Taylor Swift has had a profound impact on my life. Not only is she a phenomenal woman, but also one of the greatest musicians of this era. She has managed to tell stories of loss, love, growth and hardship through her music and her music has been a guiding light for me through different phases of my life. Looking back, I realize that whenever she had a new album coming out, I’d always look forward to reading the prologue on the album cover. Her prologues always had background information on certain songs and the title of the album as a whole. For example, the album Speak Now prologue talked about how the songs in the album were made of words that she didn’t get to say when the moment was right.
When Fearless came out in 2008, the middle schooler in me clung on to the message in the prologue that said, “it’s fearless to have faith that things would one day change.” As a middle schooler, I had a lot of self-esteem issues and I had a lot of confidence-building to do.
When her Speak Now album came out in 2010, the 13-year-old me related to the prologue which talked about telling someone you liked them before it was too late. That boy crazy phase of life was not an easy one!
When Red came out in 2012, 15-year-old me related to the difficult lessons that love teaches us and how love is a ruthless game that you needed to play right.
One of my favorite albums, however, is the 1989 album that came out in 2014. It was an album that I related to the most because the prologue talked about how she moved to New York by herself and how she found happiness without finding love. It was around that time that I was considering moving to the United States to study and this prologue boosted my confidence in my ability to be completely independent. The message that you could be happy completely on your own, and you didn’t need anyone to complete is such an important one. “Shake It Off” was an instant hit and the deeper meaning behind it really hit home to me.
Via MTV.com
Related: Thank You, Taylor
The recent Reputation album prologue talked about how we really don’t know people as much as we think we do because we only see social media posts about them. Being in college now, I relate to this because social media is so important and it’s what makes us feel like we are connected to a small part of the larger college community. We think we know people who show up on our Instagram feed without realizing that people try to shape what strangers think about them.
For every season in my life, I’ve had a Taylor Swift album to relate to. Her words of wisdom that she has on all her albums are words that I look to at hard moments of my life. She is so much more than just an artist to me, Taylor Swift is my guiding light.
Via Giphy