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