Caught in the Swift Current: My Deep Dive into Taylor Swift’s Discography

Introduction

Dwight McCann / www.DwightMcCann.com, Taylor Swift, CC BY-SA 2.5

I’m musically stunted. I can’t sing; I can’t play an instrument; I can’t read music; I don’t even know how to use musical terms properly.

And most of the music on my phone comes from the 1980s (or earlier).

(Yes, I’ve purchased the music on my phone. I don’t use any of the subscription services. I mostly listen to podcasts, which makes the subscription fee seem superfluous.)

So, forgive me when I say I don’t know much about Taylor Swift.

In fact, off the top of my head, I can’t name five of her songs. And didn’t I hear that she recently made history by having the entire Billboard Top 10 to herself?

Of course, I know who Taylor Swift is. I read headlines. I even skim the occasional article about pop culture. But I’ve never paid much attention to her.

And I have to admit, almost twenty years ago Taylor Swift kind of bugged me. That happens when you’re older and some new celebrity starts showing up everywhere. Psh. Like some 20-year-old is really going to be the next Madonna or Michael Jackson.

(Hey, never mind that Madonna and Michael Jackson were both twenty at some point… we’re talking old people logic here.)

I remember thinking, Who is this kid? What’s the big deal? And doesn’t she slam her exes in her songs or something? That seems rude.

Then a few years later, my younger cousin — a bona fide Swiftie — showed me Taylor’s Saturday Night Live “Monologue Song (La La La).”

Okay, I thought, that was funny. Maybe this Taylor kid is alright.

Thank God for my cousin. If I had never made peace with Taylor Swift’s media presence, I’d be certifiably insane these days. That woman is everywhere: radio stations, movie theaters, NFL games — she’s even in political discussions. And there’s a conspiracy theory!

If I hadn’t found the “Monologue Song” charming, this hater would hate-hate-hate Taylor right now. (Did I do that right? I’ve actually heard that song before; it’s catchy.)

Into the Swiftie-verse

You might be wondering why I would care to dive into the Swiftie-verse. Or, at least, why now?

I’m a college professor — one with a fairly informal writing style, but a professor nonetheless. Recently, I was teaching a class on analyzing arguments and I showed an example of the attempt to borrow ethos by using a celebrity in an advertisement.

The students saw the advertisement and asked, “Who’s that?”

Excuse me? This dude has been in television shows, movies… he’s dated some of the most famous women in the world! Everybody knows —

Okay, maybe some of my examples are getting a little dated.

“Well, what celebrity should I use in my example instead?” I asked

Someone piped up: “Mother.”

“I don’t think anyone really knows who your mom — ”

“No, that’s what we call Taylor Swift.”

…??? Ooookay.

A few days later, I was relating this incident to some friends in my Writing Group. One of the guys self-identifies as a Swiftie.

(He’s in his early forties… no judgment here. Ahem. Actually, I’ll just blame his kids.)

In the conversation that followed, an idea emerged. Since I’m one of the few people in America who knows virtually nothing about Taylor Swift, why don’t I start a musical journey and explore all of her music, song by song, album by album?

I have to figure out some way to connect better with my students, right?

Plus, I’m a fan of epic journeys (Google tells me she’s released 243 songs!). The Lord of the Rings and all that.

(Hmm. Maybe I could even title the different sections of my epic journey: The Fellowship of the Song, The Ten Albums, and The Return of the Queen.)

Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash

Hey, Tolkien died the year I was born. I think some of his spiritual essence latched onto me; that would explain my lifelong enjoyment of the fantasy genre and all things medieval.

(…You looked the year up, didn’t you? Told you I was getting old.)

The Process

So, here’s the schtick. I’m going to respond to all of Taylor’s songs in a four-step process:

1. I will read the title of the song, and try to predict what it’s about.
2. I will listen to the audio of the song, and jot down my First Impression. Often, these notes will be rather superficial — my impression of the music, the general meaning of the song, etc.
3. I will listen to the song while reading the lyrics, and write down my Second Thoughts. Usually, I’ll dig deeper into the song. I’ll explore topics or issues it makes me think about.
4. If available, I will watch Taylor’s official video of the song, and then write down my Final Verdict (e.g., Positive, Negative, etc.). If there is no official video available, I’ll just listen to the song again.

