“I first discovered Taylor Swift in a drugstore in 2010, when I heard “You Belong With Me” while waiting to purchase (I think) toothpaste, under the harsh light of the checkout line. The banjo hook and the plaintively confident vocals leapt out.
Five minutes later I wanted to hear “You Belong With Me” again and again, then to find out who had written such a perfectly confected song.
The seesaw triads in its chorus (“she wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts”), the light syncopation all through the bridge (“I’m the one who makes you laugh/ When you know you’re ‘bout to cry”)—all struck me as just what the best songs ought to do.
That’s when I started to unlearn the unconscious snobbery in my previous tastes.
I teach and write about poetry, from Geoffrey Chaucer to the present day, working to open up demanding and complicated works of art.
Before Taylor, my pop music obsessions were indie acts who failed to hit it big. I loved their weirdness: I identified with them.
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