Finito! Molly's Top Taylor Songs, Part 2
Song analysis, Taylor gossip, and confessions from the Diary of an Anxious Attacher
And here, my friends, we come to the end of the Taylor Swift road. For now, at least.
In case you forgot, this whole thing started when I left a friend voice memos about why people like Taylor Swift so much, which then led to a post about my (current) favorite Taylor songs, which then took me so long, it needed to be in two parts (kinda like the new Wicked movie, but, you know, smaller marketing budget).
And so here is Part Two, my rundown of the second half of my 20 (okay it’s actually 23 but you’ll see why) Taylor Swift songs and why I like them.
This time I waxed a little more poetic. Got a little more personal, both with my own life and with Taylor’s. This whole series has been fun and diverting, each newsletter in its own way, and this one was fun and diverting in more of a contemplative, self-reflective, and also storytelling way. It was fun to see where it took me.
In general, I’ve enjoyed being in the Taylor zone this long, especially at this moment in time. And it really is… a zone.
There is this feeling you get when you finally discover and really begin to appreciate Taylor Swift. It’s some combination of feeling seen, feeling expressed, feeling joy, feeling like you’re immersed in a cohesive world. A comfort, a specific type of stimulation. It’s a feeling I find I literally can’t get elsewhere.
I thought I might be alone in this, but I was talking to a friend who’s a recent convert after taking her daughter to the Eras Tour, and she confirmed: once you go Taylor, it’s really hard to go anywhere else. You just… don’t want to leave the zone.
It’s almost like being a person who loves Christmas, and wanting only to listen to carols and watch holiday movies for the whole season, so as to stay immersed in that specific vibe. Can you listen to Halloween music and get A vibe? Sure. But it’s a different vibe. Can you listen to other church music or folk music and get a wintery vibe? Yeah, kinda. But it’s not quite the same. If you want that Christmas feeling, Christmas music it’s gotta be. And if you want that Taylor feeling, Taylor’s the only place you’re gonna find it.
The Taylor Zone
Here are the playlists I’ve had on repeat while doing this project:
Molly’s Top Taylor Playlist (the list this series is about)
The Eras Tour Official Setlist (the title speaks for itself)
Taylor Swift Radio (this one has been a fun break from All Taylor All the Time, while still staying in a Taylor state of mind. Features music from Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish, SZA, Noah Kahan, P!nk, Florence + the Machine… )
This is why I listened to nothing but 1989 when it came out. And then nothing but TTPD when it came out. And is perhaps why Taylor Swift people are such Taylor Swift people.
It just feels good to be inside her music, her world, her community. It is, dare I say, a balm for existential loneliness, and even, perhaps, in this moment, existential terror.
Will you get all that from reading these posts and listening to my playlist? Maybe. Maybe not. I think, like that Christmas vibe, there are people who will respond to it, and people who won’t, no matter how much they’re exposed or how much they get it intellectually.
But I do hope that perhaps you may understand a little bit more why the people who do respond, respond.
And if you don’t? Or don’t care? No problem! We’re moving on after this.
I certainly didn’t expect to spend three weeks writing about it. I still haven’t said everything I want to say about Taylor in a broader cultural context, but there will be a time for that - later. For now, I have very much enjoyed where this little surprise project has taken me, and I also feel complete with it, til further notice.
So what’s next? Who knows? Will it be some moving piece about what’s going on in the world? Something informative about disability or COVID? A rundown of all the media I’ve consumed and forgotten to share with you? That pseudo-memoir-y essay thing I started writing a few weeks ago, inspired by Heartstopper? Pluto has moved out of Capricorn in my 5th house and I am exhausted and my apartment didn’t burn down and everything feels different now, so literally anything could happen. Stay tuned.
But first, we have some Taylor business to finish up.
So without further ado, here is the rest of Molly’s Top Taylor, Explained:
11. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
I just don’t see how there’s any list of favorite Taylor songs, by anyone, for any reason, that doesn’t have this song on it. I already wrote in my original Taylor post about the charm of that sing-a-long chorus, and the relatability of the emotion expressed in the song, and the silly talking interlude that she changes for every location on the Eras Tour (apparently Kam’s Toronto version is “Soooorry - aboot it!”), so I’m not sure what more there is to say besides this song is a fun must for any Breakup Playlist.
Except, I suppose, that the video is the most 2012 thing you’ve ever seen. Her hipster band with emo bangs and ironic sunglasses dressed up in animal onesies? Looks like pre-Google-Bus-era San Francisco Bay to Breakers. Her love interest wearing a T-shirt and a big scarf? Hello, Every Boy in the late aughts and early teens. All those very girlie vaguely business casual blouses with Zooey Deschanel bangs? 2012 called. It wants its style back.
The only thing more 2012 is the style of the original live performance of this song, which has a circus theme. Because that’s about the time the circus aesthetic, which got popular in the counterculture (esp Burning Man culture) in the early aughts, and then made its way to the mainstream by the late aughts (see Panic! at the Disco’s entire 2006 tour which actually featured some of my friends from the Burning Man cirque scene, and Britney’s “Circus” album in 2008), finally fucking died.
