"The Last Time" Song Meaning

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "The Last Time" from her new "Red" album.

She wrote this song with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol.  It is a duet, he starts off by telling his side of the story and Taylor then tells hers.

Who is it about?

courtesy of taylorswift.com

The first clue is a door.  It is a focus of the song.  Taylor says in her Paint the World Red website " 'The Last Song' is a song that I wrote with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol. This was a song I wrote about something I had been going through where you've got.  I picture a door and you've got on the outside of the door standing outside in the cold is this guy who's left his girlfriend over and over again and come back and asked for a second chance over and over and over again. And on the other side of the door you have this girl standing there with tears in her eyes wondering how she could possibly turn him away when she loves him this much, but she can't get hurt again. It's both of these people swearing that this will be the last time.  She is swearing this is the last time she is going to take him back, he swears its the last time he's going to leave her and hurt her.  It's a really intense song and I'm so proud to have Gary on the record."

It is interesting she uses the word "swear" here too, a word she used in "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" to describe "Then you come around again and say 
'baby, i miss you and i swear i'm gonna change'".  The two are connected.

And we have already established,  "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" is about Jake Gyllenhaal! Further hints come in the music video.

This is a screen shot from "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". The guy appears twice in the video at her door, one time he is leaving and looking confused at the door, the next he is knocking at the door wanting to come back. In this song the guy "find[s] myself at your door/Just like all those times before." He then implies he wants to get back together by saying, "This is the last time i’m asking you this/Put my name at the top of your list."  But it is very hard for Taylor, "You find yourself at my door/Just like all those times before/You wear your best apology/But I was there to watch you leave/And all the times I let you in/Just for you to go again."  He comes to the door, apologizes, but then leaves, breaks up with her, and then asks to come back again.  The use of the word again means he has done this before and what word is in WANEGBT?  The word again,
 "Then you come around again and say
'baby, i miss you and i swear i'm gonna change'".

Click here for lyrics to the song, "The Last Time."

The last hint may be one specifically for Jake to let him know what caused her so much pain, LA ON YOUR BREAK.  In between promoting his film "Love and Other Drugs" he went to his house in LA in December 2010.  Taylor joined him for a while and then went back to New York.  She had a party for her birthday, but he stayed in LA.  From the song The Moment I Knew Taylor says, "You said you’d be here, you said you’d be here".  But her never came for her and she was crushed.  This was the last straw, "the moment I knew".  It was her 21st birthday, a big deal birthday and he wasn't there.

(This is probably my least favorite song on the album.  I like it, but I do not love it like I love the other songs.  I think it is Gary Lightbody's influence.  She wrote it with him and to me it sounds like a Snow Patrol song, not a Taylor Swift song.  I like some Snow Patrol songs, just not their slow songs.)