We need to talk about Taylor…
To those who don’t ‘Get’ Swift: an explanation, a warning - and a polite request
I went to see Taylor Swift on Sunday, the last night of her three-nights-at-Wembley part of the world tour (she’s coming back to the UK in August). Ah: it was beautiful. Everything I hoped plus VAT. Three and a half hours of unflagging joy and immaculate staging, of that woman, with that voice, singing lyrics that can make me cry when I’m listening to them on my headphones on a caj Tuesday on my way back from Sainsbos - never mind, there, with her. It built and it built and I felt that thing where the inside of your head expands infinitely with the joy of that moment, but also: with life, all of yours, all of it; where it all just seems bigger and happier and brighter and more possible. And I was surrounded by 90,00 people, feeling the exact same thing.
And the crowd control cops lip synched and swapped friendship bracelets with 12 year old girls who knew every word of songs written long before they were born, and gay boys wore t shirts which said But Daddy, I Love Him!, and even the people selling the merch were sweet, and I thought: “only good is coming from this. Only good.”
I’ve buzzed on it, ever since.
I have also, inevitably, had run-ins with people intent on harshing my P-TH, my Post-Taylor High.
You know what they say. You’ve heard it, a hundred times. You’ve possibly even said it. It’s this:
“I don’t Get Taylor Swift?” (It comes with the question inflection for added impact, added pseudo- quizzicalness.)
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