Trivia: Taylor wrote this song with Max Martin, the famed Swedish producer and songwriter responsible for hits like “…Baby One More Time” and “I Want it That Way,” so no wonder it’s such an excellent fucking pop song. He also helped write some of Taylor’s other best and most quintessentially pop pop songs, including “Shake it Off” and “Blank Space.” It’s said this song was written about Jake Gyllenhaal, inspired by a friend who entered the studio where Taylor and Max were working and mentioned they’d heard she and the actor were on again (after being off again). It’s also notable that though Red, the album this song was on, was still considered a country album, and won many country awards, and 1989 was considered her first “pop” album, you can actually hear in this song how she was starting to move from one genre to the other, by blending both.
12. exile (feat. Bon Iver)
This stunning duet with Bon Iver almost doesn’t feel like a Taylor Swift song except it is. which once again speaks to Taylor’s endless and ever-evolving creativity and collaborative spirit, and, whether I like to admit it or not, to her increasing credibility amongst widely respected and critically acclaimed musicians.
Or maybe I should just own my part of that, which is: even as a pop music fan, I still have a tendency to put pop into the “light-weight guilty pleasures” bucket, and other music, especially indie rock that takes itself very seriously (whether or not I even like it) as “Real Art™.”
And I’ve been guilty of doing this with Taylor, even as I listened to nothing but 1989 for like two years. But when I saw that artists like Bon Iver, The National, and Florence Welch were making music with her, I was forced to unpack my cognitive dissonance: either those artists are light-weight too, or Taylor… isn’t.
The truth is, pop IS real art, even when it’s silly bubblegum fun. But also, Taylor’s work mostly isn’t bubblegum fun. Though the vehicle may be pop, the cargo often has the same heft - and emotional punch - as music that usually fits into a more folk or indie box.
And this song forced me to face and consider all of that.
That’s not why it’s on this list though. It’s here because this song is just plain beautiful, and fucking heart-wrenching, and also deeply resonant. I love breakup songs that allow me to fully embrace one aspect of that experience - the anger, the jealousy, the longing, the regret. But this song is devastating because of its nuance.
This song expresses and contains the reality that when two people fall apart, it is often (if not always) because they are having painful experiences that are true to them and yet somehow they cannot agree together on the narrative. Both feel injured. And both are. Even though both may be trying their best, and not aware they are causing injury. It has taken me a long time to really get it that sometimes two people are living two entirely different stories and cannot, maybe EVER, find a way to agree on the storyline, and we just have to live with that, that existential alone-ness, both within a relationship but also and especially after it’s over. And that neither person is wrong. Or right. They are… simply singing their part of the duet.
The paired lines in this song that really get me, and I mean gets me like rips my still-beating heart out of my chest, is Bon Iver’s “you never gave a warning sign” coupled with Taylor’s “I gave so many signs.”
First, because I identify so much with Taylor’s part in this song. In most of my serious relationships, I am the anxiously attached partner. My relationship becomes my special interest, my job, my devotional practice. I am never not thinking about, contributing to it, and working at it. Trying trying trying always trying. Trying to love them (so they’ll love me). Trying to reach them. Trying to get the attention I crave. Trying to bridge distance. Trying to fix what’s broken.
I’m rarely the one to leave, but when I am, it’s because I have been trying for ages, and I just can’t do it anymore. The last time this happened, it was almost two years from the first time I wondered “should I break up with him?” to the day I told him it was over - and yet he still felt like there was time to make it work. That disconnect, that exhaustion, that pain of not having the effort noticed or taken seriously until it was too late… that’s all here in Taylor’s part of this song.
But I’ve also been on the Bon Iver side, in a way. The one who refuses to see the signs. The one who feels blindsided. Who looks at their ex with the new partner in disbelief they could move on “so fast,” when in reality this has been a long time coming.
When another big relationship ended, this time at his hands, not mine, it felt to me like it came out of nowhere. After all, we hadn’t actually been talking about breaking up. Not really. But the seeds of what tore us apart had been planted a year before, so much so that back when it happened, I spent days crying at breakfast as though we were breaking up (and then conveniently sort of… forgot about that?). And in the year since, he had given me a million signs he was questioning things, and that he was pulling away. In fact, I had given myself a million signs that I was pulling away too. And yet, if I’d been singing a song upon the day of our parting, I would have been Bon Iver, saying “you never gave a warning sign.” Because that felt true, to me. Then.
And well, being in both positions is just fucking terrible. And also, holding space for the devastating chasm between two people who are in these two places is a deeper kind of terrible, because it’s not the acute self-righteous pain of occupying just your position, it’s the bigger existential grief of… the human experience.
And so, here we are. This song’s on the list because: The Human Experience, featuring Bon Iver.
And also, I just love his voice. So there’s that.
Trivia: Joe Alwyn actually started writing this song (credited on the album as his musical pseudonym William Bowery, though I’m not clear on why he wanted/needed one). As Taylor details in the Long Pond Studio Sessions, which I found very boring until one day I didn’t, he’s a beautiful pianist, and one day he started playing the exile riff, and wrote/sang the first lines of this song spontaneously. Taylor was so taken with it, she asked if they could develop it. She knew it should be a duet, with someone with a low voice, and, her and Joe being big fans of Bon Iver, she secretly wanted it to be with him. But when she sent the track to Aaron Dessner of the National, who she was already writing folklore with, she was too shy to say that out loud, because it would hurt too much if Justin Vernon/Bon Iver said no. Miraculously, Aaron is the one who suggested that Justin would love it, and of course he did, and so the song turned out exactly as Taylor hoped.
