Some years ago - while chatting with an old friend (and wonderful singer) in Oklahoma, the subject of music came up, and I asked what she was listening to - for recommendations. At the time I was on a bit of a folk music kick. She recommended Rascal Flats, Keith Urban, and a new teenager that was being played a lot on her local radio stations at the time - called Taylor Swift.
I was working in London at the time, and spent several weeks with their albums ripped onto an early MP3 player called a “Creative Muvo”.
Along the way I lost touch with the friend, but the music stayed on the succession of music players and phones that lived in my pockets - travelling all over Europe, and the wider world with me.
I eventually lost track of Taylor, Keith, and Rascal Flats too - until I took my eldest daughter to watch the Hannah Montana movie (she was a colossal Hannah Montana fan - bed spread, pyjamas - the whole bit). Of course Rascal Flats appeared in the movie. On the way home I stopped at a music store - I didn’t find anything by Rascal Flats, but I did find the Red album.
Fast forward another few years, and the kids have grown up, are off doing their own thing, and I’m re-living my youth. I bought a record player. Given that I never owned many vinyl records growing up (child of the CD generation), it was all sorts of exciting - going “record shopping”. My other half has a colossal vinyl record collection, but it turns out has no female artists in it at all. So I set about putting that right - buying back the formative albums of my twenty-something years in vinyl format; Tori Amos, Alanis Morrissette, Kylie Minogue, Heart - with a huge skew towards female singer-songwriters.
Around the same time I started reading the news stories about Taylor’s back catalogue being sold out from under her, and her crusade to re-record everything - to destroy the value of the back catalogue.
I went record shopping - in search of the “Taylor’s Version” albums - and while listening to them became a somewhat accidental Swiftie.
While working on an enormous project in my day job for an entire summer, she provided a daily soundtrack.
I became the butt of jokes among friends for awhile - but then the Eras tour happened, and suddenly everybody was listening to her - buying her music - and listening to her talk an awful lot of sense when interviewed.
In a world filled with Z-List celebrities craving fame for five minutes at any cost, Taylor became a timely reminder (to me at least) that stars do still exist.
I bought “The Tortured Poets Department” on the day it was released. It’s been a go-to album during the quiet moments ever since. I’m quietly looking forward to the new album.
Given that anybody and everybody seems to pile on anybody that dares be different any more, I don’t mind standing up and being counted. It has always struck me that if small minded people invested as much effort in being kind, as they do in judging or tearing down others, the world would be a very different place.