From Spotify Studios, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible

episodes. I'm Cole Kishna and I'm TT Shodia. Yeah. Today we continue our serialized analysis of lemonade by Beyoncé.

On our last episode, we dissected the chapter Anger,

which features the song Don't Hurt Yourself.

There we found Beyonce unleashing her rage, reclaiming her agency, and forcefully demanding the respect of her partner through a series of threats and ultimatums. This is your final warning.

You know I give you lies.

If you try this shit again,

go lose the white.

Ultimately, we understood the destruction of Beyonce's rage to be the necessary

flood that eventually leads to rebuilding, though it's currently unclear

whether that rebuild will include her partner.

With this in mind, we continue into the album's next chapter, the subject of our episode

today, apathy. Apathy opens with an eerie music box rendition of Swan Lake by Russian

composer Peter Tchaikovsky. Swan Lake is a classical ballet centered around the heroine Odette, a maiden cursed by an evil

sorcerer to take the form of a swan by day and a woman by night.

The curse can only be broken when a man pledges his undying love to her. Only then

will Odette and her fellow swan maidens become free. When Odette meets a prince and they fall in love,

it looks as though the curse may finally be broken.

However, the evil sorcerer once again intervenes by disguising his daughter Odil as Odette.

Believing that Odil is Odette, the prince mistakenly falls in love with

Odil and announces his intention to marry her. The real Odette, heartbroken at this

portrayal, throws herself off a cliff.

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