13. Out of the Woods
I know that theoretically “Blank Space” or “Wildest Dreams” are the best pop songs on 1989 and I can’t disagree, but I just really love “Out of the Woods.” Part of that is it’s one of the songs that I didn’t care for, and then came to deeply appreciate, after hearing that NPR radio show I keep mentioning. In particular, the review pointed out how the chorus, with its repeating, almost breathless phrasing, sounds like someone running from something, something, say, chasing her in the woods (an observation that our favorite duo Terry and Kaniyia also made).
I think what I really like about that chorus, and this song in general, is that it captures a relationship anxiety I am very familiar with. Here she is describing the experience of being with someone in this moment - physically and relationally - but she is haunted by all they’ve been through, all the uncertainty, all the past pain. She is asking if it is safe to relax. If the hard moments are behind them. Or if this is yet another deceptive break in what will be ongoing drama. She is literally lying on the couch with him in the lyrics, so theoretically, she has him. But her mind is racing. She is still unsettled. Hypervigilant. She doesn’t feel like she has him. She might not. And, girl, been there.
I feel like this is the Anxious Attachment/Avoidant Attachment Relationship Anthem, and, well, as someone who once spent a year in a relationship I thought was exclusive and he didn’t, that then blew up with me walking in on him with someone else, two months of No Contact, and then a sudden weekend-long reunion that ended in him hastily agreeing to the commitment he had previously not wanted, I feel that anthem in my soul.
Trivia: If this song isn’t about Harry Styles, then Taylor is just fucking with us on purpose. The lyrics reference her wearing his necklace, and paper airplanes, which lines up with the time fans noticed Taylor wearing the pendant that had famously been part of Harry’s uniform. There’s also a reference to hitting the brakes too soon, and “20 stitches” - which is the number of stitches Harry got in his chin after he and Taylor were in a snowmobile accident together (on a trip to Utah with Justin Bieber, ftr, because apparently there is continuity in the extended pop music cinematic universe).
14. The Travis Trilogy
Okay so this one might be cheating because this is really an appreciation of three songs in one, for one reason and one reason only: Mr. Travis (Swift) Kelce.
It’s also cheating because in reality, there are five (or more) songs that are relevant to this subject, including one of the two songs she actually wrote about him (“The Alchemy,” seriously, go read the lyrics - this is a perfect example of the way Taylor just lays it plain how she feels and who the song’s about, because, I mean, who else is she writing an entire football metaphor - and not metaphor - about?), and the song (“Karma”) she changed the lyrics to during her tour to reference him (“Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me”) instead of the original reference to Joe (“Karma is the guy on the screen…”), which, when she first did it, drove the fandom absolutely batshit fucking insane (in a good way), and was actually, I believe, her first public confirmation, from her own mouth, of their relationship - though she’d been showing up at games for months.
But I’m not going to write about either of those songs (both of which are good/fine/great/whatever). Nor am I going to write about any of the mash-ups she’s done as surprise songs that seem to be about Travis (like the time she mashed up “This Love” and “The Prophecy” in a way that suggests that “this love” with Travis has changed “the prophecy” that all of her relationships must fall apart and end in heartbreak).
Instead, I’m going to write about the ones that get my personal heart beating.
And I’m going to do it by telling you the story of Taylor and Travis.
So…
If you’re a living breathing human on the Planet Earth, you probably know that Taylor Swift, global pop phenomenon, is dating Travis Kelce, American football hero.
But there is some added context here you might not know that is important to understanding why this relationship delights the fandom so much, and why I am writing about these particular songs.
First of all, it’s important to know that Travis Kelce was already wildly popular within his own football world for being a talented Kansas City Chiefs tight end (which apparently is both a defensive and offensive position, and as a position has a very close relationship with the quarterback, which in this case happens to also be Travis’ best friend Patrick Mahomes, who, it is sort of tangentially relevant in a romcom sort of way, is married to his high school sweetheart Brittany). In his world, he is known for being charming, funny, very good at his job, and for having a podcast called New Heights with his older brother Jason, who just retired from his position as a wildly talented and popular center for the Philadelphia Eagles. Jason is the silly, goofy brother (you will see him in some videos below in colorful overalls and a Lucha libre mask), and Travis is the crinkle-eyed smiling straight man to Jason’s charming frat boy antics. Travis also had his own reality dating show in, like, 2016.
But outside football world, people like me didn’t necessarily know (or care) who any of these people were.
While they lived in their own football bubble, Travis made it clear that he had always had a crush on Taylor Swift. He mentioned on his podcast that he’d gone to the Kansas stop of the Eras Tour, armed with one of the beaded friendship bracelets that fans exchange at the shows with his phone number on it, hoping to give it to Taylor backstage. But, as he detailed on the podcast, Taylor wasn’t meeting people after the show, and he didn’t get to shoot his shot.
Fast forward to a few… weeks?… months?… later, and TAYLOR ALISON FUCKING SWIFT showed up to a Chiefs game. Showed up and SAT WITH TRAVIS’ MOTHER.
