I’m Breaking Up with Taylor Swift
I’ve been a Swiftie for a long ass time. Like 2007.
I sat down for my midnight listen to TLOAS ready for clever lyrics, catchy melodies, and songs that felt ripped from my heart – after 11 albums I know what to expect, right?
However, I also sat down with the context of several years of behavior I was finding harder and harder to defend. I tried to remind myself that not everyone has to say something as she stayed radio silent about Palestine, even as so many other artists did speak and made a difference. I tried to understand that she had to sue Olivia Rodrigo into the ground. I sat through But Daddy I Love Him where she dramatically scolds us for critiquing her for dating a racist, misogynistic man; I didn’t ever listen to it again. I only barely stomached the photos of her smiling next to MAGA’s favorite podcasters.
In the weeks leading up to TLOAS, she was constantly dropping new variants of the album (during the worst economic down turn in decades) and then promoting the special release with Target, a company huge swaths of Americans have been boycotting for months after they dropped their DEI initiatives at the request of the Trump administration – hitting Black owned businesses and LGBTQ+ people hard. This was happening as ICE began really invading my neighborhoods, grabbing people off my streets with increased aggression as they were given the okay to use factors like skin color and language spoken to make arrests by a Supreme Court decision.
So I sat down to listen thinking, well, at least I will get a distraction. Instead, I got punked. I got an album with poor lyricism and questionable melodies where she punches down on other women and waxes poetic about some guy’s dick. She tells me how powerful she is in the same context that she is staying silent. She tells me how a man saved her in multiple songs, the most bizarre thing that has ever happened to me. She tells me she wants her friends cancelled because I just don’t understand what it’s like to be her, to get criticism. There is no depth or self-reflection, no nuance. This album stinks of racism, victim-complex, misogyny, and you know what, it’s not even good.
Every single thing I have defended Taylor for being, she embraces on this album. I’m tired, and I’m over it. It’s a parasocial friendship breakup.
Some counterarguments and responses:
Comment: You just can’t stand Taylor being happy!
Response: I am a huge fan of Reputation, an album that is really quite happy and in love. I am also a fan of countless individual happy songs from Taylor. My critiques are much deeper and began before this album.
Comment: It’s only landing like this because she held the album for over a year before release.
Response: I think the brilliant businesswoman mastermind – with every possible resource and PR genius available to her – could have realized that and done something different. She did not. That was either because she is so out of touch she did not understand or because she chose this. Either way, it’s her burden to bear.
Comment: It’s misogynistic to not want her to have a man and kids.
Response: My issue is not with that. I want every woman to have the life they choose. My issue is that across the album she paints her relationship as a man saving her, something that is not feminist at all. She also describes settling down with kids as a counterpoint to other forms of success, which is also odd considering how women can and should be able to have careers, and even throws some weird desire for an all-white neighborhood into the mix.
Comment: It’s not that deep.
Response: I expect more – in lyrics and behavior outside the music. Maybe you don’t, but I would ask you to consider why you don’t and what privilege allows it.
Comment: You’re exactly the type of fan Taylor writes about on songs like But Daddy I Love Him.
Response: Probably. But let’s consider that she was using the metaphor of being a teenage girl, a population famously known for not understanding the bigger perspective and refusing to listen.
Comment: You just don’t like her.
Response: Yes, I fear you’re right, but it is a devastating thing to be discovering 12 albums and nearly two decades into musical “relationship” that has profoundly impacted me and my life. I don’t think I like her or relate to her at all if this is the real Taylor.
Where do I go from here?
This is my plan. You are welcome to join me.
I will continue to grieve, which is to say that I will feel anger, resentment, sadness, disappointment, and every other feeling that comes with realizing something that mattered to you is not what it seemed.
I will continue to listen to so much amazing music, and I will continue to value the artists who tackle the world thoughtfully and speak about things that matter.
My time and energy will go elsewhere. I have already unfollowed Taylor on many platforms. My algorithm still serves me a ton of content, but I get a tiny bit less. This blog will change in some way to refocus on music things that are authentically bringing me joy. I do not plan to delete any old posts or content. That was me then. I probably agree with half of it.
I will leave the door cracked open, not because I am hoping or waiting, but because I will give her the grace to grow. I’m too old to burn down bridges that meant this much to me, even if I am also too old to keep walking them every day.
You know in your soul
When it's time to go
<3
