her betty speeches, the red herring on her website, the songs being organized in side a, b, c, d, dessner calling her a genius… I feel like we’re in for a big surprise
I truly think we are going to press play and it is going to be one of the most defining moments of our lives
And so I enter into evidence
My tarnished coat of arms
My muses, acquired like bruises
My talismans and charms
The tick, tick, tick of love bombs
My veins of pitch black ink
The Tortured Poets Department, out April 19, 2024.
I haven’t seen it mentioned yet but what a perfect songwritery twist on “alls fair in love and war” to make it “alls fair in love and poetry” … it gives off two things, one that in love and out of love (in war) there are no rules (anything’s fair game!) and second this sense of choosing not going to war when you have grievances but instead to turn to writing about them. which is so taylor
- "Ultimately I did what I tend to do more and more often these days, which is to bet on myself" [Time x]
- Bet On Yourself Necklace [NYC EL x]
- “a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album” [1989 TV prologue]
- “This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been,” [Time]
- Grieving her career in 3 different ways (rep, masters, relationship) and the rebirth/reclamation that occurred with Eras [see next two points]
- “...There’s a lot that I look back at like, ‘Wow, a couple years ago I might have cringed at this.’ You should celebrate who you are now, where you’re going, and where you’ve been.”[Time]
- Getting to this place of harmony with her past took work; there’s a dramatic irony, she explains, to the success of the tour. “It’s not lost on me that the two great catalysts for this happening were two horrendous things that happened to me,” “The first was getting canceled within an inch of my life and sanity,” she says plainly. “The second was having my life’s work taken away from me by someone who hates me.” [Time]
And the third unspoken one is being in a long term relationship with someone who didn’t and could never get it and who didn’t respect or champion those earlier versions of her to her.
- "I wouldn't marry me either, a pathological peoples pleaser" (You're Losing Me)
- "This is insane-I kind of just feel like telling you, I don't know, I have just never been this happy in my life, in all aspects of my life, ever before. And I just want to thank you for being a part of that. Like, you know, I don't know, it's not just the tour, it's like. I don't know, I just sort of feel like my life finally feels like it makes sense." (x)
When I was 24, I sat in a backstage dressing room in London, buzzing with anticipation. My backup singers and bandmates gathered around me in a scattered circle. Scissors emerged and I watched in the mirror as my locks of long, curly hair fell in piles on the floor. There I was, in my plaid button down shirt, grinning sheepisgly as my tourmates and friends cheered on my haircut. This simple thing that everyone does, but I had a secret. For me, it was more than a change of hairstyle. At 24, I decided to completely reinvent myself.
How does a person reinvent herself, you ask? In any way I could think of. Musically, geographically, aesthetically, behaviorally, motivationally, and I did so joyfully. The curiosity I had felt the first murmurs of while making Red had amplified into a pulsing heartbeat of restlessness in my ears. The risks I took when I toyed with pop sounds and sensibilities on Red? I wanted to push it further. The sense of freedom I felt when traveling to big, bustling cities? I wanted to live in one. The voices that had begun to shame me in new ways for dating like a normal young woman? I wanted to silence them.
You see, in the years, preceding this, I had become the target of slut-shaming—the intensity and relentlessness of which would be criticized and called out if it happened today. The jokes about my amount of boyfriends, the trivialization of my songwriting as if it were a predatory act of a boy-crazy psychopath, the media co-signing of this narrative. I had to make it stop, because it was starting to really hurt.
It became clear to me that, for me, there was no such thing as casual dating, or even having a male friend who you platonically hang out with. If I was seen with him, it was assumed I was sleeping with him. And so I swore off hanging out with guys, dating, flirting, or anything that could be weaponized against me by a culture that claimed to believe in liberating women but consistently treated me with the harsh moral codes of the Victorian era.
Being a consummate optimist, I assumed I could fix this if I simply changed my behavior. I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships. If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn't sensationalize or sexualize that—right? I would learn later on that people could, and people would.
But none of that mattered then because I had a plan, and I had a demeanor as trusting as a basket of golden retriever puppies. I had the keys to my mown apartment in New York, and I had new melodies bursting from my imagination. I had Max Martin and Shellback, who were happy to help me explore this new sonic landscape that I was enamored with. I had a new friend named Jack Antonoff who had made some cool tracks in his apartment. I had the idea that the album would be called 1989, and we would reference big 80s synths and write sky-high choruses. I had sublime, inexplicable faith, and I ran right towards it. In high heels and a crop top.
There was so much that I didn't know then, and looking back, I see what a good thing that was. This time of my life was marked by the right kind of naïveté, a hunger for adventure, and a sense of freedom I hadn't tasted before. It turns out that the cocktail of naïveté, hunger for adventure, and freedom can lead to some nasty hangovers, metaphorically speaking. Of course everyone had something to say, but they always will. I learned lessons, paid prices, and tried to...don't say it...don't say it...I'm sorry, I have to say it...shake it off.
I'll always be so incredibly grateful for how you loved and embraced this album. You, who followed my zig-zag creative choices and cheered on my risks and experiments. You, who heard the wink and humor in "Blank Space" and maybe even empathized with the pain behind the satire. You, who saw the seeds of allyship and advocating for equality in "Welcome To New York." You, who knew that maybe a girl who surrounds herself with female friends in adulthood is making up for a lack of them in childhood (not starting a tyrannical hot girl cult). You, who saw that I reinvent myself for a million reasons, and that one of them is to try my best to entertain you. You, who have given me the grace to allow me the freedom to change.
I was born in 1989, reinvented for the first time in 2014, and a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album I love so dearly. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the magic you would sprinkle on my life for so long.
This moment is a reflection of the woods we've wandered through and all this love between us still glowing in the darkest dark.
I present to you, with gratitude and wild wonder, my version of 1989.
I made this post 2 years ago after the 2018 grammys after Alessia cara was bullied for winning and each year someone reblogs it again with a new example in mind and this year it’s Billie eilish begging not to win aoty and then saying she doesn’t deserve it in her acceptance speech. So once again I’m tired of seeing talented women feel like they can’t just accept what’s given to them.
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