What became clear in the months to follow is that Taylor heard about Travis’ podcast, and was open to meeting him, which she did, and they hit it off. At the time, there was speculation that Taylor’s appearance at the game was their first date, but she later confirmed that notion was absurd, and that of course they had been dating in private for awhile before she’d do something as public as to show up at a nationally televised sports event.
From that moment on, the NFL became NFL (Taylor’s Version). Much to the delight of many daughters of football dads, many execs of the NFL, NFL’s Twitter account manager (who started to reference Taylor lyrics in their ever-changing bio), and some of the NFL crowd - and much to the dismay of the other part of the NFL crowd, who got annoyed that the camera panned to Taylor every time Trav made a play, or that now they had to share their Man Time with their 9-year-old in her Eras Tour T-shirt. But that’s a whole other discussion.
A little overview of their love story
(apologies for the weird links - Substack doesn’t like TikTok)
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What’s important here is that we know that Travis quite literally manifested his celebrity crush fantasy, in spectacular form, and we got to watch it all unfold before our eyes.
In fact, there is a completely absolutely charming video that went around last year of Travis and Taylor singing along to a remix of “You Belong With Me” at a Super Bowl afterparty, pointing to each other across the crowd. Fan detectives found found video of Travis just one year earlier, singing along to that same remix, alone. WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES.
The charming video
See links below for one with a view of Taylor
MEANWHILE, Taylor has always been a romantic, and has always written songs about not being chosen, not being the cool girl. One of her first and most famous songs (“Love Story”) is a Romeo and Juliet retelling. And she literally has a song (the aforementioned “You Belong With Me”) about not being a cheerleader but being the girl in the bleachers (and therefore not cool enough to be chosen by the popular football guy).
Girl loves a love story. Girl loves a boyfriend. Girl loves a hetero fairytale.
And yet. She has publicly dated a string of sad and/or aloof wimpy art boys who can’t or won’t give her what she needs. Whether they can’t seem to commit or take her seriously (Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, Harry Styles), can’t seem to get out of their own self-destructive way (Joe Alwyn, Matty Healy), couldn’t give her whatever that ineffable thing is that makes you want to stay in a relationship (Taylor Lautner, Tom Hiddleston), or were intimidated by, jealous of, or put off by her success or her public life (Calvin Harris, possibly Joe again), they all have fallen short.
What’s also important to know is that, almost without exception, Taylor’s beaus - though well publicized - have mostly been private about their relationship. Sure, there have been paparazzi shots, but I don’t believe she has ever had a date on a red carpet or at an industry event. Men who date her are coy when asked about her, and she about them. For someone who shares so much of herself with her fans, and who is so enthusiastic and exuberant about love, the public expression of her relationships have been characterized by restraint - and often a feeling that the restraint isn’t entirely coming from her. Especially early in her career, there was a feeling that her lovers were somewhat embarrassed to be with her, either because of (rape culture alert) how inappropriately young she was, or because (misogyny alert) they were such very serious artists and she was such a very frivolous country and/or pop star with (misogyny squared alert) primarily female fans.
Joe especially, her longest and most serious love, was famously uncomfortable in the spotlight. And though she too chose a private life when she ran from the #TaylorSwiftisOver movement in the post Kimye cancellation era, amongst fans there has often been talk that he was even more private than she needed. Than maybe was good for her. Than maybe supported her.
Of course, this is part of why we understood the appeal of Matty Healy, sad artist boy from British pop rock band The 1975, and her on-again-off-again decade-long will they/won’t they Maybe Someday of a love interest, who she finally kindled a real relationship with post-Joe breakup, at the beginning of the Eras Tour.
Though nearly no one liked or trusted him for her, so much so that a bunch of people signed a Change.org petition to ask her to dump him (a move that pissed her off so much she wrote the excellent “But Daddy I Love Him” about it), we could understand why after all that secrecy, she might appreciate a man who says, while on stage with his own band, “This song is about you, you know who you are, I love you,” and then sings the song everyone knows is about Taylor. And then flies across the world to go to like three of her shows.
Matty dedicating his song to Taylor in Manila, a few days before she reciprocates
Click here to see a longer clip of him stumbling around the stage drinking wine out of the bottle. The song is called “About You” and is actually good.
But Matty, like the narcissistic drug addict he is rumored to be, love-bombed-and-left, leaving her so destroyed that her next album, instead of being all about the long-term relationship she’d just ended, was like 20% about her six or whatever years with Joe and like 70% about the devastation Matty left in his wake (and like 10% about other things, including Trav).
I’ve actually been in this position. Jumping from a slow, sad breakup into an exciting, passionate rebound that promises to give you everything your last relationship was missing, and makes you feel alive again - and then proves the cliché “too good to be true” a cliché for a reason. And when the rebound disappears as quickly as it dive-bombed into your life, you’re left with two griefs to grieve now. But somehow the more recent one feels bigger, deeper. Maybe because it’s easier to grieve the smaller relationship. Maybe because the bigger one you knew you wanted to leave, but this one didn’t even get off the ground enough for you to consider wanting to leave it yet…
IN ANY CASE, the point is, as the Eras Tour started, Taylor was nursing a heartbreak, playing “Lover” while crying (about Joe). Then, for a brief moment, she was elated, repeating Matty’s phrase “This song is about you. You know who you are. I love you.” into the camera while playing “Cardigan.” And then she was knocked so low she wrote a whole dark academia-themed double album about it.
