Is there a line that we could just go cross?

I write too much and tumblr's tag system is broken so use at your own risk:

Writing a lot about Taylor's music

Writing more but different about Taylor's music because tumblr tags suck

Writing the most (the longest posts)

Lyric parallels

Eras Tour mashup discussion

this is what I'm saying and have been saying since Feb!!!

It creates a whole world in just a few minutes! And it packs SUCH a punch! Its its own little story while also a reflection of a broader story in the music. It makes me feel like I watched a whole movie in five minutes! It stands on its own as a vignette of storytelling, but it also gives you insight into some more personal detail about the art and the artist if you know a little about them and know the history. I love that you can enjoy it simply for what it is, but that it is incredibly revealing about the experiences that inspired it if you're at all attuned to that.

The entire universe of the video feels very lived-in and that is such a feat. And don't even get me started on the sets and how it was shot on film and and and--

I don’t! I don’t know if there’s much info out there beyond matching up some of the clips from the Eras documentary with pap pics from outside ELS, and even that I imagine is a lot of guesswork and speculation.

Iirc I think there were some songs (I think like Fresh Out The Slammer?) that were at least in part recorded in late 2022 in New Orleans with Jack from the studio credits in the liner notes and the photos that later came out, but from what I can remember, it was unclear how fully. (E.g. was it just part of the music track they were working on that wasn’t a full song yet?) Everything else I assume is just fan speculation; all that we really know from the little Taylor has spoken about the genesis of the album is that it spanned about two years, between the time she locked in Midnights and the time TTPD was done.

Whether she walks fans track by track through an album to give her perspective on its narrative, or drops it on their laps and lets them make their own minds up, those stories exist for people to turn to if they choose to sit with them.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how she, like other artists, talks about how once songs are out in the world, they take on new meaning by virtue of people listening to them. Like how she’s said that artists should hold onto what their music means to them, while knowing that it takes on a life of its own to the strangers listening to it.

Songs can be inspired by events specific to the artist and tell the story of their own journey, while representing something else personal to the listener, but one thing that links us all is how the music makes us all feel. Taylor might write a song about something she’s been through, and someone else might hear it and think of their own, but the human experience is what binds them, and it just strikes me as so beautiful that that humanity persists throughout whatever surrounds it.

It’s why you can return to a song you haven’t heard in years and you suddenly get it or it has now taken on a totally different meaning with your added years of life experience. And the fact that Taylor has quite literally grown up throughout her music means that pretty much every facet of that life experience is present in her discography. (I know that’s not a new perspective, and even I’ve posted about that before as I know many others have too, I’m just reiterating why it’s so fascinating.)

It seems a little trite to chalk this all up to “if you know you know” about what a song is about, but at the same time, well… that’s kind of it when you come down to it. And this is not to say every listener has to like or appreciate every single song or album someone like Taylor puts out. I’m just saying, it’s incredible that there is something for everyone and for every experience there, and what a gift that there’s an opportunity for emotional connection to art, no matter what that connection means to a person. Maybe that understanding feels like a 1:1 reflection of your life, or maybe it’s esoteric but no less important.

Every time I’ve seen a comment or even felt myself that “Taylor [or whoever] wrote this about my life” or “I have felt exactly this way before” or “this story makes me feel this,” or any number of similar things, I think, how amazing is it that that exists? That there is something that makes you feel seen? It’s just so special when people can recognize their experience in others’ and find comfort in art that speaks to them.

The fact that Taylor has continually pushed herself to go there, to write about the hard things—even during the times she didn’t understand it fully herself or felt too vulnerable to share but did it anyway, and the happy things, even when people called it cringe or the cynics were primed to steal that joy, and everything in between—is a testament to her skill as a storyteller. That is an underrated part of why she has had the career she’s had and the unprecedented longevity, particularly through the lightning strikes as it were. And on a larger and more existential scale, I think it’s ultimately a triumph of humanity (both Taylor’s and writ large) battling against increasing pushes to sanitize or dismiss it.

This song really kind of gets to the heart of when someone gets close enough to you to earn your trust, that's when you can admit to them that you actually really do care about some things.

And it was really fortuitous given all the discussion about songs like hoax recently given the folklore anniversary.