Category Archives: Movies

Exile-Jo and Laurie

This song is a duet and the parts work out perfectly for Laurie and Jo. Justin sings as Laurie, and Taylor sings as Jo.

“I can see you standing, honey, with his arms around your body”

After Laurie and Amy come home from Paris, Frederich shows up at the March house. Laurie immediately becomes defensive and standoffish, demanding to know who he is.

“And it took you five whole minutes to pack us up and leave me with it.”

After Jo rejected his proposal, she ran off to New York to be a writer. Laurie most likely viewed her leaving as her running away from him, which honestly most likely was a factor in her decision to leave. Losing yet another person was enough to drive her away completely.

“Holding all this love out here in the hall”

This line is pretty literal in terms of Laurie and Jo’s relationship. He is literally standing in the hall when he first meets Frederich. As he said during the proposal scene “You will [fall in love], it’s your way, you will and I’ll watch.” And he does watch; he watches from the hallway.

“You were my town, now I’m in exile seeing you out“

Laurie was in love with Jo. Sure, it was a juvenile, naive love, but he still felt like he loved her enough to marry her. Now, he watches from afar as she does the one thing she swore she’d never do.

“I can see you staring honey, like he’s just your understudy. Like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me.“

Now it’s Jo’s turn. She knows seeing her with Fred hurts Laurie, but he already hurt her. She knows Laurie sees Fred as not good enough for her, because he’s defensive and protective and some part of him still loves her. He always will.

“Second, third, and hundredth chances, balancing on breaking branches. Those eyes add insult to injury.”

Jo was about to give Laurie a second chance when she came back. She was going to marry him and out everything aside. Of course, this was probably directly in response to Beth’s death, which rattled her due to losing yet another person. She probably realized that the only way to make sure no one else left was to take Laurie back, but she most likely didn’t really understand that was why she did what she did. Unfortunately, Laurie comes back married, and then she’s walking on eggshells because of her strong feelings about him. The way he talks to her and acts loving toward her just makes it worse.

“I’m not your problem anymore, so who am I offending now?”

Jo realizes she has caused Laurie a lot of pain. She’s used to her temper causing issues in her life, but he always stayed with her. Now that she’s lost him, she wonders who she will hurt next.

“We always walked a very thin line”

Laurie and Jo were best friends, but as they got older, they walked a very thin line between brotherly/sisterly love and romantic love. Everyone thought they should have gotten married. Laurie crossed the line. Jo didn’t.

”You didn’t even hear me out (you didn’t even hear me out)“

For Laurie, this line means that he tried to “make you hear now and give me an answer” when he proposed. He thought they’d be good together because they were so close. For Jo, this line is different. She tried to make him hear her out in why they wouldn’t work. She wanted to be independent and she knew her stubborn, headstrong tendencies would ruin any marriage, and that would ruin their friendship.

“You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)”

Laurie thought Jo loved him back, and was naive to the fact that she didn’t want to marry. Her reaction to Meg’s marriage should have been enough proof, but he was blind and believed she felt differently.

“All this time, I never learned to read your mind (never learned to read my mind) I couldn’t turn things around.”

I think that the complications of Jo and Laurie’s relationship would definitely be solved if they weren’t such opposites. If they had understood each other as they grew older and “read” each other’s minds, all the confusion never would have happened. When Jo came back from New York, she tried to turn things around, but in the end it was too late. Of course, all of this was for the better, and the two of them matured and stayed friends. Romance was not for them.

I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending.

-Bella

The One-Jo March

Welcome to my (Bella’s) new installment on the blog! I’ll be going through Taylor Swift’s new albums (Folklore and Evermore) and connecting the songs to characters from Little Women.

I easily and quickly connected this song to Jo March, and more specifically to Jo’s relationship with Laurie.

“I’m doing good I’m on some new sh*t”

I see this song as Jo’s narrative in regards to Laurie, and the way she views their relationship now that she’s grown up. She’s gone away to New York, onto some new things, meeting people and living life. She thinks about her childhood best friend often, though.

”I hit the ground running each night, I hit the Sunday matinee“

This line is pretty straightforward, as well as specific (in regards to the (2019) movie—not so much in the book). While in New York, Jo goes to many plays, one of them being the play she meets Frederich at. This is also a parallel to the play(s) she attended with Laurie when she was younger.

“And if you never bleed you’re never gonna grow, and it’s alright now”

Jo hurt herself in rejecting Laurie, though it’s not because she was in love with him in the same way. She lost him as her friend because she ran away from her problems. But, she became a grown person with a semi-successful career and found love—different love—but still love. It’s alright now.

“And if my wishes came true, it would have been you”

Jo tells her mother that she regrets not accepting Laurie’s proposal, and that if he asked her again she would say yes. She even writes him a note, but destroys it before he can find it. She is desperate, and wishes to be loved, and wishes for the people she had in her childhood to come back.

“In my defense I have none, for never leaving well enough alone”

Jo simply could have accepted the proposal and been happy with Laurie (or at least that’s what she thinks). The relationship was comfortable, if unfulfilling, and friendly. She could have pushed down her pride and not been so headstrong, and she could have kept him. Not because she loved him romantically, but because she was afraid of losing yet another person from her childhood.

“I had this dream you’re doing cool sh*t/having adventures on your own”

After Jo leaves, Laurie goes off to Europe. He does have adventures on his own, then…not on his own. Jo doesn’t know this though, not until they are reunited a while later.

“You know the greatest loves of all time are over now”

Everyone expected the pair to marry—according to Laurie at least. Everyone thought they loved each other, and they did, just not in the same ways. Jo loved Laurie as a friend, a comrade. Laurie loved Jo in a juvenile, puppy-love kind of way, like he’d had a crush on her for so long that he viewed that familiarity as love. As they grew, they both recognized their love for each other was not the kind of love you marry for.

“And it’s another day waking up alone”

When Jo talks to Marmee, she admits that she’s “so lonely” and only desires to be loved.

“In my defense I have none, for digging up the grave another time”

Jo stirs these feelings up herself after she comes home. She is confused and sad and grieving, and misses the one thing she believes she can get back. She’s lost everyone else; Meg, Amy, and Beth are all gone. Laurie, she believes, is still reversible, and then she’ll get to keep some part of her childhood bliss. Of course, as the lyrics explain, that is already dead, and she’s just digging up old feelings that have no right coming back into the light.

But it would have been fun if you would have been the one.

-Bella