Diva Spotlight - Taylor Swift

I will be the first person to tell you that I did not like Taylor Swift when she first appeared on the scene with her single Tim McGraw. In fact, I am a firm believer that Tim McGraw is, to this day, the worst song that’s ever been written. Then, praise the Lord, Teardrops On My Guitar was released on the radio and all was forgiven. I am now a die-hard Swiftie and have been since I was about fifteen years old. Do I understand why some people don’t like her music? Sure, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. However, I wholeheartedly believe she is a fabulous lyricist – probably my all time favorite, honestly – and a talented performer, and that’s why she deserves a spotlight.

In case you’re one of the three people in the world who don’t know who Swift is, allow me to present you with this quick crash course: -Currently 30 years old -Grew up in Reading, PA where her family owned a Christmas tree farm -Signed with Big Machine records at age 15 -Has been in a relationship with actor Joe Alwyn since 2016 -Has, as of now, released 7 studio albums and multiple EPs -Has, as of now, won 312 awards, including 8 American Country Music Awards, 29 American Music Awards, 23 Billboard Music Awards, 12 Country Music Association Awards, 10 Grammy Awards, and 12 People’s Choice Awards

A little different from my last Diva Spotlight, I’ll not only go through each album and list my three favorite songs from each, I’m going to actually rank the albums in the order that I like them best – 7 being the lowest, 1 the highest. The albums will still be listed in chronological order, but the numbers in front of each album title will be my “official” (haha) ranking.

#7 – Taylor Swift (2006) Yes, Swift’s debut album is definitely my least favorite, and yes, that’s partially because it includes Tim McGraw. This album is a big one in helping me understand why a lot of people don’t like Swift’s music, especially her earlier country stuff – the music definitely showed her young age and immaturity (she was only 17 when this record came out) – but at the same time, the lyricism even at this point in her career I have to say was pretty good. The album was released October 24th, 2006 and produced by Big Machine Records. It’s a mix of country, country pop, and pop rock according to Wikipedia, although I don’t agree with the pop rock aspect in the slightest – this album is pure country. It has been certified 7x Platinum by the RIAA for selling 7 million copies worldwide and is the longest charting album on Billboard’s 200 of the 2000s at 277 weeks total. The bonus track version of the album runs about 54:09 in length and produced 5 singles – Tim McGraw (6/19/06), Teardrops On My Guitar (2/19/07), Our Song(9/9/07), Picture to Burn (2/3/08), and Should’ve Said No (5/18/08). After my inaugural listening through of the album (FYI this is the ONLY Swift album I had not listened to in its entirety ever before), here are my three favorites. Track 3: Teardrops On My Guitar (written by T. Swift, E. Wagner) I had to include Teardrops not only because it was the song that made me love her, but also because at the time I had a HUGE classic high school crush on a guy that I knew didn’t feel the same way about me and it crushed me to my very core. For a fellow teenager, it was really nice to hear a song that talked about how I felt in my favorite genre of music. Also, I still the fact that she name dropped the actual name of the actual Drew in this song, he came to her and asked her out after she became a big deal, and she said “Nah, brah, you missed your chance.” Drew looks at me/I fake a smile so he won’t see/That I want and I’m needing/Everything that we should be/I bet she’s beautiful, that girl he talks about/And she’s got everything that I have to live without/Drew talks to me/I laugh ’cause it’s so damn funny/That I can’t even see/Anyone when he’s with me/He says he’s so in love, he’s finally got it right/I wonder if he knows he’s all I think about at night/He’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar/The only thing who keeps me wishing on a wishing star/He’s the song in the car I keep singing, don’t know why I do Track 7: Tied Together With a Smile (written by T. Swift, L. Rose) I fell in love with the lyrics of this song when I heard it for the first time this past week. Yeah, it could be construed as a “classic” self-love song, but it honestly depicts a girl who I think a lot of people can relate to no matter how old they are. The narrator really just can’t figure out any reason why she should love herself, and some days that’s just how I feel, but the narrator goes on to say that none of the thoughts going through her head are true and just to keep pushing forward because it’s going to get better. Seems the only one who doesn’t see your beauty/Is the face in the mirror looking back at you/You walk around here thinking you’re not pretty/But that’s not true, ’cause I know you/Hold on, baby, you’re losing it, the water’s high, you’re jumping into it/And letting go, and no one knows/That you cry, but you don’t tell anyone, that you might not be the golden one/And you’re tied together with a smile, but you’re coming undone Track 11 – Our Song (written by T. Swift) If I had to award a gold medal to a song on this album, this one would be it. It took one listen of this song when I was 15 for me to fall head over heels in love with it, and I still sing it constantly to this day. I actually auditioned for Johnnie High Music Revue with this song, and even though I didn’t get a callback, I loved performing this song live so much – it’s just really difficult to be in a bad mood listening to it. I was riding shotgun with my hair undone in the front seat of his car/He had a one-hand feel on the steering wheel, the other on my heart/I looked around, turned the radio down, he said, “Baby, is something wrong”/I said, “Nothing, I was just thinking how we don’t have a song”/And he said, “Our song is a slamming screen door, sneaking out late, tapping on your window/When we’re on the phone and you talk real slow, ’cause it’s late and your mama don’t know/Our song is the way you laugh, our first date, man, I didn’t kiss her and I should have/And when I got home, ‘fore I said amen/Asking God if He could play it again”

