Recently I learned from Freddie DeBoer’s blog that NYU has a Taylor Swift question on its application form. This reminded me that about a decade ago, the wisest of men, Felipe Gutterriez, told me that my ignorance of Swift and her music was culpable, and that I really should get with the 21st century program. So I watched one time on YouTube the video of her hit ‘Shake It Off’. Alas, I couldn’t get past the fact that it looked like someone had daubed Audrey Hepburn with lipstick after she’d fallen into a vat of liquid white chocolate. Though Voltaire warned me with his truism when he was invited back to an orgy for seconds--“Once a philosopher, twice a pervert”—I decided to risk perversion and give Swift a second try. A trip to Los Angeles, with long hours sitting in traffic, was the perfect setting for listening twice to Swift’s canonical album 1989.
By the sheerest and most fortunate of chances, I returned to find a Taylor Swift questionnaire. Of course I filled it out immediately and sent it off to NYU. I post it here, knowing that my answers will likely go viral. Having just read Jarett Kobek’s i hate the internet, I know my fate:
1. How many thousands of hours have you listened to Taylor Swift?
Answer: .05
2. What is your favorite Taylor song?
Answer: I haven’t heard it yet.
3. What is Taylor’s greatest virtue as a songwriter?
Answer: She finds the hooks in the patter. In 1932 George Gershwin wrote: “The rhythms of American popular music are more or less brittle; they should be made to snap, and at times to crackle.” Swift don’t got rhythm, but she do got snap and crackle.
4. Who orchestrates Taylor’s songs?
Answer: The love child of Phil Spector and General Jack D. Ripper. It’s as if in every song there’s a war in the distance: attack helicopters, raiding bombers, and a charging brigade all playing synthesizers and drum-kits. I kept expecting the songs to end with the 1812 Overture.
5. Everybody says that Taylor’s songs are all about her break-ups. Comment:
Answer: You can’t shake that one off. My idea is that love songs are on a spectrum with ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit’ in the middle, and ‘Unchained Melody’ and ‘Why don’t we get drunk and screw?’ at the ends. There’s no passion, no yearning, no life-affirming vulgarity, no grief, no regret in Swift’s songs. Instead it’s as if the sentiments of a jaded 25 year-old woman are expressed in the vocabulary and emotional armature of a 15 year-old girl. Swift’s persona sings as if ‘relationships’ are nothing but persistent irritants in an otherwise Instagrammable life.
6. When do you expect to next listen to Taylor?
Answer: On Monday after my lobotomy.