Calling myself a swiftie might be presumptuous considering I’m not as much of a fanatic as some other swifties I know, but I feel like I’ve gathered enough information over time to safely consider myself a fan of the megastar’s works. I’ve listened to most of her albums besides the ones that have yet to be rereleased (I’m excited for whenever Reputation TV comes out!), but I didn’t always start out this way.
I used to only know the Swift songs that everyone might know from the radio, but it wasn’t until one of my friends told me that I should listen to the Lover album when I really started to take an interest in her music. Ironically enough I was a little nervous about this album because all the songs that I knew beforehand like aren’t exactly at the top of my Taylor Swift favorites, but once I started listening to the songs that weren’t blasting on the radio non stop I really fell in love with some of the songs. To be completely face value right now, the Lover Era is my current favorite, and can you blame me? Songs like “The Archer,” “I Think He Knows,” “Miss Americana and the Heartbreaker Prince,” are just so iconic, and personally “Paper Rings,” is my favorite Taylor Swift song of all time. Luckily enough for my Swiftie journey, this was right around the time of the release of Speak Now Taylor’s Version.
When the re-release came out was when I was fully getting into the swing of Swiftie fever, so I made sure to listen to it as soon as I could. I really loved songs like, “Sparks fly,” “Dear John,” and my two personal favorites on the album being “Better Than Revenge,” and “Never Grow Up.” What was great about listening to this album as well was that I was able to stay up that day talking about it to my friend as we both listened to and relistened to certain songs. We were already good friends before and could talk about anything, but it gave us an even closer bond than we might’ve had before, and it led to our favorite tradition of sending the other things about Taylor Swift which the led to me checking out Folklore again based off her recommendations
Like I said, Lover is my favorite album, but I think Folklore would definitely come up as a very close runner up with songs like, “mirrorball,” “cardigan,” and “august,” being songs I’ve found every Swiftie agreeing to be essential holy grail, but I also really love, “betty,” “illicit affairs,” “my tears ricochet,” and “the last great american dynasty.” This album especially introduced me to the much more indie chill vibes Taylor sometimes have, and I can definitely say with certain exceptions that I prefer this style of Taylor song versus others. This of course brings me neatly to the other Taylor era I’ve listened to all the songs of, which is the newly released 1989 Taylor’s Version.
Just mentioned above, I’m not as in love with Taylor’s more popular songs that everyone might hear on the radio, so her songs like, “Blank Space,” “Style,” “Shake it Off,” and “Bad Blood,” while nice, were definitely not stand outs of the album to me like, “Out of the Woods,” “This Love,” “How you Get the Girl,” and almost every single new song from the vault but especially, “Slut!” “Now that We Don’t Talk,” and “Is It Over Now.” My main thing that I realized after listening to the 1989 album was just how deep I was in being a swiftie.
I was caught up on all the lore and was able to recognize songs from the single second that they’re played. I was officially a swiftie, and honestly, I couldn’t be happier. I’ve felt more in touch with my own identity through her music as well as feeling a great sense of connection with all the women in my life as a result. So I just wanted to end this piece by thanking Taylor Swift. For being great at what she does. Being herself.