Taylor’s Version of Matty’s dedication
Check out a longer clip of that part of the song here. And if you REALLY want to go down a Taylor/Matty rabbithole, click here for a Reddit thread about all the ways their art has referenced and informed each other since they were rumored to have first hooked up in 2014.
AND THEN.
THEN SHE MET TRAV.
Golden retriever Trav. Happy Trav. The jovial jock who sings “You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party” lyrics when he wins games. Loud and smiling and forthright. Bold and confident and masculine in a way none of her previous lovers have been. Decidedly not depressed and broody. Simple even. But maybe in a good way.
And most importantly, Travis CLAIMS HER. Happily. Exuberantly. Proudly. Publicly. He comes to her shows and holds up signs. He makes heart hands at her from the field when she comes to his games. He holds her around the waist at Coachella. He sings with her at Wimbledon and to her at Super Bowl afterparties. He talks about her on his podcast and in interviews.
It is the most public anyone has been about her, and in turn, she has been about anyone. And she is beaming. Glowing. Thriving.
To the fandom, it looks like Taylor has finally met her match. Someone at the top of his field, who appreciates that she’s at the top of hers, unintimidated - and, in fact, impressed by - the fact that she is richer, more popular, more successful than him. Someone who appreciates her with abandon, without reservation, without shame. Who celebrates her. Who meets her freak, which is to say, who meets her dorky cheesiness. Her childlike uncoolness. Her sincerity and sentimentality.
Watching them is pure joy. On just so many levels.
As just two attractive, nice people in love.
As part of these intertwining stories, and the way both of them foretold or fore-wished this (him for her specifically, her for someone like him).
As the fulfillment of what Taylor has wanted, needed, and/or deserved.
Taylor, a golden retriever if there ever was one, has found herself a golden retriever boyfriend - which is a match that, according to the theories of the Tik Tok generation, isn’t supposed to work. But sometimes, as in the case of Taylor BFFs Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, really really does.
And honestly, what is more joyful than a roomful of happy golden retrievers?
Especially when they have sparkly outfits? Nothing, that’s what.
So that very long story brings us to our songs.
The reason we have “Love Story” here, beyond being one of her best and most beloved, is because this song from Taylor’s second album, Fearless, lays out how she thinks about love - a Romeo and Juliet romcom with a happy ending. And then, 15 years later, she not only gets to live out that romance with Travis, but sing that song with him after he wins the Super Bowl, in the same year she wins her Super Bowl (which is basically what the Eras Tour is for her).
Taylor and Trav sing “Love Story”
We have “You Belong With Me” here, again not only because it’s good, which it is, and beloved, which it is, but because of those lyrics:
'Cause she wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts
She's Cheer Captain and I'm on the bleachers
Dreaming 'bout the day when you wake up and find
That what you're looking for has been here the whole time
and the video that casts Taylor as not cool enough to date the football bro. And the fact that now she IS DATING THE FOOTBALL BRO (though she is still technically in the bleachers, it is in a different way now).
Short fan edit of her video vs. real life:
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And once again, these two sang that song to each other after the Super Bowl.
View of Taylor:
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And then finally. “So High School.”
I feel like I shouldn’t like this song as much as I do, but I simply adore it. This is the declaration of Taylor being happy and in love. Safely. Securely. This isn’t the anxious attachment of “Out of the Woods.” Even “Lover” has a certain amount of fear in it, with its questions: “Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever?”
But where “So High School” has questions, they’re rhetorical. And she follows with assertions: “Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me? (Kill me); It's just a game, but really (really); I'm bettin' on all three for us two (all three).”
(Also fun fact, this likely refers to an episode of Travis’ pod long before they met when he played a game of Kiss/Marry/Kill with Taylor, Ariana Grande, and Katy Perry as his options. He chose to kiss Taylor.)
Where “Lover” is romantic and sweet but also feels a little bit like she’s trying to prove or hold onto something, like there is a bubbly effervescence to it that could also go flat, “So High School” feels relaxed. Like she already has what she wants. It’s like juice, or tea. Sweet, can be enjoyed slowly, and still good at room temp.
And then, of course, there is the joy of the song - and its performance, itself.
“So High School” Choreo
I can’t believe I like a song that references both American Pie and Grand Theft Auto (and tbh, some of us, and by “some of us” I mean my sister and me, are concerned that our sensitive poet girl might eventually tire of a boyfriend who is into these things), but I do, partly because she sounds so happy, partly because the song is so fun, partly because it sounds exactly like what it’s describing.
As she sings about making out with her beau while his friends play video games and trying to keep her sex noises quiet, her voice on this track starts breathy, almost like a sensual… what is a less gross word than “moan?” But really, this track sounds sort of romantically… horny. But in a very sweet and kind of innocent way. A high school way.
And then the performance at Eras is just so charming it’s hard not to fall in love with. There’s Taylor sitting on bleachers, a la “You Belong With Me” but also a la her real visits to watch Travis play, and she and her dancers are doing cheerleader moves (which we will not point out are inaccurate because their hands are facing the wrong direction and their wrists are bent, because that would be petty and nitpicky), implying she is the cheerleader in the song who gets the guy now, and she’s also doing what looks like a modification of swag surfing, the dance move Chiefs fans do at every game, and, well, all of that context (including the fact that anything related to cheerleading is gonna get some Bias Points from this former Scorpions pom pom girl) just makes this one of my favorite songs to listen to right now.
