Why I Love Taylor Swift

This is such a cynical world sometimes, and it's unfashionable (in certain circles) to love anything that is popular and simple and beautiful. I have a few guilty pleasures like that...things I love that are kept secret, in case they damage my ultra-cool (*cough*) image. Chick lit novels, for instance, are something I love even though I studied English Literature at University and also have place on my shelves for Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Mark Twain, et al. I don't see the point in being a book snob, when reading is such a great pleasure and there are so many different styles of writing, why limit myself to those novels "critically" acclaimed or reviewed in literary magazines?? Honestly, I still have a collection of teen romance novels I accumulated in high school (and later) -- I don't read them all the time, but I like to know they're there in case I need escapism or to relive the past. I also have such a strong connection to the 80s, and to the teenage experience, and struggle every day to realise that I can never go back there. Sometimes I look at 19 year old girls on the street or on the bus and they're SO cocky and sure of themselves, and I want to say "Man, don't ever think you have it all worked out...life is sure to throw you a major curve ball one of these days and you better pray you have the moves to catch it and fling it back or the damn thing will knock you out".

I used to date a musician who refused to listen to anything that would be played on commercial radio, consequently he amassed a huge pile of alternative, independent artists that mostly sounded like garbage cans being collected at 4am (IMHO). While I spent a lot of time trying to impress him and pretended to agree that "pop = bad", secretly I hung on to all the music I truly loved, which had mostly been played on the radio at one stage or another. As much as my BPD-style of connection, in which I become the person I love, taking on their interests as my own, has dictated some of my cultural pursuits, there are some things that are true to me -- daggy and pathetic though they may be.

Which brings me to Taylor Swift and the title of this post. A lot of music journalists and internet pundits make fun of Taylor, questioning her validity, pondering her contribution to modern music, making fun of her for being publicly dumped by a Jonas Brother. None of that matters to me, because I love her songs, I love watching her interviews - she strikes me as a geunine girl, who is 18 and is trying to make sense of love and life...hey she reminds me of me hahahahaha!! I have been resisting buying her new CD "Fearless", due to "peer pressure" from the "cool kids". But most days I would be on youtube, playing her songs in secret and watching her vblogs.

So, here and now, I'm outing myself as a devoted Taylor Swift fan, and I'm going to share part of one of her songs "White Horse". If you want to comment, maybe share with us one of YOUR "dirty little secret" pleasures?? I know you've all got 'em.

I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairytale
I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet
lead her up the stairwell
this ain't Hollywood, this is a small town
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down
now it's too late for you and your white horse to come around