how old were you when you first heard ‘love story’?
i was 11. didi and i were sitting at the desktop in our bedroom, Internet Explorer open to YouTube. she had come home from school that day with a list of songs to “look up on YouTube” (those were the days…)
on the list: Shakira’s Waka Waka (or, as we liked to call it, “tsaminamina”), the Black Eyes Peas’ Where Is the Love, and Taylor Swift’s Love Story.
we watched them in that order, music videos only. after Love Story i distinctly remember looking at Didi, eyes shining. “let’s listen to that one again.”
how old were you when you started listening to music?
by which i mean, how old were you when you began willingly subjecting yourself to music, and stopped letting it be something that just happened to you?
i might have been 14, the proud owner of my first (TOUCH!) mobile phone. i filled that baby up with taylor swift. my favourite after-school activity was lying on my bed, reading through a blog that claimed to know the meaning and reason behind every one of her songs. after every “explanation”, there was a link to download the song.
from beemp3. remember beemp3?
when i say favourite after-school activity, i mean favourite after-school activity. i was writing taylor swift lyrics in notes i secretly left for my crush. i was scream-yelling Better Than Revenge even before i learnt what “she’s not a saint and she’s not what you think, she’s an actress, oh-oh / but she’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress, oh-oh” even meant.
i was downloading taylor swift songs onto my first touch mobile phone when my house got broken into. yeah.
how old were you when you met your best friend?
i didn’t have one for a very long time. when i was younger we moved around a lot; i never stayed in the same place for longer than three years. and besides, I wasn’t very good at this whole making-friends shtick. every time i warmed up to someone enough to start thinking of them as a good friend, we had to move.
but if the definition of a best friend is someone who always knows what you’re going through, always know the right thing to say, and never leaves you alone, then my best friend was taylor swift
because when i was 11 and only just discovering that music can do you soft things to your insides, i had untouchable.
and when i was 13 and learning how having a crush can make you feel like your entire world is quicksand, i had sparks fly.
and when i was 15 and figuring out how to say goodbye to my secondary school graduating class, i had long live.
and when i was 17, in a strange country, feeling homesick and misunderstood nearly all of the time, i had this love.
and when i was 20 in my college auditorium about to go onstage to perform my poetry in front of three hundred people, i had lover.
and when i was 21 in the middle of a global pandemic, mourning a new normal, i had exile.
so, like, i’m sorry if this makes me sound mind-numbingly pretentious, okay? but it had to be said. taylor swift is one of my best friends.
what is it about talking about taylor swift that makes me feel so defensive?
i feel the need to add a disclaimer here. i listen to other music, okay? i love bobby darin, and frank sinatra, and ABBA, and billy joel. i love panic! at the disco and fall out boy. i love Hamilton: The Musical. i need y’all to know that i listen to other music.
why, though? i want you to take me seriously. but there is something so intimate about taylor’s music. when she writes “he’s got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel / another on my heart.” and “i had the time of my life fighting dragons with you” and “all i know is you said hello / and your eyes looked like coming home” and “forever’s the sweetest con”. how does she know?
and why am i not allowed to listen to music that makes me feels seen? why do i have to deal with the “oh, you listen to taylor swift?” from everyone who pretends to know about good music? like, yeah, i listen to taylor swift. i like having someone in my playlists who knows what it’s like to be a young woman in this world. i like having someone in my playlists who isn’t afraid of being a young woman in this world. of speaking up for herself. of being heard and seen and felt when she walks into a room. it’s pretty awesome, actually, to have someone in my playlists who says “if a man talks shit then you owe him nothing” and “my reputation’s never been worse so, you must like me for me”. it’s pretty awesome to live in a world with taylor swift.
i could go on. remember during her 1989 era, when taylor swift invited batches of her fans to her ACTUAL HOUSE to listen to her new album and hang out and eat cookies? that woman has always been so iconic.
remember when she got into that feud with kanye west and then went ghost AND THEN released ‘Reputation’? yeah, that gave me a complex over celebrity culture for a full year. we’re talking wrote-a-four-thousand-word-essay-about-celebrity-culture-for-college level of complex.
i could go ON
but i won’t! (“phew” goes the audience)
the long and short of it is that taylor swift has been famously hated and famously adored in (almost) equal measure! i don’t agree with everything she says or does. if i listen to her song lyrics now, with my current perspective, i keep disagreeing and thinking “but that’s not how love works…”
which is not to say that i wouldn’t defend taylor swift to a dude who exclusively listens to alt-j and eminem. i think she’s a kickass woman who, for the most part, isn’t even trying to be a kickass woman. she’s just doing her thing. and i respect that.
and boy, can she write.
in case you’re wondering, this post was inspired by fearless (taylor’s version), a re-recording of her second studio album that was first released back in 2008. the story behind this album is really cool. you can read about it here.
i know some of y’all, like me, feel very strongly about taylor swift. so feel free to drop a comment if any of this spoke to you. :p
as always, until next time,
krys
I'm not a princess
this was so lovely to read. felt like I was reading my own thoughts!! thank you for writing 😩❤️
Tswift really carried me through my tumultuous teens. Her clever lyric gave space to feelings I didn't know I had, let alone how to express. Thanks for this little ode to dear Taylor and also to growing up. I admit that I don't listen to her as much now, a subconscious attachment to the comfort she gave me back in the day and a rebellious defiance that maybe we're too different now for me to experience the same. But whenever I do give her a chance, she proves yet again that the human condition is the same and the fears and feelings we experience have been shared by so many before us. She still does what she did when I was fifteen, prove that we're never alone. Thank you Krys and thank you Taylor!