It’s hard to overstate how much (possibly irrational) joy I get from watching these two be together and fall in love, and these three songs really embody that for me right now.
OH BY THE WAY DID I MENTION SHE BROUGHT TRAVIS ON STAGE?
We all collectively lost our minds for like a week when Taylor surprised fans with a Travis cameo during the transition between “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” It’s one thing to be more public than ever about your relationship. It’s another to change lyrics to reference him. And QUITE ANOTHER to bring him ON STAGE to do CHOREOGRAPHY. It should also be noted that London had the potential to be a very emotional stop for her, as that’s where she lived with Joe, and where he still is. Some might say this was a way of making that stop joyful. Some might say it was a way of making it vengeful. Either way, I’m here for it.
Travis and Jason talking (charmingly) about Taylor’s show on their podcast
15. You’re Losing Me (From the Vault)
You may notice a theme here. And it’s true. Molly likes breakup songs. In fact, Molly likes songs about the process of breaking up. The feelings involved after, yes, and during, yes, but also before the breakup. Because there is so much time before the breakup. So much pain. So many questions. So much trying. For me, at least.
And this song captures something so specific. That moment where you realize the bad has not only gotten so bad that it’s outweighing the good and you’re considering leaving, but the moment when you realize you’re actually falling out of love. Where there’s nothing the other person could do to reverse the trajectory you’re on. But you want them to. You wish they could. Desperately. In fact, maybe, just maybe, if they did something big. If they went to therapy. If they fought for you. If they proposed. If they quit drinking. Whatever it is. A wedge big enough to stop the boulder from rolling down the hill.
This song has that desperate aching, pleading quality that I remember from two of my big relationships. The one where I begged him to go to therapy, to meet me with emotional maturity, to get clean, for years. And the other one, where we broke up over the summer, after he graduated college and I was still in it, after I had been drifting farther and farther away, and then he said the words, on the phone, from work, “I’m just not sure you’re the one,” and the air went out of my lungs and out of the room, and he could feel it, and he said “I don’t want to be the one who said the thing that ended us,” but it was too late. He was. He did. If only he had taken the advice, like the song pleads, “Stop… you’re losing me.” But both relationships went the same way as the relationship in this song.
And now, of course, that’s all fine. I’m friends with them both. But at the time, it felt like this song. This beautiful song with a sample of Taylor’s own fucking heartbeat as the rhythm I mean oh my goddddd. And then the music and beat cuts out after that first “Stop.” And then the dreamy instrumentation, and the modified vocals, and layered echo vocals, as though her voice is floating away, just like she is, from him…
It’s just beautiful, and I very much plan to play this at full volume the next time I am pained to have to leave someone, even if it’s, like, my cell service carrier.
Trivia: This song was written as part of Midnights, which came out in 2022, but she didn’t release it until 2023 (as a vault track, which is what she calls songs she wrote but put away and didn’t release with the album she was writing at the time). Her friend and longtime producer Jack Antonoff (who is himself a talented musician and frontman of the band Bleachers, as well as the husband of Andie MacDowell’s daughter Margaret Qualley and former high school sweetheart of one Miss Scarlett Johansson) also released video of the two of them writing the song in 2021. Since this clearly is a song about Joe, and their breakup wasn’t officially announced until April of 2023, this song and its context gave fans a whole new breakup timeline to consider - in short, that things started going downhill much sooner than we thought (which is usually how these things go). And for me, this gives credence to my theory that the themes of infidelity, loss, and fantasizing about what ifs that she explored in “fiction” in her COVID albums were perhaps not as fictional as they seemed.
16. Down Bad
While we’re wallowing down in the heartbreak portion of the playlist, now’s as good a time as any for “Down Bad.” Like many of the songs on The Tortured Poets Department, I didn’t particularly like this song much when I first heard it. But this song is sneakily good.
For starters, there is that chorus that I thought was so stupid, in particular the phrase “Down bad crying at the gym.” Like, what kind of beautiful powerful breakup song has the phrase AT THE GYM in it? At first I found it annoying and distracting. And honestly, Taylor does kind of have a problem with doing this. Like the lines “like snow at the beach, strange but fucking beautiful” where the “fucking” feels unnecessary and anachronistic somehow, or the line in the otherwise timeless and dreamily fantastical “Willow” which uses the jarringly modern and specific “stronger than a 90's trend” as a metaphor.
But in spite of myself, it is exactly this line that started running through my head over and over and over. When I woke up. When I went to the bathroom. When I scrambled eggs with a fork before pouring them into a heated oiled skillet. "Down bad crying at the gym down bad crying at the gym down bad crying at the gym down bad crying at the gymmmmmmmmm”
Which of course lent itself to multiple listenings, to satisfy the earworm gods, which then led to a deeper appreciation of this deceptively smart and resonant song. There is something about this track that actually captures some of the emotions I felt listening to the sadder, slower tracks of Pretty Hate Machine when I was a teenager. The teenage angst combined with a self-destructive hopelessness. The total lack of perspective. The absolute emotional devastation. I mean, Taylor can’t even finish the line “how can you say it’s…” because uttering the word “over” is too painful.
