"Sad Beautiful Tragic" Song Meaning

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Sad Beautiful Tragic" from her Red album.

At first I thought this song might have been about Jake Gyllenhaal, the hint in the song was WHILE YOU WERE ON A TRAIN.  Over the last few weeks I've gained some more insight to this song, specifically from Taylor.

She didn't perform this song until September 8th, the last month of her Red USA tour.  And then she performed it the very last night of her Red tour.  The reason she didn't perform it before and performed it the last night is it is a song that is REALLY special to her.  She even tweeted about performing it live, and she doesn't normally do that.  If it was a song about Jake, she wouldn't have had so much reservation about performing it and she wouldn't have saved it til the last night of her tour when her fans were begging her to perform, "Tied Together With A Smile".

"What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair..." Live in St. Paul, MN: http://t.co/6UR6OezRga
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) September 9, 2013

Taylor said in her stories behind the red songs, "Sad Beautiful Tragic is a song that wrote while I was on tour. It was just reflecting on something that was lost, and you can't get it back."

What was lost?

Taylor and Austin Swift

Her parents love, her parents have separated and/or divorced.  I don't really know all the details, and don't need to know, but this song is about their love..

That's why it means so much to her, why she had hesitations about performing it, and why she performed it at her finale concert.

On September 8th in St. Paul Minnesota she said, "This is a song that I wrote about how just because something is over doesn't mean it wasn't incredibly beautiful.  Cause another lesson I've learned is that not all stories have a happy ending and you have to learn how to deal with that. This is a song about a story that didn't end so happily, but it was still supposed to happen.  This is called, Sad Beautiful Tragic."

She has had to learn how to deal with her parents not being together.

On September 21, 2013 Taylor said in her introduction to this song, "It's [Red] an album I'm really proud of and I'm so glad you welcomed it into your life. On the last night of the Red tour I kind of want to play a song from Red that I never really play, but it's a song that really means a lot to me because a lot of the time when you think about love you think about how it has to have a happy ending for it to count but this is a song that I wrote about a love that didn't have a happy ending, but it was still worth writing about, and it's worth singing about. This is called Sad Beautiful Tragic."

Like Taylor said, her parents marriage was supposed to happen.  Taylor and Austin would not have been born, and Taylor still loves both her parents.  This song means alot to me too.  My parents are divorced and things were not always amicable between them, but I love them both dearly.  My dad passed away and there is a giant hole in my heart.  I don't regret that they got together, but rather celebrate it like Taylor does. I am both of them, both of them are part of me.

"distance, timIng, breakdowN, fighting
silence, the train runs off its tracks
kiss me, try to fix it
could you just try to listen?
hang up, give up and for the life of us
we can't get back..."

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Sad Beautiful Tragic."

Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting, silence.  They were the driving factors in her parents split.  They couldn't make up.  But in spite of that they had "a beautiful magic love". You can't always get happily ever after back, but the journey of love and what it brings is worth it.

Austin, Scott, Andrea and Taylor