Wednesday 17 July 2013

I wear short skirts, I wear t-shirts.

 "Because she wears high heels, I wear sneakers. She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers..."

Firstly, I love Taylor Swift. Her music makes me want to dance around my bedroom, singing into my hairbrush. It cheers me up after a bad day, a long shift at work or a fight with someone I care about. It makes me smile when I'm already in a good mood, and is the only thing I want playing on a long train journey. I have some tissue paper hearts that came out of the confetti cannon at her Summertime Ball performance on my wall of posters in my room and I own most, if not almost all, of the music she has released. Red is my running music, Speak Now gets me up in the morning and Fearless plays through my headphones while I fall asleep. Listening to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together got me through my GCSE revision last year as whenever I thought I was going to go mental doing chemistry questions, maths equations or history past papers I would get up and dance madly around my house, singing along and blasting it from my speakers. And I will be the most excited person in the country when she announces UK dates for the Red Tour.

However, listening to the lyrics of You Belong With Me the other day, I realised something. Although it may be my favourite Taylor Swift song, and definitely her best video, it kind of made me sad. Its safe to say its a pretty well known fact that Taylor is famous not only for her music but for her high profile relationships and break ups as well, so it probably isn't a surprise to anyone when she writes songs about heartbreak and girls stealing her boyfriends from her. But something that occurs almost as frequently in her songs as mentions of beautiful blue eyes and driving trucks through the rain, are lines where she sounds pretty harsh or judgemental about other girls. She is a star, so it is in the job description to be entertaining and make music that people will love and want to listen to over and over. You may think that it doesn't really matter whether Taylor Swift makes a bitchy comment in a song - whether its about what a girl "does on the mattress" or what a guy is doing "with a girl like that?" - and you would be right. With people dying in wars all over the world and losing their jobs and homes due to the economy, the lyrics in music could be seen is completely irrelevant. But you could also argue that it is important; that how we talk about people is what makes us who we are.

And, honestly, that line just really irritated me. Because we all (girls.. mostly) have days where we do want to get up in the morning and put on a really short skirt and a lot of eye make up. Perhaps you're not feeling very confident or there's someone you want to impress, maybe you just want to dress up for the day. And sometimes on Taylor Swift's planet it seems like that makes those girls into the "slutty" girls. But at the same time, maybe even the next day, you might wear jeans and trainers, or go bare-faced, not even bothering with mascara and does that then make you the "sweet and innocent" one? The one "listening to the kind of music she doesn't like?" Not really. The way you dress shouldn't influence what other people think of you, and even though the image you present to world can sometimes feel like the most important thing in the world, it's not. Who you are doesn't change because of how you dress or how your hair looks. And sometimes, I want to wear high heels and sneakers at the same time. That's why wedge trainers were invented, okay.

My little sister, her friends and many people their age and younger all love Taylor and I think a lot of parents would prefer their daughter to be singing along to her music rather than Rihanna or Ke$ha. Its a little more innocent and while they may not actually understand some of the lyrics, Taylor Swift's whole image is just that bit more classy, more appropriate for younger girls to look up to. However as much as this is a good thing to have role models, and to admire people who are talented or successful, I think its just as important, personally, to be a "good" person. The definition of this could vary depending on different people's values, or what they see as important, but overall I would say you should be kind about other people. We're all guilty of it, and people who know me might be laughing if they read this, as I have a really sarcastic sense of humour and can probably say some very harsh things. This isn't necessarily something I'm proud of though, and I hope that people know that when I laugh at them, its because we're friends, not in spite of it!

 
So Taylor, maybe you need to take the advice Tina Fey gave you at the Golden Globes. Maybe you do need some "me-time to learn about yourself." And even though I really, really, really loved when Ed Sheeran came on stage with you and sang Everything Has Changed, maybe don't date him just yet. I don't think the world can take another really good break up album with lots of acoustic guitars and it definitely isn't going to handle two. And, last thing - I promise, please don't make that face again, the next time Adele wins an award you wanted... because we all know what you're thinking. And it makes the lyrics to this song look really ironic.
xxx

5 comments:

  1. This post is really interesting and I'm glad I've found it actually. I think you make some really valid and interesting points. I don't really see how Swift is a better role model than Rhianna or Kesha, because a lot of her lyrics are irresponsible in a different way. You wouldn't hear Kesha calling someone a slut and abusing her about her sexual life. Whereas Taylor Swift has done this a lot in the past, and this is partly why I'm not a big fan of her music. I think she certainly gets a lot of unnecessary abuse from the media, but I can't help but wonder how much of her reputation has been created by her record company to generate sales anyway. Either way, someone's sexual life isn't really anyone else's business but there's and I think that needs to be embdedded into pop culture. Sorry for going off on a tangent, it's just I really agree with what you've written in this post, and it's written super well. Following :)

    http://www.ragsoflove.com/ xx

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    1. Thanks so much for commenting! Yeah, I do totally agree with what you're saying, however at the same time I am a huge fan of Taylor and love her music so that makes things a bit more complicated for me haha. Thanks for following as well, same here :) xx

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  2. I love Taylor Swift and her music ;)
    She's one of my idols !

    http://closertotheedge1.blogspot.com/

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