An echo of our adolescence now the soundtrack to our adulthood…

Evocative of early adolescence when many of us early Swifts wanted to be part of the squad buying our first red lipsticks and singing Bad Blood into makeshift mics, 1989 Taylor’s version returns at a time when we are following her footsteps, navigating our twenties, leaving home and figuring out who we are meant to be..

20s, the decade we scrabble around trying to fix the fragments of shattered dreams and broken hearts in a desperate hope to piece ourselves back together  only to realise the pieces don’t fit  with each other anymore because you have someone new, and that is okay. 1989 us an artistic renaissance, a testament to reinvention, a celebration of what could be, what is and what is no longer, it is facing the change and doing so with a smile.

1989 saw the singer reinvent herself, transitioning from country to release the most iconic pop album this century has seen. She made what the media portrayed as a mess into a magnum opus, a full on Monet. An incomplete jigsaw is not pretty until finished but the joys and frustration of getting it to that point are what make it art. 1989 is a musical mosaic, showcasing shards of Taylors life up to the point of release. Navigating new cities, revisiting old flames and fanning those of friendship.

Track One: Welcome to New York

Presenting her new beginnings with a new backdrop, a new chapter, a transitional period placing Taylor in the centre of possibility. Her opening track, Welcome to New York’, is an electric start setting the tone to a power album, showing us Swift is capable of it all. Change, can lead to a feeling of being displaced, but this vivacious song reassures us  that home isn’t always a house, moving can give us the power to  build the landscape to our lives. Listening to this album now many of us may have moved out or are at least waiting to take that step and this serves as a reminder that leaving your comfort zone is something to celebrate.

Optimism defines this track, with pulsing synthesisers and programmed drums, it is potential coming into fruition, the start of something magical. It captures the momentary emotion of making it and having done so alone.

It’s also a rallying cry for equality, an audible demonstration of allegiance with the LGBTQIA+ community. The lines ‘And you can want who you want, Boys and boys and girls and girls’ released at a time when same sex  marriage was not yet legalised in all fifty states, shimmering so brightly. Although Swift has confirmed she is not part of the community she is a clear ally in its movement.

Track Two: Blank Space

Other people may weaponize their words against you and  you have to humour the hurt. Made to feel and though you are not a human being but a creature, dissected by giants who claim they are perfect, with cameras for eyes and judgement for tongues, they try  to pathe your own life whilst  bulldozing your dreams and pushing you to follow them. You are often undermined and sometimes made to feel utterly alone but you can learn to take the power from that narrative and use it to build your own.

The tongue in cheek satire of Blank Space is still so relevant to Swift’s social life now, speculation surrounding boyfriends, exes but she rises above, reclaiming the narrative and making it bow to her. As an electro-pop song it boasts a timeless quality and it contains many of my favourite lines including “ Darling I am a nightmare dressed like a daydream” and “Boys only want love if its torture’. Swift was once America’s sweetheart, a girl next door- Miss. Americana but it seems her relationship with the media blew up when it claimed everybody she set eyes upon was her next prey, making her out to be a man eating psychopath which is exactly the narrative she presumes in this song.

Track 4: Out Of The Woods

Questioning the foundations of what were once fundamentals, teenage true love, a paper promise of eternity, now turns to lingering eyes, strangers smile, hands held tighter, you’re left wondering if you’ll last the while. Until you’re in the heavy midst of your twenties people tell you that you are young, you can do this, there is so much time to build your dreams and then you’re 23 and your peers push you into the ocean of impatience, their seeming success serving as an awakening that you are temporary and there is never enough time, everything has to be now or it will never be.

Out of the woods is a desperate attempt to make sense of a relationship that should work out well but neither of you can ever get it right leaving you constantly question “If you’re in the clear yet?”. This relationship digs a whole within you that you try to fill using the same shovel, holding their hand in that space between you hoping it will bring you closer only for it to tear you apart.

Our 20s are defined by a constant feeling of business whilst seemingly standing still, you see friends marry, excel in their career, move on and leave home whilst you’re just watching, waiting, the stability held in place by the last sprinkles fo childhood magic still lingering on from your teens simply drifts away, leaving you in the dark. If you look for the issues you will find them but in reality this is your space to reclaim yourself, finally make a name for yourself.

You conclude that if something good happens then that is the anomaly. Perfection is a place for tourist not natives, some of us may be lucky enough to stay there for a week, most of us will wander down it’s immaculate pathways, a daunting detour before we stumble back on to collages of gum on a wet and windy Thursday.

