Day 70: Fearless or Brave?

While listening to an old review of Taylor's second album, Fearless, released by Big Machine Records I stumbled across this old quote from Taylor about how she chose the title for the album.

"Fearless, to me, I thought about it before I titled the album that. Because you really have to make sure that it explains this body of work that you're putting out, the last two years of stories that you want to tell. So I thought about it, and I thought about what my own personal definition of the word 'Fearless' is. And to me, 'Fearless' isn't not having any fears. It's not that you're not afraid of anything. I think that being 'Fearless' means that you have a lot of fears but you jump anyway."

I can't decide if this is genius or stupid. On one hand it's a great way to frame the songs on the album and I think that it makes a lot of sense. Taking the leap even though you have doubts is a truly admirable thing to do after all. But I just can't stop thinking about how Taylor is, on some level, just kinda wrong here. Taylor, the word you're looking for is "brave", or "courageous". Fearless means you're not afraid, not overcoming your fears. I know language is fluid and you can use words however you want, I'm just saying that the justification you gave for the word choice seems a little off.

The real question is this: does it even matter? Well, maybe. If the use of the word makes sense in context then no, it doesn't matter that Taylor's definition is technically incorrect. So long as she uses it in a way that makes sense to the audience then there's no problem and my quips just transform me into that annoying ass kid from The Polar Express.

"wEll iF yOu lOoK iN tHe dIcTiOnArY yOu'LL sEe hOw wRoNg yOu aRe"

So to see if it works let's look at Fearless, but this time the song. How does the song use the lyric?

"And I don't know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first, Fearless
"And I don't know why but with you I'd dance
In a storm in my best dress, Fearless"

Behold audience, the chorus! But, before we can dive in too deep we need to recognize what this song is about. It's about a romantic date very early in a relationship. Wow, that was easy!

Okay, maybe there's a little more to it than that. Yes, they're on a date, but how does Taylor feel going into the date? If we can nail this down then we'll be able to better contextualize the chorus, makin' our brains real big in the process. 

"And you know I wanna ask you to dance right there
In the middle of the parking lot"

Okay now we're getting somewhere! Taylor wants to dance in a parking lot, which is clearly an awful idea. The ground is too hard, plus there's 2000 lb death machines being driven by old grannies who will hit you and not even notice. So, Taylor is being tempted to do things she knows aren't a good idea while she's around this hunky Harry.

"We're drivin' down the road
I wonder if you know
I'm tryin' so hard not to get caught up now
But you're just so cool
Run your hands through your hair
Absent mindedly makin' me want you"

Take notice of the first three lines here; they're the most important. Taylor can feel herself being pulled in and really wants to just fall but is also trying not to get swept off her feet too hard. Okay I think now we can revisit the chorus. Keep these pieces of into in mind, as they are actually super important!

"And I don't know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first, Fearless
"And I don't know why but with you I'd dance
In a storm in my best dress, Fearless"

Behold, the chorus...again! Knowing what we now know we can deduce that Taylor has guards she normally keeps up in situations like these, but this dude is just so great that her walls fall down. She initially had fears but she decided to follow her heart and ignore them. Therefore, she is, in some sense, legitimately fearless. The way she used the phrase not only makes perfect sense in context, it even fits with what she said in the interview!  It's almost like she knows what she's doing or something!

So in the end I'm just a lonely nitpicking nerd. I guess some things never really change.

See you tomorrow,

-C