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