Taylor Swift’s NEW album is here, you folks!
THE LIFE OF A SHOWGIRL!
I mean, if
you haven’t watched the 2-hour podcast episode yet, please find some time and
watch it. The world embraced the sparkly orange, and only TS had the
guts to do it when people in her country are already suffering under an orange
power.
By the way, you probably know that Taylor Swift is often “accused” of writing songs about breakups. Yes, it feels like accusations the way the media portrays her music. The intent is always to demean her work because she mostly writes about love and breakups. Despite love being one of the most talked-about emotions, despite every other musician singing or writing about the same thing, it suddenly becomes unacceptable or too frivolous when it’s Taylor Swift?
Make that
make sense, folks!
But hey, did you know TS wrote about other things as well?
If not, keep scrolling. We’re here to talk about thirteen (yes, 13) songs by Taylor Swift that are NOT about falling in love or breakups.
1. 1. Marjorie (Album: evermore)
Marjorie is the
name of Taylor’s grandmother. She lost her when she was really young. She lost
her when she was not in the same town. In an interview clip, Taylor mentions
that she regrets not being around her when it happened. She regrets not knowing
her and all of those emotions are poured into this song. It’s a deeply
emotional song about her grandmother and how she still feels her and how she
would’ve loved to spend more time with her and get to know her. Somehow, she
even managed to find her grandmother’s opera vocals and put them in this song
and that segment never fails to give me goosebumps.
My favourite lines: “Never be so kind that you forget to be clever, never be so
clever that you forget to be kind.”
2. 2. this is me trying (Album: folklore)
In her Long Pond
Studio Sessions, Taylor Swift talks to Jack Antonoff (they write songs
together) about this song. They talk about how people with addiction and mental
health illnesses are always in an active fight in their daily lives. The song
depicts how the act of trying is almost a battle. Moreover, the song also talks
about how someone who feels like they’ve lost it in life despite having so much
potential in school years or earlier years. This song breaks my heart and is
one of my most favourite songs of all time by TS.
My favourite lines: “They told me all of my cages were mental
So I got wasted like all my potential
And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad
I have a lot of regrets about that…”
3. 3. I Hate it Here (Album: The Tortured
Poets Department)
If you have ever
felt that you don’t really belong to this world and that you almost always want
to escape into daydreams or in a world of imagination (like binge-reading or
watching something), this song is the one for you. TS writes about being
trapped in a body or a world where they cannot be what they really are and
thus, need to escape to a different world. This is a song that will appeal to
the introverts and hypersensitive people who are probably the more adversely
affected lot due to the harshness of this world.
My favourite lines: “I'm lonely but I'm good
I'm bitter but I swear I'm fine
I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life
and I'll get lost on purpose
This place made me feel worthless...”
4. 4. Mean (Album: Speak Now)
One thing that
Taylor Swift does best is turn her experiences into these superb songs that you
can even dance to. In a few interview, she explains that she wrote this song
‘Mean’ about the critics who wrote about her albums by not giving any
constructive criticism but just being mean. She was thinking about this
powerless feeling of being at the receiving end of such mean comments from
people no matter how hard she works. And then the song also gives an upbeat
melody and lyrics that can fill you with hope about how all these mean comments
will not affect her one day when she’s made it big.
My favourite lines: “Someday... I'll be living in a big old city
and all you're ever gonna be is mean
Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me
and all you're ever gonna be is mean.”
5. 5. 22 (Album: Red)
This song is so
full of young energy. Although the title of the song very specifically is about
the age “22”, what I feel from watching the music video is that TS wrote and
sang how it feels to be in her early to mid-twenties, having a lot of fun and
just enjoying life when you start to enter this new phase of life when you’re
free from studies and have started earning. For some of us, this might even be
the late twenties. Also, she’s surrounded by her female friends in this music
video and even the lyrics is about how they’re taking a break from everything
and just feeling young. In an interview, she mentions that she wanted to write
how she was feeling while spending her summer with her friends.
My favourite lines: “We're happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time,
It's miserable and magical.”
6. 6. You Need to Calm Down (Album: Lover)
Here’s something
for all the haters. Taylor Swift gets a lot of negative attention on the
internet despite having a huge following of Swifties who are hardcore
protectors of her. Although, TS have stayed away from engaging with politics or
mixing it with her music for a long time… this is probably one of the times we
see her touching upon issues she feels strongly about. Apart from being a
response to internet trolls and haters, this song hints at her support for the
queer community and she also talks about how female celebrities keep getting
compared to each other despite each of them having a massive superpower
themselves.
