Taylor Swift: A reflection in black and white

in

Taylor Swift recently gained ownership of her original masters. That’s years of pictures, videos, songs, and memories, the entirety of her life’s work. In a letter addressed to fans, she shared the joy of finally reclaiming those pieces of her life. While I could wax poetic about the different imagery she’s used in her writing (and I have), this post will focus on a specific symbol and how its usage matured with her. 

A little imagery goes a long way

It’s no secret, Taylor has written songs about her experiences and feelings for like, ever. In her earliest albums, she shares how music has a part in her best and worst moments. When she’s ready to process it all, she puts her pen to work. Taylor scribbles love notes and stories and speeches on paper, the perfect medium for any artist. 

Paper is a versatile metaphor and is easy to connect with. Who hasn’t ripped, folded, or crumpled one? These near universal reactions make her feeling incredibly accessible. Paper thin plans are flimsy but lethal in their incompleteness. Paper cuts are stinging, relatable wounds; unbearable if there are a thousand of them. Put  enough paper together and you have the pages of a book, maybe even a diary. This collection of paper is lovingly filled with the reflections and imagination of its writer.

  • All Too Well: I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here

  • Sad, Beautiful, Tragic: Long handwritten note, deep in your pocket

  • Death by a Thousand Cuts: Paper cut stings from our paper thin plans

When Taylor experiences different kinds of relationships, this imagery matures as a metaphor. She’s devastated when she’s discarded as easily as crumpled paper. Handwritten notes at the bottom of her pocket suggest buried emotions; the same note in a locket could be a precious secret. Thrown out speeches are unsaid words to plead her case. Pages with dust on them suggest neglect. Ripped out pages of a diary suggests a memory she doesn’t want to keep. For love stories, the couple should have same goals… Otherwise they’ll be on different pages of the same story, or writing diverging ones. The last page of a book represents the conclusion of a love story… a page she hopes will never be written or read.

  • Enchanted
    This is me praying that
    This was the very first page
    Not where the story line ends

  • Holy Ground
    And I guess we fell apart in the usual way
    And the story's got dust on every page

  • Suburban Legends
    You'd be more than a chapter in my old diaries
    With the pages ripped out

  • New Year’s Day
    Don't read the last page
    But I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong, or we're making mistakes

  • Cornelia Street
    We were a fresh page on the desk
    Filling in the blanks as we go

  • Death by a Thousand Cuts
    But if the story's over
    Why am I still writing pages?

  • tolerate it
    I made you my temple, my mural, my sky
    Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life

  • right where you left me: Pages turn and stick to each other

  • Paris
    Privacy sign on the door
    And on my page and on the whole world

  • You’re On Your Own, Kid
    'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned

The Manuscript

While there are a few definitions for manuscript, the consensus seemed to be that it’s an original, drafted work—most often by pen and sometimes by type. It’s a deeply personal creation with scratches and scribbles its writer has edited and curated.

The song itself is a wistful drive down memory lane. Taylor reflects on eras of her life and how each deeply impacted her in different ways. As the bridge swells, she shares how she writes what she knows. When the tears fall with the score, The Eras Tour comes to mind. She shed blood, sweat, and tears for the tour and performed through her own heartbreak. And each night, an attentive audience sang their own heartbreak with her.

The Manuscript is every page she’s ever scribbled on, tossed out, turned over, and ripped out. It’s the collection of her heartaches and heartbreaks. It’s an account of all she’s ever loved and who she’s ever been. It’s the only evidence she has of a relationship that exists outside of the public eye. She has written that love story’s last page. As the last song of her latest album, she’s finally clean.

A printed reputation and a handwritten account

When Taylor announced ownership of her entire catalog, she also mentioned she had not finished rerecording reputation, an album made during her retreat from the celebrity circus. Her most recent album is The Tortured Poets Department, the perfect foil to that period. It written at a time where each move she made was magnified, dissected, and critiqued under the cruel lens of fame—and she challenged it.

reputation’s album cover is iconic, with Taylor looking at her viewer directly. Printed over her face is typed text, similar to what you would see in a newspaper or tabloid. The stories about her at the time were shaped by the media, even though they literally did not see her for a year. They created a narrative where she was as terrible and dishonest as all her detractors gleefully hoped she would be. At the same time, Taylor was recording a love story far from the public eye. 

