An Open Letter To Taylor Swift

AN OPEN LETTER TO TAYLOR SWIFT

Hi, Taylor:
Last week my daughter and I spent hours and hours driving the winding roads of Eastern Tennessee, exploring and hiking. One of those days, I asked my daughter if she’d heard your new album (NPR had told me it was really good). The last time I’d tuned in to what you were up to was prep for your ‘1989’ tour stop at Soldier Field (where HAIM, who I’d never heard of, left me gobsmacked). Of course she’d been listening to it, and she put it on for me in the car.

I just want to take a moment to thank you for ‘folklore.’ First, thank you for making everyone who wanted to accomplish something creatively during quarantine feel like massive failures. I, too, told myself I’d write daily during quarantine. You wrote what may be a career-defining work of art. Meanwhile, I have a half-finished haiku. I’m not familiar enough with your oeuvre to say this is Peak T-Swift (am I doing that right? Is it a hyphen? Or is it T. Swift?), but I’m familiar enough with Words And Music to say this is some Grade A songwriting. As we listened together, climbing and descending mountain ranges, more than a couple times I would just say “oh, wow.” And my daughter would just say “yeah.” On the second and third time through, certain lines were becoming clearer; I was asking questions and having her Google things (“who’s Rebekah?” “Oh, she’s James in this.”). By the fourth and fifth time through, I started saying crazy things like this may be your “Late For The Sky,” your “Tapestry,” your “Rumours,” your “Blue.” And I reiterate how infuriating it is that in five months I’ve managed to write 10 of 17 syllables.

Second, thank you for the heartbreakingly beautiful poetry in ‘folklore.’ It is a reminder that relentlessly paring away at a sentence, an idea, or a phrase is worth it. I don’t know if that’s what you did. Maybe rhyming “cardigan” and “car again” just happens first try with no effort. Maybe lines like “in my defense, I have none” and “would it be enough if I could never give you peace” just leap wholly formed from dreams. If that’s true, don’t ever tell me. Lie and say you spend hours sweating over legal pads, honing just the right words.

Finally, thanks for giving me a beautiful piece of art to share with my college-age daughter. There are fewer and fewer things to share these days. Soon, weeklong trips together will be a distant memory. The amazing thing about music is how it cements you to a place in time. When any song from ‘folklore’ comes up in a playlist or on the radio, it will now immediately take me to those winding, foggy Tennessee highways with my daughter, the last track finishing and the first track starting again. Me dissecting lyrics and overanalyzing phrases, her politely listening and not rolling her eyes at the oldhead trying too hard by half.

Thank you, Taylor. Your beautiful work turned a few long car rides into a beautiful memory. I wish you all the best; this album may just be the thing that really gets your name out there. And, it’s inspired me to finish that haiku. Seven syllables by Christmas, that’s my goal. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

(album art for ‘folklore,’ photo by Beth Garrabrant)