Myths and legends are a part of life, more so for a celebrity. Taylor Swift is essentially known for her confessional, autobiographical songwriting. Her music is deeply infused with visual imagery and elaborate metaphors, often smearing through time in the various projects. Just like most art, her music blurs the boundaries of fact and fiction. Even in her deeply personal albums, the concept of absolute truth may be a myth. Her life has been the topic of mainstream discussion for most of this century. Swift has been a topic of folklore in many ways, long before she penned the album of the same name. People have observed her up close and talked about her at length. They made her into a living and breathing folktale of American mythology. It is only apt that her storytelling prowess should crossover to the unknown, mystical lands of her imagination. On folklore and evermore, she creates a whole new world in her bedroom and shows it musically. She moves away from the celebrity, though not totally, and delves into a mythical realm of interwoven, intricate storylines. Folk, Myths, and Taylor Swift A myth explains the creation of something and how it came into existence. […]
Taylor Swift is one of the most searched and discussed people on this planet. She has been living in the public eye, since high school, for almost two decades now. A publication aptly called her name the number one click magnet of today’s time. When a person is studied so much in the media, she is bound to draw comparisons and parallelisms. Her art, her personality, her private life, her beliefs, and her views are all talked about constantly. Apart from her contemporaries, a few household names from history come up more often than one can count. Her songwriting is compared to the works of Shakespeare, her love life to Elizabeth Taylor. Although, some names don’t come up that often. People that she has more in common with don’t share a sentence with her as much. Read about RED by Taylor Swift here Her fascinating life and diverse music make her a subject of widespread public discussion. It is common for fans to think of her and her work while reading a book or watching a movie. People, myself included, see Swift in the subject of an artwork. Sometimes we find out about the lesser-known and forgotten names from Swift […]
The past year has been a hoot and a half. It threw into question, every practice of every industry. In a world where forming human connections became harder, how was an up-and-coming artist supposed to make it big? An already difficult world for the new artists hogging their guitars through a crowded city, 2020 was no picnic. Strategies had to be changed, perspectives rewritten and outlook evolved. But even when the times are trying, a creative mind finds a way. Music changes its face and sound every few years; old trends come back strong and new talent rises seemingly out of nowhere. New artists, big and small, adapted to the locked-down world in their own ways. Think Taylor Swift putting out two albums that became her career highlights when she learned she couldn’t play live shows. Think Dave Matthews singing “Will it be the same again? When you’ve been turned inside out and outside in?” Read about RED by Taylor Swift here The mind relates to whatever it relates to. It does not ask the sales record of a song, or its chart position, or the time in which it was made. Music is what gives solace to a troubled […]
If one is to summarise the entire album in a few words, it’d be in the words by Taylor Swift herself. Quoting Pablo Neruda’s Tonight, I Can Write, Swift said that the line “love is so short, forgetting is so long” had been stuck with her ever since she came across it. The album RED, which she has described time and again as her only “to the core, about heartbreak”, makes a modern commentary on the love that doesn’t last long, and yet stays forever. Throughout the record, she plays with different concepts of time. She personifies it as a ruthless identity at one occasion, symbolizes it as an independent arbitration, and portrays it as a paralytic element at another. It’s cruel, it’s fleeting, but it’s also kind and lasting. One can argue that Swift sees a lot of herself in Neruda’s works and life, as both artists have said that writing something sad comes easily to them. Divided by a century and united by penmanship, RED is what the soundtrack to a broken heart would sound like. What Neruda wrote about (flawlessly) a hundred years ago, Swift sings heart-wrenchingly (once again) almost a century later. A Classic Vignette No, […]