Day 50: I Could Go On and On

Taylor Swift may have a style to her music, but there is still plenty of variation between her songs. You can find wildly different songs if you look across albums, and even a single album can have songs that sound very different. One song I come back that never disappoints in this regard is This Love from 1989. Rarely does a Taylor Swift song make her sound grateful, so when this one does it flawlessly it is a real breath of fresh air.

More than any other of her songs, the music in this song is an imperative part of the whole piece. This is, of course, always true to some extent but it's impossible to tell exactly what this song is going to be like from reading the lyrics alone. The sound is both gentle and heavy and reminds me of Enya of all people. I can't actually listen to Enya to compare right now due to the rules of this project, but that's the feeling I get from this song.

The subject of this song is so simple. Taylor and a guy broke up and now they're back together and she's happy. This is such a basic premise for a Taylor Swift song that it's pretty miraculous we got a song this unique and is a sign of how thoughtful the writing process for 1989 was. Take a look at this line to see what I mean.

"Clear blue water
High tide, came and brought you in
And I could go on and on, on and on
And I will, skies grow darker, currents swept you out again
And you were just gone and gone, gone and gone"

The opening lines of any song are the most important, as they set the tone for how the listener will interpret the rest of the piece. This song gets off on the right foot by using some pretty powerful water imagery. It backs up this metaphor with the background music. When you listen to the music you can actually feel the water Taylor is talking about. It feels tranquil, like floating on your back in the water. It all just works together very well and gives the song a real presence.

The way that the sounds come to a peak and slow back down only to rise up again makes it feel like an actual wave on the ocean in a way that's honestly pretty hard to do justice with just words. 

And I could go on and on, on and on, but I won't. I think I'll leave this post short and sweet so you have time to listen to the song and maybe even appreciate it the way I do. Just maybe.

See you tomorrow,
-C