Taylor Swift: The Real Life Wendy Darling?

Kathryn Akers

Local Journalist

Recently, I re-read J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, the original story of Peter Pan. Immediately after finishing the novel, I listened to Taylor Swift’s music and noticed a lot of parallels and references between Swift’s music and Barrie’s novel. While The Tortured Poets Department has obvious references with song names such as “Peter” and “I Look in People’s Windows,” Swift has been making Peter and Wendy references since 2010 in her album Speak Now. Let’s dive into the storyline of Peter and Wendy and how it has shaped Taylor Swift’s discography throughout the years.

Speak Now

The earliest reference to Peter and Wendy I discovered is in Swift’s song “Innocent,” from her album Speak Now. The song’s narrator says, “your string of lights is still bright to me. Oh, who you are is not where you’ve been. You’re still an innocent.” The “string of lights” is a reference to the night-lights in the Darling’s nursery, when “[Michael] asked, “Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?” “Nothing, precious,” [Mrs. Darling] said; “they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children.” Swift’s lyrics are inspired by the safety of the night-lights and the innocence of youth. Swift is saying the person she’s singing about is still an innocent person despite the questionable things they have done. This could be taken in the context of Wendy talking to one or both of her brothers. Michael and John did some questionable things throughout the storyline, but it all boils down to child mischievousness. In the song lyrics, Wendy is telling them that they still have their childlike wonder and the protection of the night-lights.

Folklore

I am far from the first person to make the connection between J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy and Taylor Swift’s lyrics. However, this connection was theoretical until Swift released folklore in 2020. In folklore’s lead single, “cardigan,” Swift says, “I knew you. Tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy.” This is the first explicit reference to the Peter and Wendy storyline in Swift’s discography. Ironically, this is also the folklore reference that can be taken solely at face value. Even listeners not familiar with the Peter and Wendy storyline can recognise the reference.

Later in folklore, “seven” also references Wendy and Peter. Lyrics from “seven” read: “Your dad is always mad, and that must be why. And I think you should come live with me, and we can be pirates.” This implicitly references Wendy and Peter. George Darling is known for his temper. In the beginning of the novel, he says, “I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my neck we don’t go out to dinner tonight, and if I don’t go out to dinner tonight, I never go to the office again, and if I don’t go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the streets.” This sets the premise for the beginning of Swift’s lyrics. It’s pretty clear that the narrator of “seven” is Peter trying to get Wendy to follow him to Neverland.

The Tortured Poets Department

Taylor Swift’s most vulnerable and poetic album, The Tortured Poets Department, has a plethora of both implicit and explicit Peter and Wendy references. In “I Look In People’s Windows,” the novel’s storyline is heavily alluded to. While Swift doesn’t name specific characters, she does sing: “I look in people’s windows, in case you’re at their table.” Anyone familiar with the Peter and Wendy story can infer that those lyrics are spoken from Peter’s perspective. At the end of Barrie’s novel, when Peter returns to the Darling residence for the last time in the novel, “the window blew open as of old, and Peter dropped on the floor.” The only time Peter enters the Darling’s house is through the nursery window. Swift takes this plot point and writes a song from Peter’s perspective, emphasizing his yearning for one last shared moment with Wendy.

Contrary to “I Look In People’s Windows,” Swift’s song, “Peter,” is an explicit reference to Barrie’s novel. If it isn’t obvious by the song’s title that this song is about Peter Pan, Swift makes other references to confirm listener suspicions. The line “Lost to the Lost Boys chapter of your life” calls out the group of self-proclaimed “Lost Boys” that Peter is the designated leader of. “Peter” is told from Wendy’s perspective. It is presumably a letter to Peter Pan in which Wendy apologizes to Peter for moving on with her life and growing up. “Peter” is an emotional one-way conversation from Wendy to Peter.

Taylor Swift’s discography is riddled with easter eggs alluding to J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy. From referencing night-lights in the Darling nursery in “Innocent” to explicitly referencing the novel in “Peter,” Swift loves incorporating allegories from Barrie’s story in her songwriting. References to Peter and Wendy span across sixteen years and nine albums of Swift’s work. That raises the question: Is Taylor Swift the real-life Wendy Darling?