Day 36: Riddle Me This

Today's post is going to be unusually short, but I have a good reason. I already have 2 songs picked out to talk about tomorrow, but I first I want to involve the audience a little bit. The two songs I want to talk about are Enchanted  and You Are In Love. In my opinion, one of these songs is way better than the other, but I want to see if you can figure it out before i reveal it. For those of you who don't know, You Are In Love is an exclusive song to the 1989 deluxe version. First person to correctly guess will get a free slice of salami, courtesy of me!

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 35: Would Smell As Sweet

If you're an exceptionally eagle-eyed reader, you probably already know what today's post is about. Today I'll be discussing another one of Taylor's biggest hits, Love Story from the 2008 album Fearless.

Saying that this song pulls from Romeo and Juliet would be an understatement. Taylor and the love interest in the song are referred to as Romeo and Juliet disrespectively, but even the basics of the story have similarities. Taylor and Romeo are forbidden from being together for unknown reasons, which is a smart decision from a songwriting decision. Taylor often makes the mistake of going into too much detail which can end up making the song feel a lot less relatable. But here it's kept just vague enough to let the audience fill in their reasons for the separation. Regardless, Taylor implies that it has a lot to do with their families.

"We were both young when I first saw you"

"And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet"

"We keep quiet 'cause we're dead if they knew
So close your eyes, escape this town for a little while"

Again, the details are left to the imagination but there's plenty to work with here. The lyrics really give the impression that they are trapped together in a small town with a similar social group, but due to the specifics of the structure they just can't be together. It's pretty sappy, but it's great if that's what you're into.

Using Romeo and Juliet as a measure for romance may be cliche, but in my opinion criticizing it for that reason alone would be unfair. Some may see Taylor's use of the play as ignorant since the original text is a tragedy, but I'd like to give her a little more credit. Everything in this song leads the listener to believe that it will end in tragedy, and the allusions to Romeo and Juliet are no exception. They both die in the end (spoilers), and Taylor was well aware of this while writing Love Story. After all, there's a reason her dad has been warning her about not becoming Juliet. This way when all is happy in the end it feels more earned.

There are some problems with the writing, but I think in the end the positives outweigh them. Some of the lines lack subtlety, but it's never too over the top.

"Romeo save me, they're trying to tell me how to feel
This love is difficult, but it's real"

A pretty good line followed by a pretty awful one. The only other major criticism I would have is ending the story with a marriage proposal. I know it's a romance fantasy, but this extends a little too far, especially in the contexts of the song. After all, Romeo and Juliet aren't exactly paragons of lasting love. Romeo had probably already moved on by the time Juliet reached the afterlife. Actually, that's a pretty good idea for a play or something. Someone should get on that. Anyways, that's all for today.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 34: By Any Other Name

For those of you who aren't aware, today's post will be a continuation of yesterday's review of Blank Space. Go read it if you haven't, then come back for the rest.

While the start of this song lays out the topic and themes exceptionally well, most of the rest of the song builds on these ideas while slowly shifting the focus from the intoxicating parts of the relationship to the straight up toxic. It's like Taylor in this song is some sort of reverse Sour Patch kid that starts out sweet and is sour in the middle.

New motto?

"Got a long list Starbucks lovers of ex-lovers
They'll tell you I'm insane
'Cause you know I love the players
And you love the game"

This is the type of writing Taylor loves, where she takes a common phrase, in this case "don't hate the player, hate the game" and adds a twist to get it to fit in the context of her song. I think it works especially well in this context, since it again frames the relationship as a mistake Taylor can't wait to make.

I also want to talk more about the music video. I mentioned it yesterday, but it fits the song so well that it's worth coming back to. That, and it's a goddamn meme machine. I should try and get all my memes from Taylor Swift music videos. 

A fine addition to my collection

The video does a great job matching each line in the song to a visual that compliment it. Sometimes it's a simple as as Taylor screaming the word "screaming", but it often gets more nuanced than that. Taylor stabs Sean's painting while she says "worth the pain" really just driving that point home. You don't just see Taylor's wrath, you can really feel the emotion behind it when the audio and visual cued work together that well.

The whole scene with the apple is a little much for me, but I don't think it's that bad. Like, I get that Sean is supposed to be the apple, but it comes a little too out of nowhere for me to really connect with it. It has very good direction and cuts though, which ends up just making it a fun scene to watch.

The music video as a whole is just a treat and I recommend watching it several times to try and really get the various strategies it uses to get it's point across. I could probably spend another two posts talking about it, but unfortunately I need to cut it off today. There's a small chance I will come back to Blank Space in the future, but it will probably be a while. Overall my opinion on this song is that it lives up to how popular it was, and it's music video really adds on to that quality,

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 33: That Which We Call a Rose

I've talked before about Blank Space and how much I like it, but I think that the amount of details that can go unnoticed in this song warrant it getting its own post. I'll also be discussing some details from the music video, as I think that they tie in very well with the tone the music goes for. Go ahead and watch the video as a nice reminder, since it's been a while since I discussed it. A quick disclaimer, this song isn't actually how Taylor thinks about relationships (probably), but rather is meant to satirize the cynical way that her relationships are portrayed by the media.

