On first listen, the upbeat music production of "Forever Winter" may cloak the heartbreaking story about mental health disorders it tells.
The song is presumably about Swift's late friend, Jeff Lang, who died at 21. When accepting the Country Songwriter of the Year honour at 2010 BMI awards, Swift dedicated the award to Lang, whose funeral she attended the day earlier. "It's been a really emotional week for me... He was 21, and I used to play my songs for him first. So I would like to thank Jeff Lang," she said.
In "Forever Winter," Swift looks back on a friend's unspoken pleas for help and despondently wonders if she could've helped him had she known what he was going through. "All this time I didn't know / You were breaking down," "He says, 'It's not just a phase I'm in,'" and "He spends most of his flights getting pulled down by gravity," she sings in the song.