No one asked for this but I am going to say it anyways because this blog is nothing more than my personal diary and nothing really matters
So, the truth is (this is not surprising to people who know me irl) that I was never really a huge Taylor fan. In fact, I used to side with Kanye in the entire Taylor/Kanye situation. I mainly sided with Kanye because I used to dance hiphop (fun fact, I was the national champion) and so his genre of music was what I had grown up with and was used to since its more hiphop dance-friendly.
What's even more embarrassing is that I didn't even become a true swiftie until after Taylor went on the Eras Tour in the US. I had no idea she was going on tour. In fact, the reason I turned into a proper swiftie was because I saw a clip on tiktok of one specific moment on her tour, performing one specific part of a song.
The clip was short, perhaps 50 seconds long, less than a minute, but it made me burst into tears.
My first throught was: what the fuck is this??? Is this Taylor Swift??? What the fuck is going on????
Because bursting into tears is not my usual reaction to music (well, it didn't use to be, at least).
I was never again able to find the exact clip I saw. It still haunts me to this day. I remember it so clearly, the emotion in it and how it made me sob in a way I haven't since I was a child.
All it took was fifty seconds.
I never found it again. But it looked a little something like this:
This is why My Tears Ricochet is my all-time favorite Taylor song. It mainly has to do with the fact that this song forced me to dig deeper.
That clip ended after 50 seconds and I sat there with tear streaked cheeks and asked the empty room surrounding me, "What the hell just happened?" And then I asked the hollowness around me, "Why? Why did it happen?"
None of the answers to the questions I once asked matter anymore. Because those questions forced me to listen.
It forced me to let go of my pre-conceived notion of who Taylor Swift was, and truly listen.
It resulted in me finding the album this song belongs to (Folklore) and listen to every single track, one by one, while reading the lyrics.
I desperately wanted to know that what had happened during those 50 seconds of watching a tiktok was an anomaly. That they would never happen again.
But then I listened to the entire album. And it kept happening.
Again. And again. And again. And again.
It happened with not only My Tears Ricochet, but also with Peace, with The 1, The Last Great American Dynasty and The Lakes. It happened with Seven, and Mad Woman, Exile, and This Is Me Trying.
So I had stumbled into a major problem. I had stumbled upon something that was due to rattle my entire belief system and the was I saw the world.
Because how could I love Taylor Swift?
She sings Love Story and You Belong With Me; both and more, songs that are just inherently not me.
It is impossible that she could possibly affect me and make me feel like this.
It just doesn't happen. It isn't possible.
But in my delusion, I moved on to Evermore. And that is when the old part of me died, for good. I was already dying, but I wasn't aware, not completely, until Evermore.
That is when I realized the only reasonable thing I could do, was to let go of my entire belief system.
Because yes, there is no way "You Belong With Me" Taylor Swift could have written this piece that made me cry and ache in a way that no musical piece ever has before.
I was right about that.
Because "You Belong With Me" Taylor Swift didn't write it.
It was written by the version of Taylor Swift who had evolved during the 10+ years I had refused to listen to her.
And she was and continues to be absolutely breathtakingly, earth-shatteringly beautiful. In a way that I wish she wouldn't be, because it makes me question everything about myself. Over, and over, and over again, with every single track I listen to.
I am now at a point where you could not play a single track she has ever made, that I would not recognize within the first ten seconds of listening to it. It's been about a year since I first truly discovered her, and this is where I'm at.
And I don't know whether that's normal, or right, or wrong, but I feel it. I feel her words.
And who are we really, to question ourselves in something like that?
Perhaps human.
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