Anyone fall for that? For some reason I can't embed this video anymore even though I did it in the second post. Weird. Anyways I trust that you'll be able to navigate yourself to YouTube to watch it yourself. I'll even link to it for you. Wow, I'm so nice!

One of the biggest strengths of this song is how each line builds on the last, giving us more information about the relationship between Taylor and the hypothetical dude I will be referring to as "Sean", which is his name in the music video, assuming you're the kind of person who trusts arboreal manuscription. Now that I'm thinking about it, I hope Sean doesn't count as a named character in a Taylor Swift song, I didn't include him in yesterday's post. Anyways, let's take this song line by line to see what I mean.

"Nice to meet you, where you been?
I could show you incredible things"

If you were alive when this song was released then you have most likely heard it a million times. If that's the case then you already know what this song is about and these lines probably won't seem as impressive to you. But try to consider it from someone who has never heard it before. These lines say a lot. Two people who have never met getting acquainted, but wasting no time. They know where the relationship is heading before it even begins, and Taylor already knows how it's going to end. Also, let's take a second to recognize how hilariously handsome they made Sean. Like seriously. humans don't look like that. 

We get it, you smolder

Moving on. Here's the next lines.

"Magic, madness, heaven, sin
Saw you there and I thought
Oh my God, look at that face
You look like my next mistake
Love’s a game, want to play?"

I love how Taylor slips "madness" into her list of wonders like it's chemical X about to make some Powerpuff Girls. You'll catch it on your first listen if you're paying close attention, but it's probably just going to slip by since it sounds so appealing. That's exactly what Taylor's going for, since this is how she's treating Sean, trying to lure him in even though there are hints of what's to come. The next lines do a great job of showing Taylor's mentality around relationships, being mostly superficial and knowing they are just temporary and for fun. It does this all without explicitly stating how she feels, only showing her reactions to meeting someone as stupidly gorgeous as good-ol'-Sean. Audiences typically find this more compelling, as it puts us in Taylor's shoes at the moment of meeting rather than reminiscing about past events which can get old. As much as I love songs like Enchanted, this is certainly a weakness that they tend to share.

Notice the hatchet in the painting behind Taylor, hinting at her Cruel Intentions

"New money, suit and tie
I can read you like a magazine
Ain't it funny, rumors, lie
And I know you heard about me"

This is a huge inversion from how Taylor has framed her relationships in the past. She's typically framed as being on equal footing with the Seans of the world at best, with some songs, like Dear John, depicting her outright as the much less experienced half of the relationship. Of course, there was a four year gap between these songs' releases so this is to be expected. John Mayer was in his thirties when he started dating the nineteen year old Taylor Swift, so maybe I do think that nineteen's too young.

But now Taylor is the one burning young'uns out! She's deliberately playing her experience and perceived role as a player to get all the Muscular Mannys to her Mann Manor. 

"So hey, let's be friends
I'm dying to see how this one ends
Grab your passport and my hand
I can make the bad guys good for a weekend"

These lines are great because each one reiterates the point that Taylor already knows that this relationship is doomed from the start, but each does it in a decidedly positive light. It takes some pretty nefarious intentions and proceeds to frame them so cheerfully that Sean can't help but say yes. Notice how each line is phrased as a proposition of an adventure but presumes a conclusion. That's what good writing looks like.

Another thing you might notice is that I am less than a minute into this song and this post is already getting to be on the longer side. So in yet another unprecedented 100DoTS move, I am going to have tomorrow's post be an extension of this one. That's right, it's a two-part episode! Stay tuned for more blank space.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 32: What's in a Name?

Pretty early on into this project I caught on to a strange trend in Taylor Swift's music. Her early works often give the featured characters, usually love interests, names, while her more recent songs hardly ever do so. Here's a list of the songs that do this, including which album they belong to.

Teardrops on my Guitar - Taylor Swift

Stay Beautiful - Taylor Swift

Fifteen - Fearless

Hey Stephen - Fearless

Dear John - Speak Now

I Almost Do* - Red

Wildest Dreams* - 1989

It's worth noting that scholars disagree on the interpretation of I Almost Do and Wildest Dreams, some (myself included) reading certain lines as including names while others disagree and read them differently. I'm not going to force my beliefs on you, beloved audience, but I would recommend at least familiarizing yourself with both sides of the argument. Regardless it's clear that at the very least these songs have less explicit names for the characters.

It's also worth noting that Abigail is the only named character who isn't a current or former love interest. I think this is mostly a consequence of Taylor's usual topics. After all, most of her songs are about men she's loved. While there are many notable exceptions, it makes sense that most of the names characters will be love interests since most of the characters in all her songs, named or not, fall under this category.

It's not difficult to argue the truth of this trend, what is much harder is trying to uncover why it exists in the first place. One argument is the genre shift from country to pop, but I find this less than convincing. If feels true that country songs will name their characters more often, but I have yet to see any data produced by my contemporaries to support this.

An argument that I find slightly more convincing is that of timing. Again I have seen no data to support this, but less current songs in the mainstream have named characters than those in the past. I know that 2006 wasn't that long ago, but consider that earlier in Taylor's career she borrowed musical elements from many more artists than she did in her later albums. Of the older troupes she made use of, using specific names is pretty minor, but noticeable enough that as her style evolved these uses slowly faded away.

