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