Saturday Diversion: Five Songs by Taylor Swift
Saturday Diversion: Five Songs by Taylor Swift
Prepare yourself for her new album with these tracks.
It’s me! Hi! I’m the problem—it’s me.
Next Friday, Taylor Swift releases her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department. It’s a record that comes out less than two years after the release of her last album, Midnights, and between Asian and European legs of her monumental Eras Tour. Swift consistently puts out excellent music about every two years, helping to explain how and why she’s amassed the legions of die-hard fans that made her tour one of the most sublime experiences of recent years.
As TLP’s resident Swiftie, I consider it my duty as well as my pleasure to share with you five songs representatives of Swift’s oeuvre. These tracks are among my favorites, but they’re not necessarily the songs I’d pick as my top five at this particular moment (that list would include some deep cuts mostly familiar only to dyed-in-the-wool Swifties). Instead, I’ve picked songs that best display Swift’s songwriting talents, have cemented bonds with her fans, or caught on in some way with both the wider world of popular culture.
Happy listening!
“You Belong With Me”: This supremely catchy pop-country track from Swift’s 2008 breakout album Fearlesstells a tale of unrequited teenage love—“Dreamin’ bout the day when you wake up and find/hat you’ve been looking for has been here the whole time”— one that features what still remains one of her best bridges. It’s a song that put Swift’s precocious songwriting skills on full display and remains a touchstone for Swifties to this day, as the raucous reception it receives at Eras Tour concerts demonstrates.
“Blank Space”: This song isn’t my favorite from Swift’s 2014 record 1989—that distinction goes to “Shake It Off.” But it’s probably the best track on the album, a a sly satire of Swift’s own public image and the media obsession with her personal life that, as she’s made clear over the years, masks real pain. It also has one of the most amusingly misheard lyrics since Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”—listeners bizarrely transmogrified “Got a long list of ex-lovers” into “lonely Starbucks lovers.” And to understand how central Swift’s songwriting is to both her popularity and longevity, check out this solo acoustic rendition of “Blank Space” from 2015.
“Anti-Hero”: Possibly the most popular song about anxiety, self-doubt, and self-loathing ever written, this Midnights track takes Swift into the deepest and darkest recesses of her mind as she ruminates about her own insecurities and self-perceived shortcomings: “I have this thing where I get older,” she confesses, “but just never wiser” It’s one of the highlights of the Eras Tour setlist, and it’s definitely something else to experience tens of thousands of people screaming out its lyrics like “she’s laughing up at us from hell!” at the top of their lungs.
“august”: It’s hard to pick just one song to represent Swift’s two best albums, the 2020 double-shot of folklore and evermore that saw her collaborate with indie fixture Bon Iver and The National’s Aaron Dessner. But “august,” the dreamy fulcrum of folklore’s “teenage love triangle” triptych, probably best captures the spirit and lyricism of Swift’s excellent pandemic-era records. It quickly became a fan favorite and a centerpiece of the folklore set of the Eras Tour, where Swift somehow manages to transform relatively quiet and introspective songs into stadium crowd-pleases.
“All Too Well”: Beloved by Swifties, “All Too Well” has become her signature song since its release on 2012’s Red. An epic power ballad about heartbreak with lyrics that evoke the fall season, it’s certainly in the running for her best song overall. Swift released a ten minute version of the song with her 2021 re-recording of Red, and while I personally prefer the harder-edged and original take over the longer and more smoldering variant it’s very much a close call.
I think I’ve seen this film before…
If you want to get a sense of Swift’s songwriting process and live shows, check out these documentaries and concert films:
Miss Americana: This pre-pandemic 2020 Netflix documentary goes behind the scenes of Swift’s 2018 stadium tour, the making of her 2019 album Lover, and her decision to wade into the shark-infested waters of American politics.
folklore: the long pond studio sessions: An unplugged performance of folklore in its entirety, streaming on Disney+, that also includes conversations between Swift and collaborators Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff.
The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version): If you weren’t lucky enough to snag a ticket to the Eras Tour last year, this concert film is the next best thing—even if it can’t fully replicate the experience. But if you don’t have three and a half hours to spare, check out the six-song acoustic set instead.