In 2023 and a handful of albums later, Taylor would go through another firestorm: her breakup with her long-term lover, and a rebound many found distasteful. Taylor (2023’s version) is different than Taylor (2016’s version). She’s stronger and better equipped to deal with the criticism and backlash.

When Taylor debuted The Tortured Poets Department set, the crowd went wild. Her white dress was adorned with her lyrics, written by her own hand. The personal touch of her script demonstrates her vulnerability alongside the scathing truth. To complement this, the various album covers of this era are intimate, black and white portraits—a stark contrast to the defiance of reputation. In this era, Taylor is on the world’s stage, and with an ever captive audience, she shapes the narrative on her own terms. 

Written in black and white

Reputation bore the black of a tarnished image; The Tortured Poets Department is a white page, unburdened by the same expectations. One is stamped with the bold, formal text of publication print and the other uses typed text and scrawling cursive. They bookend her long-term relationship, her reaction to the media frenzy, and represent the growth she’s experienced. In The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor’s words are a weapon and a shield. She doesn’t let the media, or fans, write her story. Instead, she confesses [her] truth in swooping, sloping letters even as her own health and happiness is in decline.

For as much as the songs are about how she’s loved, these stories are also about another relationship Taylor has largely concealed from the public eye: the one with herself. She’s not the same Taylor in 2016, and she’s let everyone know. She’s messier and madder. We don’t know all of who she is after 31 songs. But after 11 albums, it certainly feels like it. Her confessional, diaristic lyrics help listeners connect to her and each other.

Despite her fatalistic dreaming and scheming, The Manuscript still has the signature optimism of all her ending tracks. The pages of her story have been lovingly collected into the albums she shares with us now. She may reread the manuscript, revisit her past loves, and her former selves. Her songs may underscore our best moments and guide us through worst heartbreaks. She definitely owns the rights to all her music, but this art belongs to us now. Music transforms when we create our own meanings, memories, and stories. She knows that it’s a privilege to still be a part of her fans’ most precious and intimate moments, especially after all these years. 

Taylor didn’t know it all at 15, but she knows it now: that is what it was all for.

Down Bad: An abduction by fame

in

Down Bad off The Tortured Poets Department is a favorite off Taylor Swift’s latest album. Come on, an alien abduction standing in for a toxic romance? Perfect. But if we know anything about Taylor, she's grown as a writer and her stories of romance are sometimes disguises for another. This album is a reflection on Taylor's relationship to fame and its effects on her life and this song just happens to use an extraterrestrial metaphor to emphasize that.

Verse 1 - The industry of fame

Did you really beam me up?
In a cloud of sparkling dust
Just to do experiments on
Tell me I was the chosen one
Show me that this world is bigger than us
Then sent me back where I came from
For a moment I knew cosmic love 

To perform on the world's stage, artists must forever leave the quiet lives they've known. Through shows like X-factor, American Idol, and The Voice, we're shown that mere mortals would be so lucky to have a chance at fame. The industry has invited them to participate in the madhouse that is Hollywood. In the first verse, she could be speaking to the fame industry that picked her up and apart, showered her with praise, before dropping her off. Taylor has experienced the these moments of adulation and abandonment in her career, just look no further than the VMA awards or that infamous phone call. As quickly as you rise into universal acclaim and cosmic love, you can just as easily lose it all.

  • Down Bad | Did you really beam me up… Tell me I was the chosen one?

  • Clara Bow | All your life, did you know you'd be picked like a rose?

Verse 2 - Her old selves and masters 

Did you take all my old clothes?
Just to leave me here naked and alone
In a field in my same old town
That somehow seems so hollow now
They'll say I'm nuts if I talk about the existence of you
For a moment I was heaven struck

Taylor has famously changed her aesthetic with every era, and we all know her eras are her albums. The rerecording project was born from the masters dispute with her old label and her inability to purchase them. They stripped her of her old selves and left her in the industry with nothing but herself. While Taylor has used town to refer to Hollywood, she also uses small towns and hometowns as stand-ins for safe and familiar places: what's safer than yourself? What is fame without the work that she lovingly wrote as she grew?