#3 – Fearless (2008) I received Fearless as a gift for my seventeenth birthday and I cannot even tell you how happy it made me. Love Story had been out for a while and was (and still is) one of my favorite music videos ever and I couldn’t wait to (almost) wear that CD out. The album was released November 11th, 2008 and was produced by Big Machine Records. It is undeniably a country pop album, and actually is the most awarded album in the history of country music. Swift became the youngest artist ever (as of 2008) to win the Grammy for Album of the Year, and Fearless ended up being the best selling album of 2009 AND is certified Diamond by the RIAA, having sold 71.8 million copies worldwide. The Platinum Edition of the album runs about 79:19 in length and produced five singles – Love Story(9/12/08), White Horse 12/7/08), You Belong With Me (4/19/09), Fifteen (8/30/09), and Fearless (1/3/10). Still knowing every word to every song on the track list, it was extremely difficult to narrow my favorites down to just 3 but I did my best. Track 9: Love Story (written by T. Swift) Oh, my heart holds such a special place for Love Story. No, my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I didn’t have anything remotely resembling a Romeo & Juliet type romance, but the overdramatic 17-year-old me loved to imagine that we did (ew I don’t know how anyone tolerated me at all). I love her literary imagery in this song with not only Romeo & Juliet but also The Scarlet Letter. We were both young when I first saw you/I close my eyes and the flashback starts/I’m standing there, on a balcony in summer air/I see the lights, see the party, the ballgowns/I see you make your way through the crowd to say hello/Little did I know/That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles/And my daddy said, “Stay away from Juliet”/And I was crying on the staircase, begging you please don’t go/And I said, “Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone/I’ll be waiting, all there’s left to do is run/You’ll be the princeand I’ll be the princess/It’s a love story, baby, just say yes” Track 13: Breathe ft. Colbie Caillat (written by T. Swift, C. Caillat) I thought this song was deep when I was 17 and dammit, I still think this song is deep. Even now when I have much more life experience under my belt than I did the first time I heard it, I think this song does an amazing job of describing grief. Grief doesn’t have to just come up when there’s a death or a traumatic event in your life – it can come from something as “simple” as the loss of a friendship. I see your face in my mind as I drive away/’Cause none of us thought it was gonna end that way/But people are people, and sometimes we change our minds/And it’s killing me to see you go after all this time/Music starts playing like the end of a sad movie/It’s the kind of ending you don’t really wanna see/’Cause it’s tragedy and it’ll only bring you down/And I don’t know what to be without you around/And we know it’s never simple, never easy/Never a clean break, no one here to save me/You’re the only thing I know like the back of my hand/And I can’t breathe without you, but I have to/Breathe without you, but I have to Track 13: The Best Day (written by T. Swift) Take my word for it, I’m getting a little misty-eyed listening to this song right now. Swift wrote this song as a surprise for her mom, playing it for her on Christmas Day after the album had been put together. Just about every single story in this song reminds me of an almost identical instance in which MY mom was there for me as my rock and support system, and I’ll always consider this my song for her just like Swift does with her mom. I’m five years old, it’s getting cold, I’ve got my big coat on/I hear your laugh and look up smiling at you, I run and run/Past the pumpkin patch and the tractor rides, look now, the sky is gold/I hug your legs and fall asleep on the way home/I don’t know why all the trees change in the fall/But I know you’re not scared of anything at all/Don’t know if Snow White’s house is near or far away/But I know I had the best day with you today