I didn't cover the specifics of how she uses the names so that i could keep this post on the shorter side, but some of them are pretty interesting, Let me know going into that seems interesting and I may dive further into it in a future post.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 31: Go Go Go

I've said before that I think Taylor Swift's 2012 album Red has a tone problem. For the most part I think this holds true to some extent, but there's one song where the tone is so blatantly off that it really gets in the way of me enjoying an otherwise good song. Stay Stay Stay is a classic example of what can happen when the music is poorly matched to the lyrics of a song. This makes the song a fine listen at first, but the more I hear it the more frustrated I become with it. To explain what I mean we need to figure out what's happening in the song to begin with.

"I'm pretty sure we almost broke up last night
I threw my phone across the room at you
I was expecting some dramatic turn-away
But you stayed"

This a actually a pretty strong opening to a song. We learn a lot about the relationship in a short period of time. The hot emotions and uncertain nature of everything suggests that it's relatively new, while still being around long enough to have the strength to survive a fight. The way Taylor lingers on the word "you" followed by the brief "stayed" effectively communicates how happy, albeit somewhat surprised, Taylor feels that the dude stuck around. This is even built on pretty well by the chorus, which talks pretty much the same thing.

"Stay, stay, stay
I've been lovin' you for quite some time, time, time
You think that it's funny when I'm mad, mad, mad
But I think that it's best if we both stay"

My core problem with this song is that the serious subject matter of trying to keep a relationship together is paired with an extremely lighthearted tone that undercuts the message Taylor is trying to deliver. This is tricky, since it toes the line between denial and a positive attitude in the face of an issue. I see this song as being on the side of denial, and I think the following line shows this best.

"This morning I said we should talk about it
'Cause I read you should never leave a fight unresolved
That's when you came in wearing a football helmet and said "okay, let's talk."

I'm not gonna linger on the football helmet even though it comes out of nowhere and leads to nothing. Instead, try to notice the healthy communication here. The issue is that this is immediately followed by the chorus. Now here's the important part. The chorus doesn't actually address any issues with the relationship. Staying together because just the other person can tolerate you isn't a healthy response to a serious fight, and this only gets worse as the song progresses.

"All those times that you didn't leave
It's been occurring to me 

I'd like to hang out with you, for my whole life"

Going into the details of a hypothetical relationship would have been a bad idea for a song like this. That said, escalating it to the level of suggesting marriage is completely unwarranted. Everything we've been told about this couple suggests that it has some serious issues, so pushing those aside with no resolution just makes this conclusion feel unearned. I think it's best summarized by Taylor at the very end of the song, in one line caught in the studio that they decided to leave in.

"It's so fun"

I can't disagree. This song is a lot of fun, but presenting itself this way around actual relationship problems without an actual solution doesn't make for a cohesive song. In this way it's biggest strength ends up being it's biggest weakness.

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 30: Fifteen

I've been listening to Fearless so much that I figure I might as well do another post about it while it's still fresh on my mind. One of the silliest songs on the album is Fifteen. This is one of the few songs that I came in having never recalled hearing, but even now I have a hard time when trying to actually evaluate it's quality. Usually this occurs because of nostalgia getting in the way, but for Fifteen it's something totally different. It really comes down to how the song just isn't for me. And I don't mean that as a polite way of saying that I dislike it; the song's target audience is 15 year old girls which, believe it or not, I am not.

The lyrics have virtually no layer of symbolism behind them, Taylor pretty much just right out says what she means. When the goal of a song is to very clearly get a message across to a young audience, this is a good strategy. I'm not saying teenagers are incapable of understanding nuance but if what you're saying is important it's probably better to avoid beating around the bush. It's the same reason that a passive-aggressive fire alarm would be a bad idea.

"Hey, you busy?"
"Oh hey fire alarm-san, how's it going?"

"Oh it's okay, I was just wondering if you were planning on doing anything about the fire?"

"What? There's a fire? Oh my god, why didn't you tell me?"
"Well maybe you would've noticed the smoke if you weren't so busy writing your Taylor Swift blog and paid attention to how I was doing, asshole!"

Hmmm. That's not quite where I expected that to go. Well they say you should write what you know! Anyways there are some pretty amusing parts of this song. Even the chorus has some pretty high potential for memes.

'"Cause when you're fifteen and
Somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them"

When I listen to these lyrics I can't help think of the old children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. It's a classic book about a selfish mouse who can't stop asking for things, even though all he does it take and never gives anything in return. This makes it the perfect metaphor for the relationships of high school freshman!

This version was actually just a strategy to catch predators

There are also some other pretty solid lines. Check these out.

"It's your freshman year
And you're gonna be here for the next four years in this town
Hoping one of those senior boys
Will wink at you and say, "you know I haven't seen you around, before"

Like I said, pretty on the nose. Also gross? Apparently fifteen year old girls want to be hit on by literal adults? I mean if that's what you're into that's...cool I guess? I don't know, I'm treading on some thin water here by pondering the interests of underage girls so I'm just gonna move on.

"Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday
But I realized some bigger dreams of mine
And Abigail gave everything she had
To a boy who changed his mind
And we both cried"

Hol' up. Did Abigail have sex with that man? Does that mean Taylor is implying that a woman's virginity is everything she has to give to a man? Or did she decide to marry him? Are they still fifteen? Why am I still talking about the sex lives of hypothetical children? I need to know way more and way, way less! I just wanted to have a good time making fun of this song, goddammit! 