  • Down Bad | Did you take all my old clothes? Just to leave me here naked and alone

  • Cardigan | Vintage tee, brand new phone, high heels on, cobblestone… Sequined style, black lipstick, sensual politics

  • Fortnight | I was a functioning alcoholic til nobody noticed my new aesthetic  

The celebrity industry loves protecting itself and will do its best to warp your memories and experiences. If she dares talk about the people who wronged her, people will tell her she's petty. If she talks about how she wasn't given a chance to own her work, people will call her a crazy billionaire. If she mentions the casual misogyny when people speak of her abilities and business acumen, she’s dismissed as overrated. Fame is a prison, and it's more than happy to eat its captives alive.

The bridge - Her lover and us

I loved your hostile takeovers
Encounters closer and closer
All your indecent exposures
How dare you say that it's -
I'll build you a fort on some planet
Where they can all understand it
How dare you think it's romantic
Leaving me safe and stranded
Cause fuck it, I was in love
So fuck you if I can't have us
Cause fuck it, I was in love

In the climax of this song, Taylor addresses the industry and her fans. She doesn’t love our invasions of her privacy and peace. How dare we keep creeping into her personal life? How dare we expose intimate details of her life? How dare we say her relationship is…?
 
That’s a sentence she never finished.

She’s interrupted by the simultaneous demands of her lover. While she’s trying to appease us and the celebrity machine, she’s also trying to appeal to him. Taylor pleads with him, promises him a sanctuary away from us invaders, promises a place they could know peace. How dare he leave her alone in a world without him?
 
Choosing between two loves is a familiar problem to Taylor, one she encountered when choosing between staying in country music or doing pop: “At a certain point, if you chase two rabbits, you lose them both.” If you don’t chose, someone else might choose for you… and whether or not you like it, you will have to live with that choice.
 
The bridge is the only time where Taylor sings “fuck you" and one can't help but wonder who she's screaming it at.

  • Down Bad | I'll build you a fort on some planet, where they can all understand it

  • the lakes | Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die, I don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you

The chorus - Teenage petulance

Taylor’s brattiness is on full display and she has to face reality. I mean who didn’t throw a teenage temper tantrum when things didn’t go her way? Taylor has lamented that she’s grown up and hasn’t changed much in some ways, and this meltdown is just another example. She’s gonna cry and scream and be moody. Everyone gets to behave badly, why not her?

  • The Archer | I never grew up it’s getting so old

  • Anti-Hero | I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser.

In her petulance, she screams fuck it. What's the point if her lover doesn't want her? She and her music, and all the fame it comes with, are inseparable. She may not like it, but they’re forever linked. She could stay in a pool of her own blood or she could distract herself from her own heartbreak and be abducted by fame again. Taylor will die either way, so what’s the difference?

Down Bad and the rest of her album

The alien as her lover is a very easy to comparison to make, especially considering the lyrics in the preceding and succeeding songs in the track list. Taylor shares her sadness, grief, denial, and anger about her relationship. There's no acceptance here. She’s contorted herself in so many ways for her career and for her lovers. How can anyone accept the cost when it has taken so much?

  • My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys | Stole my tortured heart, left all these broken parts

  • Down Bad | Just to do experiments on…

  • Down Bad | Waving at the [space]ship

  • So Long, London | And you say I abandoned the [relation]ship, but I was going down with it 

If it seems unlikely that she’s criticizing the music industry and celebrity machine, look no further than the closing song of the main album: Clara Bow. It takes similar events and lyrics in Down Bad and more directly ties them to the fame monster (thanks Lady Gaga).

