Reflection on Midnight’s Release: Getting Older and Wiser
Image Courtesy: Boston
As I am listening to Taylor Swift’s new album Midnights for the hundredth time, sharing a comfortable, silent space with my freshman roommate and boyfriend of two years, I am struck with the revelation that Taylor Swift is my oldest friend. I remember my love for Taylor Swift blooming at seven years old like it was yesterday. Surprisingly enough, my father who lives and breathes country music was the one who introduced me to her music, and since that fateful day Taylor Swift was a fixture of my life before I even entered middle school. From the first listen of “Tim McGraw” with my dad, to singing along to “Fifteen” and “You Belong With Me” on my way to soccer practice, or writing lyrics from “Mean” in my diary about elementary school bullies, Taylor was the main component. Now, as a 20 year old sitting in my dorm room states away from everything and everyone I grew up with, one of the only remaining constants is my relationship with Taylor Swift’s music.
When I first became a Taylor Swift fan I was seven years old and she was 20. As you’d imagine, we were two very different ages with a multitude of different life experiences behind and ahead of us. Nonetheless, I loved her music, though I could never resonate with it; I didn’t know what the experience of a 20 year old would be. I didn’t even know what the life of a ten year old would be. I’ve never been in love, so all of her love or breakup songs could never relate to my life, yet that never stopped me from belting out the lyrics whenever I heard them. If anything, they helped develop my perspective of what love could be, and I longed to mature and be able to see myself in those scenarios.
As I aged, my love for Taylor Swift and her music strengthened, as well the genuine personal connection to it. As Taylor was navigating her desire to dive into other genres, and her emergence into pop and indie folk with the respective albums 1989 and Folklore were record breaking, I was navigating the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. The experiences I was once not able to understand were happening to me, and I had her music as a frame of reference for the thoughts and emotions I couldn’t express myself. When I experienced my first heartbreak at 18, the time period I spent listening to her breakup songs alone were probably enough to keep her position as my #1 artist on Spotify. Her sister albums Folklore and Evermore came at a perfect time when I felt extremely lost in the trajectory of my life; all of my friends were entering college and I was in the transitional period of truly becoming independent and alone. The years spent growing up in my hometown washed over me, alongside the good and bad experiences that came with them, so I found refuge in her most personal and mature albums as I looked back on my individual growth throughout the years.
Now as I am the same age as Taylor Swift was when I first discovered her, scrambling to listen to her new album exactly at midnight, it feels like a whole 180°. I am no longer the young seven year old girl who loved the lyrics and sound of Taylor’s music but couldn’t relate, I am now a young woman with enough life experiences to resonate with the emotions Taylor emulates in her music. Instead of crying alone in my room to her sad songs, I discuss what songs I relate to the most with my friends and sit alongside the person I love, ranking our favorites from her albums. Thus, while she is specifically talking about love in the song “You Are In Love”, the line, “and now you understand why I spent my whole life trying to put it into words,” stuck with me throughout my life; and after growing up alongside Taylor Swift for 13 years, I can finally say I understand.
Strike Out,
Writer: Isabella Koeut-Futch
Editor: Paige Yoskin
Graphic Designer: Alexis Rodriguez
Boston