Ugh okay I'm done. For the record, the line where Taylor decided that this guy wasn't actually very important was pretty good. Also I just realized that Taylor uses both 1st and 2nd person perspective all in the same song and it's driving me crazy.

1st person: "Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday"

2nd person: "You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors"

Twice the pronouns, double the quality

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 29: The Way I Loved You

That's right everyone, today is the finally the day that I discuss a song off Taylor Swift's 2008 album Fearless. What's more, I found a song that I can actually say something good about that isn't a hit single. It's not a masterpiece by any means but it's a good time for sure. So let's get right into it and talk about The Way I Loved You.

One of the biggest strengths of this song is that Taylor takes her time with it. The "plot" of the song is that Taylor is in a relationship with a really nice respectful guy but can't get her previous relationship out of her head. What's more is that her previous boyfriend was almost objectively worse; Taylor seems to miss the chaos and energy more than anything else. But Taylor doesn't let us know this right away, the first minute of the song solely details how amazing the new guy is and how she doesn't dislike him one bit. I found this especially funny because this is almost exactly how I described the way this album made me feel in the past. Plain and delicious as an unseasoned hard-boiled egg.

"He's charming and endearing, and I'm comfortable
But I miss screamin' and fightin'
And kissin' in the rain"

This pretty much sums it up. Taylor here isn't looking for comfort, she's trying to find excitement through her relationship and Mr. Egg just doesn't deliver. Sometimes quantity of emotion is more important than quality (apparently).

"Breakin' down and comin' undone
It's a roller-coaster kinda rush
And I never knew I could feel that much
And that's the way I loved you"

It almost seems like Taylor cares less about the previous guy himself than the excitement the relationship brought her, but that's getting a little too deep in relationship dynamics for this blog. Regardless, this is certainly a justifiable train of thought for an 18 year old who is still learning what it even means to be in a relationship at all.

Another thing this song does well compared to it's contemporaries is creative use of the music. There's a pretty serious shift in music style between the descriptions of the two relationships. The boring Eggbert is accompanied by very traditional, repetitive string instruments while the cool guy gets electric guitars. There's also just more instruments playing at once, bringing out the feeling of energy and chaos. Taylor also includes a lot of minor details in this song that make listening to it repeatedly more interesting than most of the other songs on this album.

There's plenty about this song that I don't like; I think it's repetitive music ends up hurting it as much as it helps. But, the point of this post is to prove to myself that I can find things in Fearless that I like, and this song is just good enough for that. It's nowhere near being one of my favorites but it's a fun time.

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 28: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Today is Thanksgiving, which means it's time for a another retrospective look at the blog so far. One of the reasons I started this blog was to see if it was possible to be a fan of Taylor Swift without being a Taylor Swift fan. 28 Days Later and 0 zombies later, I can confidently say that I have achieved this goal. I have a real appreciation for Taylor's music, but I think I've made it plenty clear that there's a lot I don't think is very good. Overall, it's certainly a net positive. I've been having a blast even thought I've pretty much already run out of music.

So what now? Now that my objective has been satisfied what else is there to even talk about? I'm sure I'll have plenty more to say in these retrospectives in the future but I'm also lucky enough to have accrued enough of an audience to have some questions built up over time. So from here on out, holidays will double as half reflection and half Q&A. If you want your questions to make it on the Christmas post then the sooner the better to ask them! I'll answer as many as I can, but this blog already takes me way too long and it isn't even long. So without further ado, your questions and my answers.

Q: When are you going to finally talk about Fearless?
A: When it starts being good.

Q: Why are you doing this to yourself?
A: Why do people electrocute their nipples? Life is the most fun when you find fun ways to torture yourself. What I'm trying to say is that this is the Taylor Swift blogosphere version is self-flagellation.

Q: Will you stop listening to Swift when the 100 days is up?
A: Probably not. I expect myself to be in some level of shock when it first ends. Sort of like how POW's can't sleep on normal beds for like a year after getting back, except way less depressing. Also again, I'm doing this to myself so I obviously don't hate Taylor Swift music.

Q: What would you do if you met Taylor?
A: Probably nothing, maybe ask for a picture. I may be a fan but I try to remember that celebrities are people too. If you're asking if I would tell her about the blog, holy shit no. Is there a faster way to get your ass kicked by a bodyguard?

Q: Have you seen Taylor in concert?
A: No, and I probably never will, I'm not much of a concert person. She did visit Seattle in May, and funny enough I was actually across the street watching a Mariner's game. I remember very clearly because parking was a fucking nightmare. I would consider it in the future, but It'll probably be another 3 years before I get a chance and by then I'll probably be running a 24 hour twitch stream where I read Super Smash Bros fan fiction I find online while in full cosplay. Wait actually that's a pretty good idea.

Q: What's your favorite song so far?
A: Finally a hard question. I know it's pretty basic but right now I would probably say Mean, followed closely by Dress and Clean. Apparently I have a thing for short titles. This actually might not be a coincidence and I might do a post about it at some point.