  • Down Bad | Did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust?
    Clara Bow | Take the glory, give everything, promise to be dazzling

  • Down Bad | I might just die, it would make no difference
    Clara Bow | I'm not trying to exaggerate, but I think I might die if it happened, die if it happened to me

  • Down Bad | In a field in my same old town, that somehow seems so hollow now
    Clara Bow | No one in my small town thought, I'd see the lights of Manhattan/thought I'd meet these suits in LA
    Clara Bow | This town is fake but you're the real thing 

  • Down Bad | Down bad, wakin' up in blood (Wakin' up in blood), Starin' at the sky, come back and pick me up
    Clara Bow | Flesh and blood amongst war machines, you're the new god we're worshipping
    You're On Your Own Kid (bonus) | My friends from home don't know what to say, I looked around in a blood-soaked gown…

  • Down Bad | For a moment I was heavenstruck
    Clara Bow | It's hell on earth to be heavenly
    Midnight Rain (bonus) | My town was a wasteland…but for some it was paradise

When each part of a person's life and work is scrutinized through the music industry, stan culture, and celebrity gossip, we're testing what parts of them can tolerate the worst of us. When a celebrity displeases the masses, or the entities that finance them, they're discarded and replaced by a new iteration. They then tumble into obscurity and only 20 years later do we ask: what happened to them? Perhaps these fallen stars ask themselves if the experience was even really real. When you consider it this way, are alien abductions really so different from fame?
 
Fame, and all that it encompasses, may have dropped Taylor many times, she's used to that. A lover dropping her because of it? Unfathomable. She further laments her fate in The Prophecy. She begs for a way to change her fate. Her fame is a prison that her lovers want no part of; no matter how much she gives of herself, she can’t find someone who wants to stay.
 
The Tortured Poets Department is Taylor’s analysis of her own life, with all the evidence and perspectives packaged so we can see how fame’s gilded cage shaped her. Down Bad may take us out of this world, but it’s just one of the many complex reflections Taylor has made about her life on the ground.

Related links

Musings 13: Style + Out of the Woods = Wildest Dreams

in ,

Yes. I know I'm a few months late, etc etc. I also know that Taylor Swift debuted her new single!

I just wanted to throw out there short thoughts on what I had about the album other than I obviously love it. 

Out of the Woods came first and with its timing before the album's release, it seems more apt of the uncertainty that the artist could have faced. Interpretations of the reasoning aside, however, the song is only one side of juggling a relationship in which the status is undefined. The song itself has a hint of nostalgia and melancholy based on the memories relayed and the repetition of the same "Are we out of the woods, yet?" 

Yet. The word itself alludes to a prolonging of some experience. The bridge about "hitting the brakes too soon" is in its own way a breakthrough, and the song's key and energy changes at this point. Cycle broken. What's interesting to note is that the visuals you would expect for this song are of forests and trees, and lots of memories. Shown in the video of another song...

While musically different, Style, is the same relationship, but looking at the back and forth of it. It isn't necessarily a good thing, as the good girl bad guy thing doesn't usually work out. I know people seem to suggest that there was infidelity, but I honestly just think that they broke up. They break up and get together and do it again and again. Even though he's out with other girls, he's still thinking about her. She's doing the same with other guys. It's important to note that lyrically Taylor Swift is referencing the '50s James Dean badboy look, similar to the Marilyn Monroe red lips. 

And here, it leads me to Wildest Dreams, in which the 50s style movie film genre. Her look references Liz Taylor, the sadness of the separation almost seems reminiscent of Casablanca, and the separation of two almost lovers. The song evokes the feelings I have, but more importantly, it references how timeless the story of Style is and how the story doesn't change. Just the characters.

 

TLDR: SUPER EXCITED I LOVE TAYLOR SWIFT.

Musings 10: To Taylor, From Maxx

in

I was not always a fan of Taylor Swift.

In fact, I distinctly remember in high school that I hated her Romeo and Juliet song about something that "obviously" could never work. I mean, seriously those children died.  "They're dead Taylor," I said, "this song is stupid, and it was the stupidest love story ever." Then, something happened with You Belong with Me and I started to turn.  I was becoming a Taylor Swift fan.

This wasn't a surprise by any means. At the time of my life in which I was criticizing Taylor Swift for imagining such silly things, I was coming to my own conclusions about creative expression. One of the musings I posted previously was about how everything we do in the world is an extension of ourselves. That which we choose to do is a reflection of us, and we should never choose to give less that all of ourselves. My conclusion was that all that we do should be done in love.