Love is ferocious but it is fragile, it is delicious and delicate, it can sting you whilst singing. It is confusing and beautiful people will peck at it, leaving you with crumbs you either have to walk away from or work to produce a loaf out of, it is work but it can be so worth it.

Track 8:Bad Blood

Leaving Uni an looking for a new job you think cliques are finally a thing of the past, that you will be able to swim in a pool full of reasonable people, that, like you, just want to be allowed to breathe peacefully filling their life with purpose. But purpose is a powerful thing and when one feels powerless their purpose can become about dragging you down from the pedestal they have placed you on. Betrayal from a once close friend can leave you feeling alone, your blood boiling. 

This song celebrates the strength of friendship in the face of adversity, coming together against threats, a homage to genuine connections. The stomping drums the sound of defiance in the face of destruction, Swift rallies up her remaining friends in a harmonized battle cry, the memorable music video showcasing an ensemble cast. In life we will lose those we once loved but that does not mean we must lose ourselves too.

 What is armour if there is only one of you on the battlefield? What is an army without union? A power anthem, a chorus of community, Swift showed us she was a force to be reckoned with.

Track 16:New Romantics

‘Heartbreak is the national anthem/ we sing it proudly’.

‘New Romantics’ is a satirical slice  bout those that find hobby in heartbreak and do it happily because they are carless and free. Romance is whimsical it’s all about dancing, you and me, and them and he. It introduces an indie edge to her pop repertoire , fusing what was to what is to create an explosively positive anthem that applauds spirited living.

The New Romantics culture movement that permeated the late 70s and 80s was characterised by its flamboyance and eccentricity, celebrating differences and looking for a more whimsical way to live. Here Swift faces a new found energy, recovering from heartbreak and betrayal, she breathes in a new era of romance. Hedonism defines this track, welcome to a world where ‘ We are too busy dancin’ to get knocked off our feet, finding enjoyment in what you were once made to endure, the world can be yours

Love is not a fairy-tale but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, you’re young, you’re old, you’re in love or you’re alone, you can always find a reason to not take life so seriously.

The Vault Tracks

“Slut!” Follows on from who she is in Blank Space, an ode to a woman who finds her self in the public eye and in love. The media project their many eyes on to her, painting her out to be the obsessive one that hunts men when in reality the media are the only hunters, craving their next hurtful headline, it is not Swift who is the villain in the relationship but the media. Shamed and targeted for being like any of us, a victim of the camera lens, Swift always finds magic in the mean, here she lets herself be in love and if they call her a slut then ‘You know it might be worth it for once”.

The Final song Is It Over Now? A savage addition to her poignant repertoire, offering s blunt rendition into the aftermath of a relationship. It has a cinematic opening, you are left in suspense before her angelic vocals cut through, you know whatever comes next is going to be  powerful, a wave slapping the shore, the striking line “You dream of my mouth before it called you a lying traitor’ demonstrating the extremity of the fall out. Perhaps the bitter brutality that becomes this track is an echo of what is on it’s way…

The speculation surrounding who the vault tracks are disusing are irrelevant to me. The entire narrative of 1989 is Taylor’s attempt to transition into what she believes the media wanted from her, Pop culture, to be America’s sweetheart again so she tried to be satirising their image of her and spending more time with her female friends.

Swift is rarely, if ever allowed to be enjoyed just as her and her music, she has to be perceived through the media sense of who is she dating, many of her fans and foes questioning why has she written this and guessing who it must be about? 1989 is about Taylor moving on from that, investing in herself and taking a more reserved road. yTo often we find ourselves looking for who  we  are in the lives of strangers, looking for who to hate on because we may be approved by our peers because of it. 

Why try to find yourself in place you have never been,  why be someone you are not just because someone else will hold their gaze a second longer, you will not find who you are in the eyes of others, just like you can’t find something you have lost in a room you have not stepped into. I think we should enjoy this catalogue of her life respectfully and not pry into her love life, rather just enjoy the music.

Overall 1989 Taylor’s Version is all about change and transition and for many of us listening to the original 9 years ago, much change has ensued and we can enjoy those once tracks of our adolescence  once again but now in our adulthood. Swift is the soundtrack to our lives and many of us feel as though we have grown up beside her. Letting go of scrabbling hands to finally hold yourself is the greatest freedom, which is what Taylor does with this album, losing them to find herself.