“hey, I kind of like this one!” I leaned over to turn up the volume in Kristen’s volvo as Teardrops on my guitar entered its dramatic chorus. It must have been around the summertime in 2009, the first one I would spend stuck in a small college town getting my pre-med courses out of the way. I was never a big fan of country, and typically turned up my nose at more mainstream music in favor of the gritty guitar sounds of classic rock, or whatever indie band was coming to our university venue. It was known for booking some really great acts, and while I wasn’t cool enough to discover these artists myself, my two roommates who worked there were kind enough to burn me CDs full of hidden gems like Frightened Rabbit, The Hold Steady and Band of Horses. But given enough time stuck in a small Southern town and a few new friends with different taste in music than yours, you’re bound to come around eventually.
I wasn’t a big fan at first. I liked a few songs, but cringed at her rose-colored glasses look at love and heartbreak. Even though Taylor Swift and I were the same age, I was discovering her a few years after her debut and Fearless were released, and had somewhat outgrown a lot of her idealistic views on love. I’d had Rumours and rock bands to carry me through some solid teen heartbreak years back in high school; I didn’t really need her heart on her sleeve lyrics or hopeless romanticism like I may have back then. Like most people that age, I was still discovering myself, trying to hide behind a wall of cool indifference. Her openness felt cringy to me on first listen. Still, Fearless was undeniably catchy, and I did enjoy the attitude she’d cop with songs like Picture to Burn and Our Song.
A year later I found myself the farthest from my comfort zone I’d ever been, working on a research grant while living in Greece. Amidst days of stumbling through interviews in broken Greek, struggling to keep up with the team, and falling for someone while trying to break free from a relationship that was pretty awful, I’d picked up running along the edge of the city port to clear my mind of the chaos of those early days. Speak Now had just come out and a friend had shared it with me via iTunes. I’d blast songs like Mine, Sparks Fly and The Story of Us to keep me going while I let out all the tension and stress from the day racing along the waterside.
By the time Red came out I was back in the U.S., I was working through the worst heartbreak I’d been through yet (and hopefully ever will) after the painful end of a long-distance relationship. I’d blast State of Grace and Holy Ground as I drove back country roads to nowhere, sipped wine in the tub and mulled over life (read: cried my eyes out) while All Too Well was on repeat, even begrudgingly sang along to We Are Never Getting Back Together. I found myself moving from apologetic to defensive when talking about Taylor; sure, she wrote a lot of songs about love, but wasn’t that what most people thought about, cared about, felt most intensely? Fresh off my first and only real heartbreak, the façade of playing it cool about these things had lost its allure. I’d opened myself up for the first time, and paid the price in full. It wasn’t long after that when things started looking up. I got back together with my long distance boyfriend and we'd eventually get married a few years later. But Red turned out to be exactly what I'd needed at that moment in time, and was the first Swift album I found myself unabashedly obsessed with.
When 1989 came out it felt like a seismic shift occurred in how the world viewed Taylor. Suddenly the girls who I'd attended Iron and Wine concerts with were talking about how they listened to the album on repeat and how cleverly Swift flipped the switch on her public persona in blank space. Like about a million others, I blasted Welcome to New York as my soon to be husband and I drove in on I-95 for our city clerk's office wedding. We road tripped through the Northeast that year listening to songs like All you had to do was stay, Style and How you get the girl through a tape converter to stay awake. "Boys only want love if it's Georgia" he'd tease, after playing the album for the umpteenth time.
Her short-lived popularity came crashing down some time around 2016, I think. I can't remember as I was in the throes of a pretty awful residency with long hours, little sleep and an often toxic work environment. When Reputation arrived a year later, I listened to Delicate on repeat as I struggled through a quarter life crisis, not sure if I should quit or keep going in my often exhausting and always emotionally draining career choice.
2019 was an intensely emotional year for me. I’d closed my eyes and plunged headfirst into a somewhat crazy career move that would land me on the other side of the world from my partner yet again. Before I left, we got lost upstate to the sounds of Cruel Summer and London Boy (which I was especially keen to serenade my husband with, considering he grew up South of the Thames.) But I also cried my eyes out to Lover and Daylight, afraid of what I’d signed myself up for. In the whirlwind months that followed, I played the album walking to work in the dry West African heat and as I brushed my teeth alone in a huge apartment designated for aid workers where I spent much of my free time alone with my thoughts on the chaotic day behind me and the homesickness ahead.
The pandemic brought me home early to one of my biggest adventures and surprises yet: we found out I was expecting that spring. By August my husband joked our baby would think Taylor was her Mom, considering how many times I played Folklore while pregnant that summer. Many parents will tell you that your entire worldview shifts when you have a child; every song suddenly felt like it was written for our baby girl. You are the best thing that’s ever been mine, I’d whisper in her ear in those magical early days; I made up my own words to Stay Beautiful just for her. Daylight is on her bedtime playlist.
13 years in, I’m still a big fan. My old Jetta only has a CD player, and I more or less switch between Folklore and Evermore on my snowy drives to work since the car is too old for phone hookups or bluetooth. I still play my daughter a massive mix of music, from Fleetwood Mac to Raffi to Foo Fighters, with plenty of Taylor Swift in between. I wonder if she’ll be a fan like me when she gets older, or decide that she’s too cool her music. Either way. I’ll still be listening.
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