#5 – Speak Now (2010) Speak Now is definitely Swift’s first step away from country and towards pop. It has a very happy overtone to it despite several of the songs being on the sadder side. The album was released October 25th, 2010 and was produced by Big Machine Records. It’s a mix of country pop and pop rock, and debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart – Swift’s second consecutive chart-topper in the U.S. This was the 5th biggest debut in history for a female artist, and the album is now certified 6x Platinum by the RIAA, having sold 5 million copies worldwide. The Deluxe Edition runs about 101:10 in length and produced 6 singles – Mine (8/4/10), Back to December (11/15/10), Mean (3/13/11), The Story of Us(4/19/11), Sparks Fly (7/18/11), and Ours (11/22/11). I don’t have a huge emotional attachment to this album, so I was pretty surprised that I had a hard time narrowing my favorite songs from this era down to 3, but here they are. Track 5: Dear John (written by T. Swift) DISCLAIMER: NO, MY LOVE OF THIS SONG HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT MY HUSBAND’S NAME IS JOHN. Praise the Good Lord I found an amazing man who would never gaslight me the way the guy does the narrator in this song. Swift pretty famously wrote this song about her split with fellow music superstar John Mayer, to which he responded with his single Paper Doll. This song is one that’s evolved with me over time – when I was 19, it reminded me of a very special friendship I’d had that had ended very messily. Now that I’m older, it reminds me of a hugely toxic relationship I ended not very long ago that I’m still dealing with the emotional repercussions of. Long were the nights when my days once revolved around you/Counting my footsteps, praying the floor won’t fall through again/My mother accused me of losing my mind, but I swore I was fine/You’d paint me a blue sky, then go back and turn it to rain/And I lived in your chess game, but you changed the rules every day/Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone tonight/Well, I stopped picking up, and this song is to let you know why/Dear John, I see it all now that you’re gone/Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with/The girl in the dress cried the whole way home/I should’ve known Track 10: Better Than Revenge (written by T. Swift) Yes, yes, YES. At the time this was the closest we’d gotten to a really obviously ANGRY TSwift song and I was HERE for IT. The chorus of this song especially helped me deal with a bad roommate situation I found myself in at the time – and by deal with, I mean I ran to this song in the gym a lot after she would seriously piss me off so I could get rid of some of that negative energy. The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and/I had it all, I had him right there where I wanted him/She came along, got him alone, now let’s hear the applause/She took him faster than you could say sabotage/I never saw it coming, never had suspected it/I underestimated just who I was dealing with/She had to know the pain was beating on me like a drum/She underestimated just who she was stealing from/She’s not a saint and she’s not what you think, she’s an actress, whoa/And she’s better known for the things that she does on a mattress, whoa/Soon she’s gonna find stealing other people’s toys on the playground won’t make you many friends/She should keep in mind, she should keep in mind, there is nothing I do better than revenge Track 11: Innocent (written by T. Swift) This song just hits a little different. I’ve got a few people in my life right now that I wish could get out of this song what I do and have – I pray it for them every day. You. Are. Not. Your. Past. It sucks right now, but it’s only temporary. I guess you really did it this time/Left yourself in your war path/Lost your balance on a tightrope/Lost your mind trying to get it back/Wasn’t it easier in your lunchbox days/Always a bigger bed to crawl into/Wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything/And everybody believed in you/It’s alright, just wait and see/Your string of lights is still bright to me, oh/Who you are is not where you’ve been/You’re still an innocent/You’re still an innocent