When I start a new album, I will post a song reaction every business day, Monday through Friday. I’ll then take a few days to write a final reaction to the entire album — and I’ll even try to rank my favorite songs.

Please note: I’ll be writing my own responses to the songs. From what I’ve heard, Swifties spend a lot of time analyzing all the details of Taylor’s life and her songs. I’m not going to be able to reveal secret allusions that Taylor has made — I don’t know enough about her. At least not yet. Maybe I’ll be able to do that someday.

For now, however, I’ll focus on how an outsider might view the song.

Also, I’m not going to intentionally do any research on the songs or albums beyond general information like release date — at least, not until I’ve reacted to all the songs on a particular album.

So, I probably won’t know who a particular song is about. I’ll know how old she is, based on the album’s release date, but I won’t know who she had just broken up with or anything.

Thus, I’ll probably get a few details wrong here and there. Feel free to correct me in the comments, but please note that any errors are not intentional — I just want to give as raw and authentic a reaction as possible.

For Funsies

Here, at the very start of this epic musical journey, I wanted to take a few minutes to jot down everything I think I know about Taylor Swift:

1. She used to date another Taylor — the werewolf from Twilight. I think she’d broken up with him around the time of the “Monologue Song.”
2. She’s written songs about several of her exes. I think some of them are famous, too.
3. She’s currently dating the Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end.
4. She used to be friends with Karli Kloss, who appeared in at least one of Taylor’s videos. (Was that the “hate-hate-hate” song?) Karli is a model who started a computer coding bootcamp for girls (or something like that). I think I heard they had a falling out; not sure.
5. When looking up the list of her albums for this series, I saw her debut album was in 2006 when she was 16. So, she must be about 34 years old now.
6. She recently released a movie about the Eras tour; I read it was a self-release and tickets were $19.89 — oh, because that’s when she was born! She seemed to be making a lot of money on the ticket sales. She probably has some good business sense, considering the self-release aspect. It seems smart to cut out the middle-man distributors if you can.
7. I heard that recent concert tickets were going for $1,500 (!). Was that the normal price, or was that for VIP tickets? (I can’t imagine paying that much for a concert… not even if Elvis came back from the grave for a special Halloween concert.)
8. Apparently, there were recently rumors about a Taylor Swift conspiracy involving the Super Bowl and blah blah blah. (I’m going to say that’s not accurate.)
9. When I try to remember images I’ve seen, I most remember her eyes. I’m not sure if the images were Photoshopped, but she often has bright eyes in photos.
10. She’s been in some cool commercials (like the one with all the Taylors in the elevator).
11. Someone told me she lost the masters of her early music, so she re-recorded the songs and now her hardcore fans won’t buy the original versions.
12. She started as a country artist and then crossed over into mainstream music.
13. Oh! Here are the songs I can remember off the top of my head:

• The “hate-hate-hate” song
• “Anti-Hero” (?)
• One with a video where she’s walking in the woods or something (or was that a Rosi Golan video? I ran across Rosi’s stuff on YouTube one day)
• “August” (I think; I had a student write a short story based on a Taylor song, and I think that was the song’s title)
• I know I’ve heard more; I’d even recognize some if I heard them, but off the top of my head… that’s it

Ah, thirteen items — a Baker’s dozen! I’ll stop there. That’s about everything I can think of for the moment, anyway.

So, how’d I do? Is all of that true? Did I miss anything big? Has she won any Grammys, starred in a movie or something? Let me know in the comments section!

Come back tomorrow to see my reaction to the first song on Taylor Swift’s self-titled debut album: “Tim McGraw.”

As a preview, let me say that I find the title to be a little weird. Tim McGraw is an actual country artist. Will this song be some fangirl homage to a favorite singer?

I mean, if I ever publish my first novel, I wouldn’t title it Brandon Sanderson.

Hmm… I embark on this journey with some trepidation. Will I immediately encounter a stalker song?

Gulp.

What’s ONE THING I should know about Taylor Swift as I plunge into her discography? Let me know in the comments!