I wrote that when I was 18, about 6 years ago. This musing is when I realized that amongst all the love songs and clichéd lines, that she was just practicing something she loved in the same way I practiced my words and sketched what moved my soul.  I began to listen to her music more and I loved what I heard. The movement of her compositions matched the flow of the words in a way I could never do. Did I necessarily think she was a better writer than me? No. Could I draw better than her? Maybe. Could she write songs better than I could? Absolutely. I can't write music to save my life. 

Through practice do we find better ways we can express ourselves and better wield the tools that let us craft, whatever it is that we chose. I would have once considered myself a very clever writer, and judged harshly those who could only quote others to describe their own thoughts. I also once would have rolled my eyes at someone who showed off their amateur works. Then, I learned something very important.

Creative expression is necessary, and the resulting works may speak volumes for people who don't know how to express themselves, or have not found the ways to do so. For those who continue to find ways that they can speak, the limits are their own imaginations. Skill is no longer a factor in this, as skill doesn't dictate what causes cathartic release, unbridled joy, or unfathomable sadness.

Fulfillment through passionate expression isn't new. Roman and Greek people had written stories and poems with the same intent. Trust me, I've read some very boring Latin fiction and poetry. During the Renaissance, the de'Medici family sponsored the creation of many inspiring works of art. This patronage continued through the Impressionist period and well into the 19th century. Music is no different from this. Composers like Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, names that may be familiar to those who don't even have any familiarity with baroque and classical music. 

If you've noticed though, these creators had very rich supporters and very distinct centers of art for their endeavors. Vienna was the center of baroque music, while Rome and Italy is where most people associate the Renaissance movement. New York City itself became a place of innovative art, depending on your "definition" of art. I mean have you seen what dadaism is? If not, look up the Foutain by Marcel Duchamp. When it comes to modern art, most people are familiar with Andy Warhol and his creation of the Campbell's soup labels.

The distribution and consumption of art by "common" people is a recent phenomenon. Prior to the 20th century, art was mostly consumed by those who could afford it. The merchants of Italy, the courts of Vienna, the kings who paid handsomely for their own portraits. Ballets and operas and theater. Even Shakespeare found patronage in the crown, and we still sift through his sonnets centuries later. With the introduction of radio and television, art no longer was limited to the geographical location, but was as consumable as the utilities that distributed them. Jazz music on the radio? The Dick Van Dyke variety show with music? For the first time, the price of admission to enjoy something beautiful became small. Radio is a public good, and basic television is almost there, so we began to see forms of entertainment and expression as the same.

Internet has grown to take much of the audience that TV and radio once did. Remember MySpace? I sure do. Many artists flocked to MySpace to distribute their music and their arts to find patronage. Instead of sponsors seeking artists, it shifted to where the artists now looked for patrons. On the internet, we are the patrons, and the business model has shifted towards artists distributing and work with no promise on payment. The currency is now the amount of views or followers or likes we have acquired through the expression of ourselves on the internet. Everyone's a patron here, but the biggest patrons can influence the crowd.

Networks and production companies are slowly shifting towards the internet to capture viewers and consumers of their product, and artists have done the same. The only quantifiable value is how many people consume it, and who will consume as a result of a work's consumption.  A video has a million views, to network producers, that means a million chances an ad will play, and a million more dollars one company will pay over another to increase exposure. But isn't that what artists are doing too? Without the millions of dollars in pay?

This is where Taylor Swift makes a very good point. Last summer she pulled her music from Spotify, after having written an op-ed about the distribution of music, and the importance of relationships between the fans (patrons) and the artists (… artists, duh). Essentially, she believes that the current experience of music diminishes the value of an artists' expression, and we should ask for the value of our expressions.

Really, her movement into NYC is almost symbolic if you think about how NYC is really one of the first places (aside from Paris), where art was made easier for public consumption. Except now, she's taking a stand and encouraging us to demand the value of ourselves. There are many artists who spend hours of practice perfecting their chords and strokes across paper, the arch of their feet as they bend on stage, for the love of it. Why shouldn't those who do find patronage show them what they're worth? People are always willing to pay for convenience, and spend money on people they love by buying things those people love. What makes this different?

