Why Are We Obsessed With Finding Secrets in Taylor Swift’s Album?
The power of this album isn’t in the secrets it reveals about Taylor.
Taylor Swift has always wielded two forms of absolute power as a singer-songwriter. The first is obvious, but the second is far more subtle — and influential.
When I was just a kid, Taylor Swift’s songs were magical to me because of how she managed to neatly overlap our lives. There I was, a dweeby fifteen-year-old; and there she was, a glamorous 20-year-old. But we both struggled through lost loves, rivals, bullies. We both overcame them. Her songs showed me our similarities. It was intimate.
In an era where we voraciously inhale tabloids and celebrity gossip like it’s air, this ability to overlay her own experiences in a way that aligned with her audience catapulted her into prominence. With careful hints, subtly capitalized letters in lyrics, and a Russian doll’s worth of easter eggs, listeners felt that they got to know the real Taylor. And what’s more is that Taylor obviously understood us, too. How could she not, when she put my exact feelings about my hot neighbor into her own lyrics? When I listen to You Belong With Me, even now, I still get flashbacks to lying on my bed, dreaming about the day my future boyfriend would wake up and find that what he was looking…
