Both songs with a payoff at the end: she’s so weary from the solitary burden of memory, she decides to stop lugging it. In the final line of “Dear John,” she switches from “I should have known” to “YOU should have known.” In “All Too Well,” she goes from “I remember it all” to “YOU remember it all.” The feminist rage is there in her voice, as she recalls a certain trauma, unsure if she will be believed or even taken seriously. Her older self checks in on her barely younger self and insists that she really saw what she saw and she really felt what she felt and it all really happened.
