't like, for her. Jo begged him to stop, but both of them knew that she could no longer hang on to to her family and childhood innocence the way she always had.
And then Jo remembers the moment after, when she told the greatest friend she ever had that she couldn't and wouldn't marry him. "I can't change how I feel, and... it would be a lie to say I do when I don't. I'm so sorry, Teddy. I'm so sorry, but I just can't help it," she says in the film.

 

"Your mom's ring in your pocket My picture in your wallet Your heart was glass, I dropped it Champagne problems"


Jo's story is most heartbreaking not because she told him no, but that she knew what she had done to her most beloved friend and hated herself for it. No matter how she tried she couldn't force herself to love him as she thought she was meant to.
 

"You told your family for a reason

You couldn't keep it in"

"No crowd of friends applauded

Your hometown skeptics called it

Champagne problems"


These lines seems to allude to the way their families waited on them, hoping and wishing and also painfully aware of how in love Laurie was. "Why does everyone expect it, then?" asked a desperate Laurie as Jo told him she tried but she just couldn't love him. "Why does your family and my grandpa expect this? Why are you saying this?"
 

"Love slipped beyond your reaches

And I couldn't give a reason"


"I don't see why I can't love you as you want me to. I don't know why." Both in the book and in the film, Jo wonders why she didn't love him as more than a dear friend, but when she tells Laurie she doesn't believe she'll ever marry, for the happiness she has alone and the liberty that she so cherishes, Laurie tells her he thinks she's wrong. "I think you're wrong about that, Jo. I think you'll find someone and love them and you will live and die for them because that's your way, and you will."
 

"This dorm was once a madhouse"

I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me"

How evergreen, our group of friends Don't think we'll say that word again And soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls That we once walked through"

Jo often spoke of how out of place she was, her oddness that was never proper, her messes and scribbling. As she grew up, she was determined to not let anything change, but one by one they each grew up and left in their own ways.
Beth passed away, Meg married and went to start her own family, Amy went to Paris with their Aunt March, and when there was only Jo and Laurie the final brick crumbled when he asked the dreaded question.
 

"One for the money, two for the show

I never was ready, so I watch you go

Sometimes you just don't know the answer

'Til someone's on their knees and asks you"


The first line "one for the money, two for the show" might be one of the clearest connections to Jo's story. If she had married Laurie, it wouldn't have only been "for the show," to make Laurie and their families happy despite her not truly loving him. As Amy March later tells Laurie in the movie that for her, a woman, marriage is an economical proposition and always will be, it is the same for Jo. Laurie's wealth would promise her a life of comfort, but in marrying him it would take her unmarried freedom away, and when he confessed his love she knew she just wasn't ready.
 

"She would've made such a lovely bride What a shame she's f***ed in the head, " they said But you'll find the real thing instead She'll patch up your tapestry that I shred

And hold your hand while dancing Never leave you standing Crestfallen on the landing With champagne problems"


Jo knew the way people thought of her, and often thought the same way of herself: "homely, awkward, and odd," was what she said to Laurie, in promising him that he would find someone else, a fine mistress who would be right for him in a way she never could be. That turned out to be Jo's little sister, Amy, who she had always fought with but loved dearly.
In a very emotional and one of my favorite scenes, Jo- now the last of the sisters in the March household- admits to her mother just how lonely she is, and that if Laurie were to ask her again she would say yes, as she cared most to be loved than to love. But when Laurie returns with Amy, she finds out that they are engaged.

Eventually Jo does marry, just as Laurie said she would, to an older professor. What I love about Greta Gerwig's version of Little Women is that it doesn't try to romanticize Amy and Jo's outcomes, and it highlights the fact that Alcott originally did not want to marry Jo off at all but was told to by her publisher. The feeling the ending leaves us with is completely intentional, even if unsatisfying.

Swifties, including myself, are wondering if Taylor really did write this song about Little Women. Even if she didn't, I can't help but think of Jo every time I listen to Champagne Problems.
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Mehry Parsai
Mehry Parsai
2022년 10월 17일

Real 🔥

좋아요
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