My favourite lines: “And we see you over there on the internet
Comparing all the girls who are killing it
But we figured you out
We all know now, we all got crowns
You need to calm down…”
7. 7. Only the Young (from the documentary
Miss Americana)
This song, played
in the credits of the documentary Miss Americana, is like an anthem. In this
documentary, and various other interviews succeeding it, TS expressed how young
people get affected the most with all the terrible issues in their country like
gun violence, stalking, healthcare, climate change, etc. So, this song was
pretty much Taylor openly expressing her political beliefs and also revealing
her support against the then President of US, Donald Trump.
My favourite lines: “They aren’t gonna help us
Too busy helping themselves
They aren’t gonna change this
We gotta do it ourselves...”
8. 8. The Man (Album: Lover)
It’s not a new
thing that Taylor often gets a lot of headlines for reasons her male
contemporaries are left out of the discussions. Drawing from her personal
experience as a businesswoman and from the collective experience of being a
woman, she wrote this song to represent how the society views men and women in
a vastly different lens. Another political number, Taylor Swift smashes the
patriarchy with her lyrics in this song and hey, don’t miss this music video
(and of course, the BTS of making this video) on her YouTube channel.
My favourite lines: “I'm so sick of running as fast as I can
Wondering if I'd get there quicker if I was a man.”
9. 9. mad woman (Album: folklore)
Now that we’ve
talked about how women and men are treated differently just because of the
gender, let’s talk about this freakishly beautiful song that is all about how
women have been labelled as “mad” left, right, and centre for ridiculous
reasons. One of my most favourite songs, this carries the rage of all the women
who have been called either angry or insane. Just go and tell me, if it doesn’t
chill your bones.
My favourite lines: “And there's nothin' like a mad woman
What a shame she went mad
No one likes a mad woman
You made her like that
And you'll poke that bear 'til her claws come out
And you find something to wrap your noose around
And there's nothin' like a mad woman…”
10. Long Live (Album: Speak Now)
This fantastic song
is from one of her earlier albums and the whole meaning of it has evolved ever
since she first started performing it. As per Taylor, this song is dedicated to
her band and the fans who have been there with her for years, standing by her
side, as they scaled the wobbly heights of the music industry. Full of
gratitude, this song is one of the best live performances that addresses
directly to all the struggles of an artist but at the same time, being grateful
for everything she has achieved. While she performs this song during the Eras
Tour, it sort of also hinted at how she keeps manifesting the stardom she’s so
in fond of.
My favourite lines: “Will you take a moment?
Promise me this
That you'll stand by me forever
But if, God forbid, fate should step in
And force us into a goodbye
If you have children someday
When they point to the pictures
Please tell them my name
Tell them how the crowds went wild
Tell them how I hope they shine...”
11. Anti-Hero (Album: Midnights)
Ever had a bout of
self-loathing? Well, this song is going to become your shadow then. Taylor
explains in an Instagram post how we all have things we hate about ourselves.
And this one particularly caters to that extremely unsettling and yet
comfortable feeling most of us might have experienced.
My favourite lines: “It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
At tea time, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.”
12. I Did Something Bad (Album:
reputation)
The entire album of
reputation has a huge lore behind it. In short, Taylor Swift received a lot of
hate from the media in the years before this album for a lot of reasons. She
disappeared from everywhere for a year. Came back with this banger of an album
where each and every song is fueled by rage, frustration, and it shows how
Taylor embraces whatever is thrown at her and turns it into the best possible
songs. I Did Something Bad, if lyrics are decoded, refers to events in her life
that aren’t so pleasant and where she’s painted as a villain for standing up
for herself. Moreover, it is also speculated that quite a few songs on this
album have references to the popular show on HBO, “A Game of Thrones”. This
song is apparently about the Stark sisters, Sansa and Arya, plotting the death
of Littlefinger. Oops, sorry about the spoiler if you haven’t watched the show
yet.
My favourite lines: “This is how the world works
You gotta leave before you get left…”
13. Mastermind (Album: Midnights)
You know what’s the
best thing about Taylor Swift? If you listen to a song enough number of times
and really listen to the lyrics and know the entire lore, you’ll probably end
up finding references to love and breakups in most of her songs. And yet, the song
might be about something completely different. Like, this one – Mastermind. It
might seem like she’s talking about a guy but this song is more about how she’s
demeaned on the internet for being a strategist… a calculative planner who
loves doing all of it so much. In an interview, she also ends up saying that
she was inspired for this song by a movie she was watching. I don’t remember
which movie she was referring to. But even if you look at how she planned her
Eras Tour and all of her Easter Eggs for her fans, she lives up to this image
of being a Mastermind and how!
My favourite lines: “No one wanted to play with me as a little
kid
So I've been scheming like a criminal ever since
To make them love me and make it seem effortless
This is the first time I've felt the need to confess…”
So, there you go! And be assured that there are more songs by Taylor which are not about love or breakups. But hey, this list had to have 13. *wink wink*
Tell me
now, which is your favourite Taylor Swift song that has nothing to do with a
love story or a break-up?
