gold rush is about karlie kloss, a thread

the song captures taylor stepping into a fantasy. she’s imagining what it would be like (what it was like) to be with someone that “everybody wants”.

she describes it as a “gold rush”, alluding to the california gold rush when men flocked to the state in search of gold. in this case, men are throwing themselves at the object of taylor’s affection, hoping they’ll get lucky and strike gold

the song references a coastal town where taylor and her love are able to “wander ‘round” and be themselves, away from all the attention. this is a reference to taylor and karlie’s infamous road trip to big sur in 2014.

while there, they did a “best friends” photo shoot for vogue’s february 2015 cover.

a year later, during vogue’s 73 questions, an interviewer asks taylor where he should take his wife for a romantic trip and she responds “big sur”

the song then says the memory “fades into the gray...cause it could never be”, as though the relationship was doomed from the start. why? because, taylor reminds herself, she had been viewing the whole thing through rose-colored glasses (“double vision in rose blush”)

when she fantasizes about the relationship, she tends to forget the hard parts. she’s built karlie up in her head (“what must it be like to grow up that beautiful”), as though she were some mythical thing.

the song takes a turn in the second verse. taylor can’t dare to dream about karlie anymore. she acknowledges that karlie inspired much of her music up to this point (“my mind turns your life into folklore”), but she decides that she needs to say goodbye to the fantasy.

“cause it will never be”

what could have inspired taylor to use the gold rush metaphor? https://twitter.com/augusthalo/status/1390410193243156487