Taylor Swift Diplomacy
(or, Effective Feminist Messaging Through Song)
I spent last week at Renaissance Weekend, a five-day, invitation-only confab in Charleston featuring over 600 panels drawing on the 1300 attendees across pretty much any and every discipline. The participants were demographically diverse and, in many cases, almost comically accomplished, and discussions were explicitly off the record. There were politicians and politicos, media types, CEOs, authors, a few Nobel laureates, “thought leaders,” clergy, all manner of professionals (lots of lawyers!), academics, musicians, comedians, startup types, actors, artists, and Dr. Ruth.
Every year on New Year’s Eve there is a choral performance put on by what’s known as ‘The Renaissance Family Singers,’ run by two actual families of singers who could give the von Trapps a run for their money. The chorus is a self-selected group of the musically-inclined, many of whom submit humorously rewritten lyrics to be sung in the final show. These start at about 30 and are whittled down over days of rehearsals to around 15. As a former summer camp theater junkie, this was my jam, and I wanted in.
My chosen topic: the awesome women of 2013. The thing is, as a professional (and proud) feminist it’s tough to cheerily trumpet the good news without an acknoweldgment of what was troubling in the past year (something told me that “What a year for preposterous and in some cases empirically fraudulent measures to severly restrict abortion rights!” wouldn’t be the best hook). Renaissance Weekend is dedicated to civil discourse and is pointedly non-partisan, and I wanted to be respectful of that. That said, I consider feminism a joyfully non-partisan issue and felt it was respectful to my feminist friends on the right, both male and female, to treat it as such. For the most part I assumed anyone I met was a feminist, as in, considered me to have equal rights with any dude and have agency over what I did with my own body. (Most people actually are feminists without realizing it. Come on in, the water’s fine!)
Okay, so: respectful, upbeat, inclusive of men, pro-choice euphemisms. I was ready to pick a song. It had to be hooky, easy to learn, energetic and upbeat. I briefly considered the Indigo Girls (for the harmonies!) but when you really need something perky and palatable, it’s Taylor Swift all the way. Swift is incredibly talented and savvy and I’m an unapologetic fan. Swift’s “22," released in March 2013 (meta!), was the perfect blend of shiny pop with girl-power undertones, plus lent itself easily to 2014, thus allowing me to reclaim “20s” as something that still applied to me. Win-win.
A few edits later (including replacing the word “badass,” because this was a family show), here’s what I came up with (you can sing along here):
“2014"
(to “22" by Taylor Swift)
It feels like a perfect night to toast a good year
Amongst the sexes, uh uh, uh uh.
It feels like a perfect night to celebrate progress,
Even in Texas, uh uh, uh uh.
Yeah,
We’re power-mover-shaker-rockin’ women
(Though parity’s a rarity)
But now -
Tonight’s the night to celebrate all the winnin’
Lean in…
Uh-huh!
What a year to be
A feminist like me!
Edie Windsor toppled DOMA,
Netflix got Orangey
We chose to choose
To stand in Wendy’s shoes
Janet Yellen and Pelosi
The future’s looking rosy
2014, 2014!
J-Law was Oscar’s best
Miley made us angsty, Michy O. got bangsy, uh-uh, uh-uh
Lena Dunham got undressed
Oprah’s on Insta, Mary Barra’s driving,
Malala’s thriving!
Yeah,
There’s 20 women shaking up the Senate
Let’s hand command to Gillibrand
Oh, yeah, we’re looking forward to that someday when it’s
50…
Uh-huh!
What a year to be
A feminist like me!
Beyoncé run the world
And Pussy Riot’s free!
We got Leslie Knope
We got Olivia Pope
Billie Jean is off to Sochi
Doin’ pretty good approachin’
2014, 2014!
(Hannah, age 9: Girls rule!)
Yeah!
What a year to be
A feminist like me!
Punching through that big glass ceiling
Makin’ cracks for Hillary!
You know it’s truth
Just ask Dr. Ruth
That’s why we’re in a hurry
The lines are far from blurry!
2014
2014
Men: We’re on the te-e-eam!
2014
Stephen Sonheim always said that he regretted giving Maria a complex internal rhyme scheme on “I Feel Pretty,” so I feel fine saying that I wish I could go back and refine the Lena Duham line, because it fails to capture her boundary-pushing work around body image. My bad. (I have no problem, however, with “orangey.”) Otherwise, numerous requests for revisions forced me to kill my darlings and keep my essentials, i.e. Hillary, Beyoncé, Malala, Wendy Davis, Edie Windsor & Olivia Pope.
It’s amazing how many different permutations I went through on “Beyoncé” (turns out it rhymes with “Tina Fey,” but alas). A few other rhymes that hit the cutting room floor: (a) North Carolina/ #motorcyclevagina (accurate, but there’s no way anyone would get it); (b) “2014/Hello Flo, tweens” (a bit too much reality); (c) “Don’t use pink to reach me/Try Chimamanda Adichie” (Sondheim would NOT be impressed). We had to cut the bridge for time, alas, but this was almost it:
Alice Munro’s Nobel;
Grand Slam Bartoli;
Kate McKinnon on SNL;
Gwen Ifill & Judy;
And, speaking of SNL
We’re close to the day
When its cast can play —
Six of Beyoncé!
Losing the SNL ref hurt, and believe me I tried to shoehorn in a “Nobel/SNL” rhyme, but that’s show biz. Other lyrics toyed with and discarded included variations on Elizabeth Warren and Wall Street, Marissa Mayer and Yahoo, and Maddow/Mindy/Melissa Harris-Perry, but as Sondheim says, if you want to get your feminist song sung in a ballroom filled with a bunch of influential people who aren’t there to humor your agenda, then just go for what’s simple. What’s wrong with letting ‘em tap their toes a bit?
So what is my point here? I think it might be this: Sometimes when you’re trying to get everyone else to chill out, you should do the same. There’s no question that I had an agenda going into this thing — I could easily have written a fun song about the sequester (“Yesterday, was so much better than Sequester Day, now I’m furloughed so at home I’ll stay…”) — but it wasn’t just about my song, my message, my lyrics. It was about writing something that the group would want to sing and the audience would want to hear.
It was also about show, don’t tell. One other lyric that got cut was “You know it’s true/You’re a feminist, aren’t you?” which forced a label on the audience (and hey, choice is important!). If the audience isn’t with you at the end of a song, then you haven’t done a good job writing it.
Upshot: Taylor Swift makes everything more fun, “Pussy Riot” is now cool to say in polite company, and it’s a great year to be a feminist — for everyone. 2014, 2014.
Rachel Sklar is the founder TheLi.st when she’s not busy being a feminist-lyricist-antagonist. She would like to point out that “patriarchy” rhymes with “malarkey.”
