I, like many girls of my generation, grew up surrounded by the noise of the Taylor Swift phenomenon. And I, like many girls of my generation, hated her guts. Now, it’s hard to say where a 12-year-old gets off believing she is above a 25-year-old with almost as many Grammys to her name as I had Magic Tree House books, but I did. I believed I was a better girl than her. Maybe you could chalk it up to a tomboy phase or having different interests at the time, but in a lot of ways I was just a fellow subscriber to a hate mob with reasons much more insidious than simply not liking pop music. I kick myself remembering all the times I repeated the key phrases stigmatizing her artistry, saying her music was “only for brainless boy-crazy girls” and that she “only wrote songs about her exes.” Even when the hate train was made more defamatory following the Kanye West scandal, I would agree with the masses calling her things like a “professional victim” or a “talentless snake.” I wore my ticket on the ‘I Hate Taylor Swift Train’ like a badge of honor, just waiting for her name to come up so I could tear down every representation of girlhood that she fit into.
It wasn’t until 2020 when I first heard Folklore and Evermore that I began to undo a lot of the ideas I subconsciously decided regarding her talent and character. As a writer, it is really hard not to be drawn to a fellow writer, especially when the writer is as talented as Taylor Swift. Now, as the hate train gears up again, I find myself on the other side of the mob and I can tell you most certainly, that it is not a fun time to be a fan of Taylor Swift. With relentless criticism coming her way yet again, I find myself confused. Will we ever learn where the line is? Will we ever separate disliking a perceived personality or a music genre from completely loathing someone and genuinely thinking ourselves above those who don’t? I don’t agree with everything Taylor Swift does, wears, says, or does not say. Since when was that the standard for celebrities? As I age it becomes harder and harder for me to understand. Every time I hear someone dismiss her accomplishments it reminds me of the first time I listened to the album Evermore.
To me, this is the crown jewel of her career so far. It completely encompasses her ability to create a world around her albums, enrapture her audience, and sew intricate stories out of thin air. champagne problems takes you to a foggy train window, a golden-lit ballroom, and a broken-down Chevy sitting in the November frost. It is a movie, a painting, a book, a story of an engagement gone wrong, and yet so much more than that. It is a person who is never quite ready, never all-knowing, never trusting enough to fall into the trap of happiness. She writes it so eloquently, never saying too much, but always revealing to the audience what they need. That’s why Swift is so beloved. Taking feelings most people are all too familiar with and shaping them around a story in a poetic and simple way makes her universally understood while retaining admiration. Her lyrics hide behind a thin veil that one doesn’t even need to pull back to fully understand. gold rush is a strong example. Swift could have said “I can’t handle jealousy” but instead she wrote, “I don’t like slow motion double vision in rose blush.” She is incredibly transparent in her music about her flaws, struggles with fame, and mistakes on a level a lot of other artists, especially pop artists, don’t go near. Evermore is one of her most vulnerable albums in my opinion, with songs like ‘tis the damn season and dorothea addressing a struggle with fame and tolerate it, evermore, right where you left me, and it’s time to go addressing extremely personal themes and beliefs through ‘fiction’ but channeling raw emotion that most everyone has felt before. tolerate it will always be a personal favorite of mine for the lines “I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life / Drawing hearts in the byline / Always taking up too much space or time.”
She is always so precise in her imagery, metaphors, and comparisons. The first time I listened to that part of the song I felt like I could physically see it in front of me. I have felt like the person in that song so many times, the person always giving out affection like it costs them nothing and receiving just that in return. And who hasn’t? So when she paints a picture of someone drawing hearts in the byline of someone else’s story, waiting on them instead of writing their own, it is not hard to hear it and love it because I’ve lived it. Evermore is the perfect cross-section of intricate metaphors, intense wording and worldbuilding, and relatability. I implore anyone so certain that Taylor Swift is talentless to really listen to it at least once before they decide.