Q: Do you think you're funny?
A: If I'm being totally honest I find myself hilarious. If I didn't then this whole thing would be way too boring.

Q: Will I see you tomorrow?
A: That's up to you.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 27: News

This isn't a news blog by any measure. I try to make a habit of not covering breaking news, gossip, and tabloids because the main goal of this blog is to evaluate Taylor Swift's works, not her life. That said, I think today is a little bit different.

Ever since her first album, Taylor Swift has been signed with Big Machine Records. That makes 13 years with the same company, and she has obviously flourished under that wing. Big Machine has arguably gotten the better deal however, since reportedly as much as 80% of their revenue comes from Taylor Swift's music. However, Taylor's contract with Big Machine ended recently and in the last few days it has been announced that she's signed with republic Records and Universal Music Group (UMG), two of the biggest players in music in the world.

If this was the entire story, I wouldn't be talking about it. However there were two stipulations in her contract that are a very big deal. The first one concerns only herself and guarantees that she retains the master rights for all her music moving forward. The second affects all creators under UMG and guarantees payout to musicians should they sell any shares in Spotify. The details are more than I want to go into, but essentially both of these changes give Taylor more security and agency over her music, with the second change helping all creators under the UMG label.

This is a big deal. While the specifics may not matter much to the average consumer, this is another data point in the current trend in the music industry to favoring musicians. It's also an aspect of Taylor's career I haven't discussed much on this blog but is inseparable from her character. Taylor's tight grip on her copyright gets her a lot of attention and she's gone as far as pulling all her music from Spotify in the past. In an interview with Vogue, Taylor said that her biggest piece of advice for young creators was to get a good lawyer. Is there anything more telling than that?

I personally find this all, for the most part, very admirable. It's easy to be cynical about people making decisions that earn them more money and it's difficult to describe Taylor Swift as "the little guy", but in my opinion fighting for more agency for yourself and your peers is never a bad thing. At worst I see this as a fancy way of asking for a raise. If you've ever had to do that you'll know just how difficult it can be. Being able to afford the best lawyers in the industry would certainly make it easier, but the same level of representation undoubtedly exists on the other side as well.

That's all I have to say for now. I don't have that much to say about this story but I figured it was big enough to be worth discussing for a day.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 26: I Hardly Know Her!

Today is the day folks. I will finally be discussing Taylor Swift's cinematic appearance in the 2014 adaptation of Lois Lowry's hit book The Giver. This post will contain minor spoilers for both the book and movie, so you may want to go consume (not literally) one or both as as fast as you can!

Cool poster, right? Actually, wrong! This poster obviously sucks because there's not Taylor Swift on it. Let me go find a better one real quick.

That's more like it! So the first thing any sane person will notice about this movie is it's all-star cast. Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes, Taylor Swift (of course), and the wonderful Alexander Skarsgård, best known for his role the model dressed in green from Zoolander who blew up in the gas station explosion. Oh, uh spoilers I guess? 

RIP Meekus

The second thing you'll notice about this movie is that it isn't very good. What makes it this extra disappointing is that it's almost pretty good, but it's short run-time really hurts it. The novel is so well loved because it spends so long digging into what it really means to be human, but 97 minutes just isn't enough to do that effectively. There are so many points where you'll want to stick around to know more about what's happening but the movie leaves you behind. It's the kind of movie going experience that can give you a pretty serious case of blue balls.

The worst offender has to be the role of Rosemary, played by Taylor Swift. Her character is hyped up so much and delivers on her first and second appearance and really get the audience hooked, but after this she literally never appears on screen again. She didn't even show up at the end in some sort of Star Wars force ghost Ewok party camo, which I was 100% expecting. 

I know I said it delivered, but to be honest there's not much to say about Taylor's performance. She certainly did what she needed to, but never got a chance to shine. For all I know they filmed three times what they showed and had to scrap it all because she botched it, but assuming that would be pretty unfair. I would still recommend watching the movie, it's a good time for sure. Not as good as Holes, but which one has Taylor Swift in it? Yeah, I thought so.

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 25: Charmin Ultra

I've said it before and many people have said it before me but I think it's worth reiterating that showing is more effective than telling when trying to communicate emotion. This is a skill that Taylor didn't really master until 1989, and I have an example today that I think demonstrates this very well. I'll mostly be pulling from the 1989 songs Blank Space  and Wildest Dreams because this is my blog and I make the rules. If you don't like it then make your own blog. Anyways let's take a look at some of the lines I've noticed.

Oh my god, look at those tendons

"Rose gardens filled with thorns" (Blank Space)

Short quote, yeah? Well that's kinda the point. Lots of the lines in this song do a good job of delivering it's message, but this is probably the best. Roses symbolize the love and beauty of the relationship, and the thorns are the risk of getting hurt. It's a simple and effective line, containing a song's worth of information packed into one beautiful metaphor. Taylor wastes no words either, something I should probably try and learn from. She doesn't say "This relationship is a rose garden filled with thorns" because she knows she doesn't have to. The result is five words that are emblematic of an entire song, something I dare you to find in a song before this album. 

For all I know there is some song in Fearless that does this effectively too, but Blank Space is by no means an outlier. I've talked before about the excellent impact of the lines in 1989, and extends to pretty much every song on the album. 