#2 – Red (2012) In my honest opinion, Red showcases Swift’s absolute best songwriting ability to date. The lyrics in every single song are just out of the park, all of the songs are so raw and emotional and real, and the album, while somewhat “calmer” than the others, is just a total homer for me. The album was released October 22nd, 2012 and was produced by Big Machine Records. A mix of pop, rock, and country, it was Metacritic’s 15th most critically acclaimed album of the 2010s. Swift’s third consecutive #1 album, it has been certified 7x Platinum by the RIAA, having sold 6 million copies worldwide. The deluxe edition runs about 90 minutes in length and produced 7 singles – We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (8/13/12), Begin Again (10/1/2), I Knew You Were Trouble (12/10/12), 22 (3/12/13), Red (6/21/13), Everything Has Changed ft. Ed Sheeran (7/16/13), and The Last Time ft. Gary Lightbody (11/4/13). I thought I’d have a harder time picking favorites on this album because I love it so much, but it was actually surprisingly easy. Track 2: Red (written by T. Swift) I tend to assign colors to things to describe how I feel about them or remember them, so hearing the lyrics to this song was totally right up my alley. I honestly wish she hadn’t used this song as her “tour” music video, because I would’ve loved to have seen a more visually artistic version of this song. Loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street/Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly/Loving him was like trying to change your mind when you’re already flying through the free fall/Like the colors of autumn so bright, just before they lose it all/Losing him was blue like I’d never known/Missing him was dark gray, all alone/Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you’d never met/But loving him was red/Loving him was red Track 4: I Knew You Were Trouble. (written by M. Martin, K. Shuster, T. Swift) Wooooooow I love this song so much. One thing I’ve always wanted to do is an acoustic piano version of this song, a little more slowed down and sad than angry like the original version of this song is. I just love everything to do with this song – the guitar, the lyrics, the heavy hitting chorus, all of it. It reminds me a lot of a relationship with a college friend that ended up being very one-sided, and it was pretty apparent to everyone except me. No apologies, he’ll never see you cry/Pretends he doesn’t know that he’s the reason why/You’re drowning, you’re drowning, you’re drowning/Now I heard you moved on from whispers on the street/A new notch in your belt is all I’ll ever be/And now I see, now I see, now I see/He was long gone when he met me/And I realize the joke is on me, yeah/’Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in, so shame on me now/Flew me to places I’d never been ’til you put me down/Oh, I knew you were trouble when you walked in, so shame on me now/Flew me to places I’d never been, now I’m lying on the cold, hard ground/Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble/Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble Track 5: All Too Well (written by L. Rose, T. Swift) I’m learning to play this song on my ukulele right now so it’s on my mind a lot, and I truly think the lyrics in this song are the best Swift has ever written. It’s been pretty widely speculated that this song was written about Swift’s breakup with actor Jake Gyllenhaal, and it’s just really heartbreaking to listen to. It also includes what I think is one of the greatest lyrics ever written by anyone: You call me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest. And now I need to go cry, sorry, brb. I walked through the door with you, the air was cold/But something ’bout it felt like home somehow/And I left my scarf there at your sister’s house/And you still got it in your drawer even now/Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze/We’re singing in the car, getting lost upstate/The autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place/And I can picture it after all these days/And I know it’s long gone, and that magic’s not here no more/And I might be okay, but I’m not fine at all/’Cause there we are again on that little town street/You almost ran the red ’cause you were looking over at me/Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well

