The Waltz of the Confused Virgins: Taylor Swift — “Love Story”

The loop of love…

Single-cover image for Taylor’s release of this song, magically messed with on the Night Café website. (Yes, I realize that Tay-Tay looks a bit haggard as a result of my manipulations, but these things happen when you screw with an AI generator. Just ask any publicist who works for the Republican Party.)

Once upon a time, I was really invested in doing snarky music video reviews. Here’s one example….

We’re on a college campus, with Taylor walking along and looking forlorn, when she suddenly spies a boy sitting under a tree. He spies her spying. They are both suddenly transfixed with each other, with hints of possible recognition registering on their acne-free faces. (He’s really cute, which is a requirement in most music videos, so if she doesn’t really know him she probably should.) As they continue to be model-perfect, she (or maybe he, who knows) starts getting flashbacks of a past life they apparently shared.

Suddenly, we’re transported to old-timey days (which would be 2004 for Taylor, but several hundred years for the rest of us), and Taylor is now standing on a balcony hanging off a humongous house. Based on the couture of the extras milling around, we appear to be in, oh, let’s say the 1600s. (Shorthand-breakdown of the symbolism: she’s playing Juliet, and she’s wishing for a Romeo. We’ve all been there.)

Next thing we know, Taylor’s in a ballroom, with lots of candles plunked hither and yon. (Which means that electricity hasn’t been invented yet, so nobody can charge their social-media devices. Those were truly dark times…