You Cannot Erase Women in History By Madison Jaymes Jacob
An open letter to the executives of country music and industry heads who wish to erase Taylor Swift from the country music history books.
It’s Boxing Day and I could be enjoying online sales. I could be sleeping in today. Thanks to the patriarchy and my own protective older sibling personality, I’m here for Taylor Swift. Lockdown has made me a Swifty. I’ve resisted this but its like being scratched by a zombie or bit by a werewolf, once you’ve caught the bug theres little reason to try to fight it. So, here I am looking for the sword that she tossed in the bushes to cut down these fools. Don’t think it’s not lost on me that some women are looking to burn such a ‘witch’ because she is powerful. Taylor Swift is above the music industry and its labels; floating above the trees looking down in so many ways other than the manner they alleged.
Taylor is humble in a ways most in her position seldom are today. The awards, adoration and idolisation have not made her anything other than the woman her proud parents raised her to be. A strong woman who will speak her mind, take up the space she she has earned, encourage others to do the same in their own lives and carry this message to and for everyone. I sit here in London England, a Latino Sephardic Jew with a touch of cowboy from growing up in the midwestern United States, trying to understand why erasing a woman from a Nashville Legends Corner mural and replacing her with a man has happened. What is the purpose of rewriting history now?
I don’t know what it’s like to top 18 Billboard Music charts at a time because only Taylor Swift has achieved this accomplishment (there are too many to name so we will stop here). We all know the last decade of Taylor sharing music of love and loss; endings and beginning. Country music is and always will be the place that Taylor ruled in her earliest days until her growth as an artists threatened the genre. The way in which she was uninvited only fuelled her to make even more widely received music, but that never made her less country. She still had those country music elements, they were just set to a new sick beat. And in times when we have faced pain, we have gone back home. Taylor was no exception and the people who love country music embraced her again, but the industry has balked.
Getting out bed and putting on sweatpants has been a crowing achievement for many of us as we first entered lockdown. Then out of nowhere Folklore dropped. This happened for me at time when I felt loneliness like I hadn’t since serving as a United States Army military police officer on a fire base in the remote Afghan tribal lands. These songs became like hymns for me and I actually started to use these lyrical godsends they are and channeled those feeling to create something myself. Writing and processing; learning more about myself and in the process using the time to be a better person. Not just now, but for when we come out the other side. I grew up a little more emotionally in a way I didn’t realise I needed to at the time.
Since that time London came out of strict lockdown level 3, to a lighter level 2, and back to a tighter lockdown than before level 4. This time I had Evermore already. There was a moment when Level 4 lockdown was announced and I said to myself, “Now I have the time to really look at those lyrics. I’m seeing some really Emily Dickinson vibes here and we may have a profound literary work set to music that needs to be understood.” Yes, I was in a good place going into a strict lockdown because some nice woman made another album to help millions of people understand the range of emotions they were feeling.
Having said all this, how can we erase the history of someone who has done nothing but try to bring a smile to our faces when she couldn’t be with her own family? I know not everyone reading this will know how the music industry works, but the big money is in touring. Tours make or break album and merchandise sales. So I ask you, do you honestly think Taylor Swift wrote two albums and more to make money during a pandemic? Was this some calculated move on her part to infiltrate your precious country music charts with her socially liberal ideals of equality? Did she make you aware of feelings that scared the hell out of you? I ask because it did me.
PTSD is a monster that has slept under my bed for over a decade. If it’s a country that ends in ‘stan’ I’ve been there in uniform for one reason or another. What I had seen has never left me for a moment. Darkness creeped back into my thoughts when the whole world changed around me this year. Anger was consuming me. Grief was devouring my peace of mind. I was isolated and feeling alone in a country other than that of my birth, my home. I had learned the tools to get me out this dark place a long time ago but I didn’t see a reason to do the work. Doing the work was hard and I didn’t have the energy to do it. Then enter the nice lady with her album I put on repeat on my iPhone and I found the way to begin again.
When all is said and done I will take the COVID vaccine once I am allowed, but I won’t be looking for the Swifty vaccine. I’m enjoying processing my feelings, not being a ball of anger when I wake up and hell I have like a million new friends to pass this insane time with and beyond. Long story short, to the country music industry trying to erase Taylor Swift’s supremacy from history, f*ck your mural. Taylor Swift is as country as apple pie and that is the hill I would die on. We’re going to paint murals for Taylor all over the world; she’s already painted them on our hearts. Taylor, please send me the bill for the music therapy, because I owe you. Moreover, we owe you.