#6 – 1989 (2014) 1989 finishes out Swift’s transition from country to pop. For me, this was a little bit of a weird transition because not only is this album pop, it’s basically ’80’s pop, which was not what I expected from her at all. The album was released October 27th, 2014 and was produced by Big Machine Records. Her first synth pop album, Swift won 2 Grammy Awards for this work and can showcase a 9x Platinum certification from the RIAA for 10.1 million copies sold worldwide. The Deluxe Edition runs about 68:37 in length and produced 7 singles – Shake It Off (8/18/14), Blank Space (11/10/14), Style (2/9/15), Bad Blood ft. Kendrick Lamar (5/17/15), Wildest Dreams (8/31/15), Out of the Woods (1/19/16), and New Romantics (2/23/16). While this album isn’t my favorite as a whole, it definitely has some great songs on it, my favorite three listed below. Track 2: Blank Space (written by T. Swift) I’m obsessed with this song. I’m obsessed with this video. I’m obsessed with the whole package. What else is there to be said? Nice to meet you, where you been, I could show you incredible things/Magic, madness, heaven, sin, saw you there and I thought/Oh my God, look at that face, you look like my next mistake/Love’s a game, wanna play, hey/New money, suit and tie, I can read you like a magazine/Ain’t it funny, rumors fly, and I know you heard about me/So hey, let’s be friends, I’m dying to see how this one ends/Grab your passport and my hand, ’cause I can make the bad guys good for a weekend/So it’s gonna be forever, or it’s gonna go down in flames/You can tell me when it’s over, mm, if the high was worth the pain/Got a long list of ex-lovers, they’ll tell you I’m insane/’Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game/’Cause we’re young and we’re reckless, we’ll take this way too far/It’ll leave you breathless, mm, or with a nasty scar/Got a long list of ex-lovers, they’ll tell you I’m insane/But I’ve got a blank space, baby, and I’ll write your name Track 4: Out Of The Woods (written by T. Swift, J. Antonoff) I really liked this song when it first came out, but my appreciation of it has grown as I’ve gotten older. It depicts a more mature relationship than we were used to hearing from Swift – not already over, and not perfect rainbows and bubbles, but a relationship in turmoil that’s worth saving. Looking at it now, it all seemed so simple/We were lying on your couch, I remember/You took a Polaroid of us, then discovered/The rest of the world was black and white, but we were in screaming color/And I remember thinking/Are we out of the woods yet, are we out of the woods yet, are we out of the woods yet, are we out of the woods/Are we in the clear yet, are we in the clear yet, are we in the clear yet, in the clear yet, good/Are we out of the woods yet, are we out of the woods yet, are we out of the woods yet, are we out of the woods/Are we in the clear yet, are we in the clear yet, are we in the clear yet, in the clear yet, good/Are we out of the woods Track 14: Wonderland (written by M. Martin, K. Schuster, T. Swift) I really liked this song when I first got the album, but I don’t think I realized how much until I discovered how often this song got stuck in my head. As I said earlier, I really like when Swift uses literary analogies in her songs, in this case pretty obviously Alice in Wonderland. Flashing lights, and we took a wrong turn and we/Fell down a rabbit hole/You held on tight to me, ’cause nothing’s as it seems/I’m spinning out of control/Didn’t they tell us don’t rush into things, didn’t you flash your green eyes at me/Haven’t you heard what becomes of curious minds/Oh, didn’t it all seem new and exciting, I felt your arms twisting around me/I should’ve slept with one eye open at night/We found Wonderland, you and I got lost in it/And we pretended it could last forever, eh, eh/We found Wonderland, you and I got lost in it/And life was never worse, but never better, eh, eh

#1 – reputation (2017) Ya’ll I’m sorry but holy shit, I love this album so much. As much as I hate the circumstances that drove her to it, it was ABOUT TIME Swift released a no-holds-barred angry album. It was released November 19th, 2017 and was produced by Big Machine Records. A mix of pop, electropop, and synth-pop, this was the best selling album of 2017, an impressive feat considering it was released with only a month and a half to go before the new year started. It has been certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA with 4.5 million copies sold worldwide. It runs about 55:38 in length and released 7 singles – Look What You Made Me Do (8/24/17), …Ready for It? (10/24/17), End Game ft. Ed Sheeran & Future (11/14/17), New Year’s Day (11/27/17), Gorgeous (1/12/18), Delicate (3/12/18), and Getaway Car (9/7/18). I really only hate one song on this album (looking at you, End Game), but here are my top 3. Track 6: Look What You Made Me Do (written by F. Fairbrass, J. Antonoff, R. Fairbrass, R. Manzoli, T. Swift) People seriously HATED, like borderline violently HATED, this song when it was released, but I loved it from the moment I watched the lyric video because it explained every damn thing I felt about the toxic relationship I was in that I mentioned earlier. Like, when I was around this person, I would sing it in my mind to keep myself calm. It samples I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred which a lot of people didn’t like much either, and is pretty famously and obviously about her very public feuds with Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, and Katy Perry. I don’t like your little games, don’t like your tilted stage/The role you made me play, of the fool, no, I don’t like you/I don’t like your perfect crime, how you laugh when you lie/You said the gun was mine, isn’t cool, no, I don’t like you/But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time/Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time/I got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined/I check it once, then I check it twice, oh/Ooh, look what you made me do, look what you made me do/Look what you just made me do, look what you just made me/Ooh, look what you made me do, look what you made me do/Look what you just made me do, look what you just made me do Track 13: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (written by J. Antonoff, T. Swift) Another song about her public feud with Kanye and Kim, this song was basically Swift’s explanation for disappearing off the radar for a couple of years. I don’t think she really owed anyone an explanation, but it produced an epic song so it’s fine. Also – check that literary reference, Great Gatsby fans. It was so nice throwing big parties, jumping to the pool from the balcony/Everyone swimming in a champagne sea/And there are no rules when you show up here, bass beat rattling the chandelier/Feeling so Gatsby for that whole year/So why’d you have to rain on my parade/I’m shaking my head, I’m locking the gates/This is why we can’t have nice things, darling/Because you break them, I had to take them away/This is why we can’t have nice things, honey/Did you think I wouldn’t hear all the things you said about me/This is why we can’t have nice things Track 15: New Year’s Day (written by J. Antonoff, T. Swift) This is one of the most beautifully simple songs I’ve ever heard. It reminds me a lot of myself and my husband, especially because we do the three hand squeeze thing ourselves. There’s glitter on the floor after the party/Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby/Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor/You and me from the night before/But don’t read the last page/But I stay when you’re lost and I’m scared and you’re turning away/I want your midnights/But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day