"Say you'll remember me 

Standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset babe" (Wildest Dreams)

Two whole lines? What is this, a goddamn essay? But yeah, I hope you see what I mean. These lines, like the ones in Blank Space, make excellent use of symbolism, this time with a sunset being both the end of a relationship and also a beautiful spectacle. Like the rose garden being the perfect symbol for Blank Space, the sunset is the perfect symbol for this idea. This is what I mean when I say 1989 is some of Taylor's best work; she picks a topic for a song and finds an incredibly impactful and relatable way to talk about it that makes intuitive sense to everyone. The songwriting process as whole has really come together in 1989 and it really shows. I know just yesterday I shat all over a song from this album but I really believe that to be an outlier. The techniques I talked about today are almost totally absent from Welcome to New York, but are mainstays in pretty much every other song.

See, this is why I can't get myself to listen to Fearless. How am I supposed to when better albums are sitting right there? I promise I will soon. But not too soon.

See you tomorrow,
-C

P.S. if you understand today's title you're a mf legend

Day 24: Taste

Taste

One some level, this entire project is completely fraught. At the end of the day, art is very subjective. As much I dislike songs like Speak Now and Red, if someone likes those songs then there's absolutely nothing I can do to convince them otherwise, and that's exactly how it should be! I'm not saying that there's no way to evaluate songs objectively; I'm sure that every person who has studied music theory is holding back from punching their screen right now. And there's no doubt that the quality of music certainly is aided by critical studies, but in my opinion it is much less useful when it comes to evaluating music. Hardly anyone can name the specific technical reasons that make them enjoy a given song which makes me think that it's not really necessary to include in critical analysis. At the very least, I think it's fair to say that what I lose in depth I gain in accessibility. The biggest problem with all the other non-stop Taylor Swift music based blogs I know is that they go way too in depth with the music theory.

So that will finally bring us to today's topic, the 1989 song, Welcome to New York. I don't like this song.I even said so in one of my first blog posts, so it's clearly been on my mind for quite some time now. The issue is that even after all this time I can't for the life of me come up with a concrete reason for why. This is definitely an area where I would expect critical music theory could help me, but like I said before I'm avoiding it because I'm lazy I think it's unnecessary.

In general this seems like a really polarizing song. Lots of people can't stand it, but there are plenty who absolutely love it! That said, about half of the people who like this song seem to only because it was in The Secret Life of Pets as the opening number, being the only sound to play before the main character, a dog voiced by Louis C.K., a decision that the producers are probably regretting right about now. The song actually works well in the movie, because it lets the audience know that the movie takes place in the big apple.

This poster is super creepy once you know the dog is Louis C.K.

It's a little on the nose for my taste, and this rings true throughout the entire song. But again, that's my opinion. This actually is a great fit for New York, since people who live there won't shut up about how great it is. This song was written at about the same time that Taylor moved to New York so it makes sense why it came to be, but that doesn't make it any less obnoxious.

Or maybe it's just being proud? See, that's the big issue with trying to critique this song compared to others; every argument that I make against it I can easily see how others could rightfully defend. It's somewhat repetitive, but only on in the catchy parts. Is it pandering or bold? I don't know and honestly I'm getting tired thinking about it. Avoiding these kinds of mental gymnastics is one of the reasons I started this blog, so I'm going to end it here before I get too bogged down.

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 23: So It Goes

You probably think you know where this is going. You think I'm going to talk about the Reputation song So It Goes. And you're not totally wrong. But really, this post isn't about the song but the phrase itself. There's actually a lot more going on here than seems at first.

I didn't know this at first, but So It Goes isn't actually a Taylor Swift original phrase. It's most well known for being a recurring phrase in one of Kurt Vonnegut's greatest works, Slaughterhouse-Five. Weird right? Yeah I haven't  actually read it and I'm not going to just so that today's post can be better. That said, I do know how to use the internet and I'm pretty sure that's good enough.

Vonnegut uses the phrase to mark a death, but there's a lot more to it than that. It's more of a statement about the pointlessness of dwelling on current circumstances no matter how things get. So let's see how Taylor uses it to see if there's any depth behind the allusion.

"And our pieces fall
Right into place
Get caught up in the moments
Lipstick on your face
So it goes
I'm yours to keep
And I'm yours to lose
You know I'm not a bad girl, but I
Do bad things with you
So it goes"

So it's definitely not about death, but it does follow the idea behind the phrase in a more abstract sense. The way I see it, Taylor is saying that she's not going to fight the progression of her relationship. A significant difference is that relationships have a (hopefully) positive effect on people's live, while death is much more negative. 

It's interesting that Taylor decided to use this phrase in association with the start of a relationship rather than the end, which would clearly have a more clear association with negative emotions, but I also see why she didn't. Once a relationship ends there's no stopping it, but of course there are many ways to stop a relationship in progress. In some way, this makes it more powerful to talk about a forming relationship in terms of inevitability, since there is a choice to be had there.