Some favorite lines:
Now I'm down bad crying at the gym
Everything comes out teenage petulance
"Fuck it if I can't have him"
"I might just die, it would make no difference."
(FTR, we love our self-aware queen, owning that she’s being a petulant teenager about it.)
The song itself has a bit of an understated, almost lagging quality to it, which at first I found boring and then later found brilliantly representative of the way life after heartbreak, especially when in the depressive stage, feels like walking through mud, like swimming in jeans, like everything is in slo-mo and twice as hard as it used to be. This song is listless and despairing just like Taylor is (over Matty, of course).
And that is why we love it.
Also now is as good a time as any to recommend watching the entire Female Rage: The Musical portion of the Eras Tour. So here you go.
Female Rage: The Musical, Taylor’s Tortured Poets Era, added after the album release in May
17. Lavender Haze
We have to have a track from Midnights on this list, and this one’s probably my favorite right now. The concept of Midnights was “13 sleepless nights,” and the kinds of things that fuel insomniac anxiety: wondering what could have been, going over heartbreaks, self-hatred, revenge, falling in love. There were theories that these were all songs written at insomniac hours during previous albums, but it seems they were all written in the same (modern) time, but looking backward over her life.
What’s interesting about this song, written with Zoë Kravitz, is that I like it mostly for the vibe and the musical choices, and not as much for the actual context. The context seems to be wanting to protect her relationship with Joe from the public and from tabloid scrutiny, resenting how the media only sees her as a “one night or a wife,” and doesn’t leave room for the reality of a commitment that is somewhere in the middle.
Thing is, I mostly roll my eyes at this context because we know she wanted to be his wife. So, like, why is she complaining about the media being… right? Once again, like in the song “Lover,” I get the sense that she doth protest too much. That she is saying she wants to stay in the “lavender haze” of love that is lived in the present and undefined because she thinks that’s what Joe wants, or maybe because she thinks that’s all she’ll get, but I’m not sure I believe she really means what others consider a feminist statement about gender roles.
That said, it doesn’t stop me from loving this song. Because this song is beautiful and dreamy and sensual. It has that driving downtempo beat, moody synthy electro-hip-hop production, Taylor singing in a breathily high part of her register. It feels ambient but not boring. It’s got that catchy repeating interjection “Yeah, oh yeah.” It is a vibe.
Someone put a red scarf over the dorm lamp, pass me the spliff, and turn it up.
18. Getaway Car
Okay so completely opposite of why I chose “Lavender Haze,” the lyrics and their context are the reason this song is on the list.
This song is a perfect (and delightful) example of Taylor’s clever (and specific, and easter egg-littered) songwriting. And as a writer, her choices - from the overall metaphor to her specific turns of phrase - tickle my brain.
So. What we know is that this song is about her relationships with Tom Hiddleston and Calvin Harris. She had been dating Calvin for more than a year - her longest relationship up to that point - and even co-wrote his song “This is What You Came For” featuring Rihanna.
But Calvin was notoriously jealous of or intimidated by Taylor’s success, and by the time she met Tom Hiddleston at the Met Gala in 2016, she was looking for a way out of the relationship. Tom was her reason to leave, but Calvin didn’t let her go without a fight. Word is Taylor ended the relationship because Tom wanted to be more public than she did, but I think (and this song confirms) that it’s more because he was only meant to be a rebound, or what I call an usher (someone who arrives to show you away from one relationship and into the next part of your life, but isn’t meant to stay, just as an usher shows you to your seat but doesn’t stay and watch the play with you), and she simply didn’t like him as much as he liked her.
So, knowing that, then we go to the lyrics.
First of all, she uses the metaphor of a Getaway Car to describe a relationship that helps you escape another one. Which… chef’s kiss.
Next, we have the fun turns of phrase:
“It was the best of times, the worst of crimes” (oh how proud I’d be of myself if I wrote that.)
“The ties were black, the lies were white” (presumably her, at that formal party, implying to Tom that she was more single than she really was.)
“We never had a shotgun shot in the dark” (every time I hear this one I go over it in my head, trying to figure out if it even makes sense, but it sounds clever).
“Don't pretend it's such a mystery/ Think about the place where you first met me” (this one’s my favorite because of the double entendre - where he Met her was the Met gala; but also the emotional “place” where he met her was still in a relationship, looking for escape but not truly available).
“We were jet-set, Bonnie and Clyde (oh-oh)
Until I switched to the other side, to the other side
It's no surprise I turned you in (oh-oh)
'Cause us traitors never win”
(So much here - it seems she’s telling us she went back to Calvin, but she’s also taking responsibility for hurting Calvin, which is a favorite Taylor trait: her self-awareness, her ability to be accountable and name her flaws.)
And on and on. Basically this whole song is just chalk full of these little confessions and metaphors and puns.
It is clever (if sorta simple) and it is a DELIGHT (yes I know I use that word a lot with Taylor but, well, I mean it). Plus it’s catchy and it’s danceable, and what more do you need?
