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"
Real 🔥