I wish there was more to say about this, but unfortunately I didn't know enough about either topic to say anything super insightful at the moment. I do find this a super interesting topic though, and I very well might come back to it at some point! Let me know down below if that's something you're interested in. It would take more research though, so it may be a while.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 22: Reputation's Reputation

I don't think that in 2006 anyone would've expected Taylor Swift to create anything like Reputation. It's not just that it isn't country music, it's the tone and theme of the album that distinguishes it from it's predecessors. Or at least, that's the narrative. After may listens, my understanding of this album is that a few of songs have garnered a reputation for being cynical and divisive, but the truth is that most of the album just isn't like that. The majority of the songs have a similar topic as most of Taylor's previous music, just with a different musical style.

That's to say that the more inflammatory songs are by any means bad, that's a question for a different day. Spoilers though, they aren't. Look What You Made Me Do and ...Ready For It? are the two leading examples for "how much Taylor has changed", mostly due to their musical style. This was no accident; these songs were the first two singles to be released for Reputation and on release garnered a huge amount of attention for how freaking weird they were.

Thing is, they really aren't that weird for Taylor. Look What You Made Me Do is, at it's core, an angry song about how Taylor has been given no choice but to take revenge on some bitch. Sound familiar? 

Okay, maybe that's not the most fair comparison. Despite their exterior similarities, Better Than Revenge and Look What You Made Me Do are very different songs. My point is that even as Taylor's new style continues to shock, it's not too hard to see continuity between her approach to songwriting across albums. Reputation really shines when a more modern musical style is properly applied to a concept that Taylor has explored previously, allowing the listener to see nearly the same situation from a new perspective. To get a slightly better idea of how this can work, let's look one song specifically.

Indeed we are Doctor Strange. Endgame is the second song on the album and features both Future and Ed Sheeran. It's a more lighthearted, poppy song compared to many others on the album. It's not an entirely serious song; the main message seems to be "Hey hot stuff, let's get a little more serious". It's a little all over the place, especially with the featured artists but it never is boring. You can also tell that Taylor really wants to rap but she manages to hold back enough to keep it respectable. She still takes a lot of hip-hop and electronic elements and makes ample use of them, which takes a pretty standard Taylor Swift idea and shows what the whole album is going to be like.

At first this might seem a little misleading, after all many of the songs on Reputation have an angry tone. But on further examination, just as many songs can be sorted into the way-too-broad category of "happy". To me, this song is a great example of what the album has to offer, both in terms of what is new and what isn't. Plus Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift's voices go together very well.

I'm not trying to say Reputation wasn't a huge shift because it was, especially compared to her shift from country to pop which was very slow. I'm just trying to show that this is very clearly still Taylor Swift music, you don't even have to change the way you think about her music all that much to enjoy it a lot. That'll be all for now, let me know why I'm wrong in the comments.

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 21: Afraid of Fearless?

Fun fact: Taylor Swift has published six studio albums over the course of her career.This may seem obvious to you, after all I have said it many times. but if you have been reading this blog you might not even know. I say this not because I doubt your knowledge of Taylor's works but because over the last three weeks I've only ever covered content from 5 of her 6 albums. The one that I've left out is her 2008 album, Fearless. Fans of this album have made themselves known and rest assured, I have heard you loud and clear.

I've been steering clear of Fearless up to now not out of aversion for the music, but mostly out of apathy. Before you get too angry, let me first say that Love Story and You Belong With Me are iconic and anyone who disagrees is either lying to themselves or ignorant to the facts. But I didn't want to talk about the only two notable songs on the album only to never touch it again, hence why I've waited for so long.

I haven't been found any songs that I dislike like I have in Red, or any songs that keep impressing me the more I listen like Reputation. In a similar vein as Taylor Swift, Fearless has a few songs that blew up and the rest of the album is pretty unremarkable and unoffensive. I believe there are a lot of good reasons for this, like how this was earlier in Taylor's career so her style wasn't as well developed or distinct as it would eventually become. An artist's second album after a few hits is also a very uncertain time, since they are trying to cement themselves as a lasting presence rather than just a one hit wonder. As a result, Fearless ends up being more of the same that was on Taylor Swift, which to be totally honest gets pretty stale after a few listens, especially compared to her other works.

This makes it so that there's no easy song on Fearless to talk about. The two hit singles were so popular that it is often difficult to hear past the nostalgia. I'm getting a better idea of what I want to talk about the more I listen to them, but for now I'm left with very little to say about this album.

Yeah, pretty much

But I know there are a lot of fans of Fearless out there, and I don't want to let all of you down! So I'm going to buckle down and listen to it even more than I already have been. I'll find something to say about this album if it kills me! But I have been having a good time so hopefully it doesn't. Also I want to see if J.J. Abrams can make me care about Star Wars again so I need to be alive at least another year. But that's too far in the future to be thinking about right now. One day at a time folks!

See you tomorrow,

-C

Day 20: Red

I may have been giving the album Red too hard of a time. It's not as bad as I first thought, but it does have some serious weaknesses I feel that I need to address. Much like it's predecessor Speak Now, Red's titular song is one of the weakest on the album. Unlike some of Taylor's other songs, I think that Red's weaknesses are pretty clear, since I see what it's trying to do but also why it ultimately fails.

So what is Red trying to do? Put simply, it makes it ample use of simile and metaphor to communicate "them post breakup feels". This is all over the song, and you don't need to look any further than the chorus to see it in action.

"Losing him was blue like I'd never known
Missing him was dark grey all alone
Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met
But loving him was red
Loving him was red"

It doesn't stop at the chorus though. Even the very first line follows this pattern.

"Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street
Faster than the wind, passionate as sin ending so suddenly
Loving him is like trying to change your mind once you're already flying through the free fall
Like the colors in autumn, so bright just before they lose it all"

I think you get what I'm saying. As always, this isn't a bad thing on it's own. Simile and metaphor are common literary tools because they are an effective way to communicate new situations to the audience. I even think that the idea behind how Red goes about it's metaphors is pretty creative. Taylor separates her comparisons into two categories. The more instinctive and basic emotions are described by colors, while the more complex ones require more complex metaphors.

"Losing him was blue like I'd never known
Missing him was dark grey all alone"
"But loving him was red

"Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street"
"Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met"
"Loving him is like trying to change your mind once you're already flying through the free fall"

Why it doesn't work

In the abstract, I like this structure, but it relies on well structured complex metaphors. The simple comparisons to color will end up falling flat if the more complex baselines aren't relatable.

And boy, are they unrelatable. Just look at the ones I listed above! First, the Maserati line. This one should be pretty obvious, but is still the least offensive of the listed lines. It's easy to take jabs at Taylor here for being rich, but I actually understand it in this case. Even though it's totally unrelatable it's the first line in the song so it's primary purpose is to inform the listener as to the nature of the relationship, which it does. It could certainly do it better, but at least I can imagine it. 

The next lines are just nonsense though. Forgetting someone who you have never met is a poor choice for a simile because I can't even go so far as to put myself in that situation. I believe that this was intentional on Taylor's end, and was supposed to give the listener insight into how her glamorous, short-lived relationship sucked her in and left her feeling afterwards. It's impossible to forget someone, and that's the point. But that doesn't change the fact that it gives the listener no insight into the details of the relationship. There is no more emotion in the line than if she had just said "forgetting him was impossible". The last line has pretty much the exact same problems as the one I just talked about it, maybe even worse. "trying to change your mind once you're already flying through the free fall" doesn't work because it isn't a thing! The biggest problem here is the structure, similes and metaphors work well when you take a complex topic and compare it to something everyone can relate to. There actually is one good example of this in Red believe it or not.

"Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song"

See, this line works. Everyone knows the visceral feeling of belting out the lyrics to their favorite song, so we get insight into how Taylor felt about this relationship. However, it's somewhat undercut by the next line which never ceases to frustrate me.

"Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there's no right answer"

I know I'm being a little pedantic, but this is just stupid. No one in the history of ever has been solving a crossword and realized there's no right answer, except maybe it's own editor, the person who's job it is to make sure that the puzzle is, in fact, solvable. 

I can say nice things though, and I'll prove it! The audio production on this song is very nice. I'm not even going to give evidence to support this other than the deluxe version of the album, which includes an earlier version of Red that is a complete mess. It's extremely busy and feels unpolished for a very good reason. It can't quite make me like the normal version but I can at the very least tolerate it.

That's all for now, I need to stop writing before I start ranting about how bad this song is again.

See you tomorrow,
-C

Day 19: I Found Wonderland

Today I'll be talking about an absolute goddamn tragedy. It's another first for the blog, because today's topic is an exclusive to the deluxe version of 1989, the first extra song, Wonderland.

For once, yes this is the correct Wonderland

The song makes several allusions to the story of Alice in Wonderland. Constant allusions like this can get really old really fast, but Taylor holds back just enough to make it work. Alice's story actually fits perfectly with the one Taylor tells here. The initial shock and amazement of how fantastical the surrounding world is common to both Wonderland and relationships, and they both inevitably start to spiral out of your control. The song as a whole is very chaotic, with some sections sounding almost like a lullaby while others are much more intense and electronic. 

"Oh darling, we found wonderland

You and I got lost in it
And we pretended it could last forever
We found wonderland
You and I got lost in it
And life was never worse but never better"

Classic Taylor. Her writing at it's best makes great use of contradiction. She loves to phrase her lines in a way that obviously conflicts with itself, but still is so easily relatable. This works because hectic relationships like the one Taylor is describing in this song so often are a roller coaster with the best and worst constantly coexisting. Again, this first perfectly with the choice of Wonderland as a reference, since Wonderland has an alluring name and exterior but at it's heart is a scary and dangerous place. But when things are so out of your control you might as well just ride the highs and lows and hope for the best.

It's such a damn shame that this song got relegated to the deluxe version of the album. I see how it's flattering to the song on one hand, after all if you only include the worst songs on the deluxe version then it won't exactly live up to it's name. But still, the song has undeniably gotten less coverage as a result of it's placement and that just isn't fair. This song is a lot of fun and a great example of what 1989 has to offer as an album. It's not a flawless sparkling gem, it's just a good song that I feel deserves more attention. 

That's all I have to explicitly say about Wonderland, but there's a lot more going on in this song, especially small things. It's one of the few songs where you can notice new things every time you listen to it, and they all contribute to the chaotic themes I already covered. Listen to it a few times and see what you pick up that i didn't talk about today.

Since I've familiarized myself with the main songs on all of Taylor's main studio albums I will likely start to expand my scope to the content available on the deluxe versions. 1989 is the only album where I've listened to the deluxe version, and it was well before I started this project so I don't remember most of it. But all that is for another day.

See you tomorrow,

-C