Song of the Week: 'Ours,' Taylor Swift
Because Taylor Swift dresses in purple pastels and perpetually wears a astonished smile, her punch takes listeners by surprise. Swift is, as she told a Madison Square Garden audience she drove to the verge of pandemonium Monday night, a hopeless romantic. Shes also awfully combative. Her love stories have bad guys and girls, and triumph over these adversaries is a large part of what shes selling so successfully. This is a young woman whos taken Shakespeares "Romeo and Juliet" firmly in her tongs and banged the ending into a shape that better fits her all-American optimism (and her desire for victory). She rides off with the prince, the diamond ring and the moral high ground that comes from sticking to your guns when those around you demand compromise. She wants it all the emotional turmoil and the rebel cred, the glory and the thrown garter and shes willing to fight to get it.
"Ours," her six and latest hit single from her 2010 "Speak Now" album, polishes the "Love Story" narrative further. This time around, there arent any literary references to hide behind: Swifts narrator is up against deadening corporate suits, her new boyfriends ex-girlfriends with "their lip gloss smiles," and a dad who dislikes guys with tattoos. But she smiles straight through the song anyway, since she knows that shes holding the trump card. Shes alive to the possibility of passion, and her villains arent. Theyre philistines who "throw rocks at things that shine." She and her boyfriend constitute a private club engaging in sedition against the boring world.
Thats what Taylor Swift can do: She can makes every instance of starry-eyed puppy love feel like a defiant act.
Maybe it is. Romanti! cs have had a rough time of it on the pop playground over the past decade or so. There arent too many happy love songs near the top of the singles charts these days. Lovers in contemporary songs tend to be losers people who have "caught feelings" and are about to be trampled by the harsh realities of relationships. Fidelity and devotion are fools gold, and those who let their heart win are doomed to despondency and derision.
Taylor Swift is the lover as winner. Even her tales of heartbreak play as temporary setbacks. Is it any wonder that romantics and there are still millions of them stand behind their hero? In her forceful lyrics, she mows through her opponents: disapproving parents, cynics, pontificators, whispering outsiders, beaus with bad judgment, boyfriend-snatchers and too-good-to-be-true pop princes who mess with the hearts of young girls. No matter how outgunned she seems, her glitter beats grim reality. Shes defending the fairy-tale castle with a flamethrower.
There is a long tradition of steel magnolias in Nashville, and that is why Swifts country audience will never turn on her no matter how pop her music becomes. At the recent CMA Awards show, other stars sang circles around her some pointedly so. Their song-and-dance routines and sequined gowns were spectacular. But it was Swift who stole the show, alone on a couch in a fuchsia sweater, singing "Ours." She performed inexpertly, missing notes high and low. But she inhabited every conversational syllable, and the flash in her eyes was thrillingly proprietary. She walked away with Entertainer of the Year, the highest award the Music City establishment can bestow on one of its own. As she humble-bragged to Madison Square Garden on Monday, she picked up plenty of hardware at the American Music Awards, too.
Will she continue that winning streak at the Grammys this winter? Woe betide those whod stand in her way.
Songs of the Day are posted Mon.-Thu. at 3 p.m. Song of the Week, which will focus on contemporary chart hits, ! will be posted on Friday. For past Songs of the Day, click here