#4 – Lover (2019) I’m putting Swift’s most recent album right in the middle of the pack for now since it’s only 6 months old. It’s the only one of her albums that sounds similar to another one to me (in this case, 1989). It was released August 23rd, 2019 and was produced by Republic Records, her first one not with Big Machine after her very public split with them last year. A mix of pop, synth-pop, electropop, and pop rock, the record is already certified Platinum by the RIAA, having sold 1.2 million copies worldwide since its release. The total run time is about 61:48 and has so far released 4 singles – ME! ft. Brendan Urie (4/26/19), You Need To Calm Down (6/14/19), Lover (8/16/19), and The Man (1/27/20). I had a difficult time on this one as well narrowing down my top 3, “but nevertheless, she persisted.” Track 1: I Forgot That You Existed (written by T. Swift, L. Bell, A. Feeney) Listening to this song fresh out the box on that early morning in August was like a breath of fresh air. I can TOTALLY relate to multiple instances where people who caused me so much mental and emotional grief no longer have a hold on me, and it’s such a HUGE relief. I forgot that you got out some popcorn as soon as my rep started going down, down, down/Laughed on the schoolyard as soon as I tripped up and hit the ground, ground, ground/And I would’ve stuck around for ya, would’ve fought the whole town, so yeah/Would’ve been right there, front row, even if nobody came to your show/But you showed who you are, then one magical night/I forgot that you existed/And I thought that it would kill me, but it didn’t/And it was so nice/So peaceful and quiet/I forgot that you existed/It isn’t love, it isn’t hate, it’s just indifference Track 8: Paper Rings (written by J. Antonoff, T. Swift) I’ll just say this – as much as I adore my stunning engagement ring he designed for me, I’d marry my husband in a heartbeat today if he made me a paper ring because that’s what he had. And that, my dears, is true love. In the winter, in the icy outdoor pool, when you jumped in first, I went in too/I’m with you even if it makes me blue/Which takes me back to the color that we painted your brother’s wall, honey, without all the exes, fights, and flaws/We wouldn’t be standing here so tall/So kiss you once ’cause I know you had a long night/Kiss you twice ’cause it’s gonna be alright/Three times ’cause you waited your whole life/One, two, one, two, there, four/I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings/Uh huh, that’s right, darling, you’re the one I want/And I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this/Uh huh, that’s right, darling, you’re the one I want/In paper rings, in picture frames/In dirty dreams, oh, you’re the one I want Track 17: It’s Nice To Have A Friend (written by T. Swift, L. Bell, A. Feeney) Another simply beautiful song like New Year’s Day, I can totally relate to the story of this song moving from friends to lovers with someone. My husband is absolutely my best friend, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Light pink sky, up on the roof/Sun sinks down, no curfew/Twenty questions, we tell the truth/You’ve been stressed out lately, yeah, me too/Something gave you the nerve/To touch my hand, it’s nice to have a friend/It’s nice to have a friend

Thank you for joining me on this long Swift journey. Happy listening, and see ya’ll next week!