But remember, we've been conditioning ourselves for the past century that creative expressions should be free; and the cost of entry to enjoy them is much smaller than it had been in the past. In fact, we've moved towards feeling entitled to the expressions of someone else, because we aren't willing to pay. Concert experiences were once unique, but as it became cheaper to consume television and radio, and with YouTube available to snap shots of different shows, the value of a live performance became lost. The experience was lost.


It's easy to pirate music, and it's easy to print or save a beautiful picture off the internet to look at later. It isn't "worth" paying for something when you can get it for free right? Right. Taylor Swift made an important statement when she refused to put her recent album on Apple's streaming service. She stated they would not be paying artists for sharing their music for free. We "don't ask for free iPhones."

But we also perceive iPhones to be more valuable because the cost to own one is high, while the cost to consume music and art and human expression has become lower and perceivably cheaper. It has added value because of its versatility in use; creative expression exists mostly to be beautiful. Most people are hesitant to move towards paid streaming services because Youtube is "free" and pirating is "free." Pandora's former executive reminded everyone that all streaming services pay their artists, and it's really the status quo of Silicon Valley. Nothing here is momentous or new. Just more of the same.

The artistic centers of Rome and Vienna have shifted from physical places to being the devices we spend hours on, and the services we consume. We all are still patrons and sponsors of these creative expressions, but the value is now measured in views and likes and followers. Our perception gives them influence, so without it they're nothing. It has always been the patrons who dictated the value of an artist, whether in gold or in digital clicks. The difference now is that we've stripped the artistry of the exclusive experience and the relationship between the patron and the artist. Instead, we've severed this relationship with the screens on our phones and removed the breathing, living, loving person who created the music or art we enjoy.

What makes this whole debate interesting is that Taylor Swift has emphasized the importance of valuing art and expression. Realistically, patrons have always dictated the value of art, and that hasn't changed even now. Why does this make what she's saying important? People have always wanted to create, and art has always been the direct result of this. Children draw and sing and dance because they can. Art exists outside of museum and salons; look at the street art that graces different neighborhoods. Sometimes, we don't need to know the artist to appreciate the art. Look at Banksy, who manipulates and commentates on the current condition of the art world through his anonymous exhibits and expressions. In the inverse, human expression has always existed without an audience, I mean look at Van Gogh or Emily Dickinson or the Foxconn worker who also happened to be a poet. (Foxconn helps to manufacture many smartphones and smartphone parts in case you didn't know.)

This debate doesn't have a clear solution, and that's acceptable too. It will always be a dance of patron and artist diminishing or adding value to human expression. Human expression is universal and as permeating as the air we breathe; a need we don't place value on. When we find ways to express our love, sometimes we can't find the words we need, sometimes shared in the first dances of newlyweds. Doing what we love and doing something valuable shouldn't be mutually exclusive; we've just been taught over the course of our lifetimes that it should be.

The refusal to pay for streaming music services is a passive and quiet reminder that we are the products and the audience at the same time. We may be the audience to music, but someone is always watching us too. We are the products to the companies who advertise through these services, and we are the products if we choose to share our content in these ways. Paying for streaming content can help consumers to dictate their experience with a work of art. It's about reestablishing the relationship between the consumption of art, the artist, and us; humans, people.   

Ultimately, Taylor Swift is defiantly fighting an uphill battle against a society and consumers who may not understand the price of free; by building a relationship with her patrons. Us. The real world is stacked against artists, and the "free" model is the way to go for consumers. While we groan and gripe about paying more to enjoy music, artists will create in spite of it. Companies ask for money to stream it, really so they can better host it for you, but skew the rewards for the people who generate the content through their own cleverness and creativity.

Regardless of art or employment, what we do has value; it's an extension of ourselves after all. What we forget is the first patron for any work is the performer or creator herself. If she loves what she does, and values what she does, why wouldn't she ask that others value her the same way?

Just remember, it never hurts when you first love what you do.