19. Don’t Blame Me
Since when does Taylor have soul? Since now, apparently. (Well, since 2017 when Reputation was released). This is just a fun, sexy little electro gospel pop song (geez I love these modern mashup genres) that’s fun to listen to and fun to move to. And yeah, the comparison of love to both drugs and religion is clever and cool or whatever, but honestly I just love those layered church vocals and the descending bass line (which reminds me of lots of classic burlesque songs I can’t think of the titles of right nwo) and that high note on the improv at the end. If someone told me I had to dance to one Taylor Swift song and gave me a corset and some Sally Rand fans (and the dance couldn’t be ironic, because that would be a whole different deal…), this would be the one.
Taylor hitting the high note
This one’s cute because you can hear someone in the audience scream “Take me to church!”
20. Blank Space
This bop from 1989, also co-written with Max Martin, is widely considered one of the best songs on the album, and, to some people, the best out-and-out pop song she’s written. I’m not sure if I quite see that, though I do suppose there are arguments to be made for why this song has all the elements a good pop song needs, and does each of them extremely well.
And obviously, I’m responding to all of that, because this song is on this list.
But here’s why I like it.
Even though she’s explicitly said that this song is a satirical take on the way the media sees and portrays her in her relationships, what I see is myself.
When I was a young adult, I used to say that the way I approached life and dating was that I walked around with a Boyfriend Hole (not like that, you perverts), as in, a metaphorical hole in my heart the shape of a boyfriend, that I was just looking for someone to fill. Later, I would characterize this as the “Are you my boyfriend?” approach, a la the famous children’s book.
As in, I have been what they call boy crazy my whole life (and later realized it might not be about just boys, but that’s another story), and for a long time, I didn’t feel complete unless I had either a partner or at least a romantic interest. In fact, having that space empty made me actively anxious. Seeking. Desperate even.
Imagine me walking around a bar, a club, the streets of San Francisco, the streets of Burning Man, scanning the faces of everyone I meet, my heart (and my attachment trauma) asking “Are you my boyfriend?” (And yes, this went just as well as you would think it would.)
Now, to be clear, not everyone I’ve dated has simply filled that space. But there are a lot of people I have considered, or hooked up with, or yes, even dated, because they were willing to do the job, and not because I had interviewed and vetted them and found them qualified for it. And I have stayed so many times, so much longer than I should have, because having a partner was more important than who that partner was or how compatible we were.
And so when I hear this song, when Taylor talks about the “blank space” where she’ll “write your name,” that’s what I think of. Not her satirically cavalier blank space, but my very real, and painful, and anxious one. Except when I hear it, I too am upbeat and playful, like she is. Both me and Taylor, we are making fun of ourselves. Owning something that is at least partially true. And doing so to a beat.
Trivia: There’s a lyric in this song that, on the original album, sounds so much like “Go on you Starbucks lovers” that even Taylor’s mom thought those were the words. It wasn’t until Taylor recorded her new version of the album, paying special attention to annunciation, that many of us learned the actual line is “Got a long list of ex lovers.”
Honorable Mention. Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince
I want to say that I included this song because Taylor wrote it in 2016, about the heartbreak of thinking she was voting for our first female president and instead watching a racist, sexist pussy-grabbing horror show elected to run the country she loves, and because, well, that theme feels very relevant right now.
But the truth is, I didn’t know that was the context of this song when I put it on the list. I thought it was simply about Taylor fleeing America after all her scandals, and finding comfort in Joe (even though when you read lyrics like “American glory faded before me/ Now I'm feeling hopeless, ripped up my prom dress/ Running through rose thorns, I saw the scoreboard/ And ran for my life” it all seems very obvious). Which it probably also is.
But that isn’t even my favorite thing about this song. You know what is?
That’s right, folks. IT’S THE BRIDGE.
Another famous Taylor Alison Swift Bridge, and this one is designed just for me, because it’s got a cheerleading theme, y’all.
And I don't want you to (Go), I don't really wanna (Fight)
'Cause nobody's gonna (Win), I think you should come home
And I don't want you to (Go), I don't really wanna (Fight)
'Cause nobody's gonna (Win), I think you should come home
And I don't want you to (Go), I don't really wanna (Fight)
'Cause nobody's gonna (Win), just thought you should know
And I'll never let you (Go) 'cause I know this is a (Fight)
That someday we're gonna (Win)
Sometimes it really is that simple.
Yes, it’s thematic (what’s more American than cheerleading? And what’s an election, especially that election, if not a sporting event?) Yes, it’s clever (the way she sings the bridge but the cheerleading parts actually sound like cheers, sung or spliced by someone else). Yes, it’s pleasing to the ear.
And it just tickles my fancy.
Then again, maybe it is more than that. Maybe there’s a reason this particular song resonates with me right now, with its combination of American nostalgia and appreciation and deep sadness and irony. Maybe it’s the same reason I’ve spent almost three weeks writing about Taylor Swift instead of… the other thing. Maybe it’s alllll the same thing. And what’s good about Taylor in the first place. To somehow give me a way to engage with this moment without looking away from it, but without looking straight into the abyss of it either. To be dancing at the sink through the shock and the grief of it. To remember that I am still in my body, that I am still in my life, that there is still joy to be felt, that there is at least one other person (the person singing inside my earbuds) who feels the way I do.
And to hold out hope that someday, we’re gonna win.