We Live In A Society (Taylor’s Version)
On Taylor Swift's re-recordings, her appearance on CSI, and a splash of this week's Pedro Pascalification.
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The first time I heard Taylor Swift, I didn’t even know it was her.
My cousins and I used to share these CDs filled with music videos from the latest Western Top 40 Hits. I credit those CDs for putting me on and possibly awakening something in me by making the Pussycat Dolls’ Buttons more accessible. On one of the discs, I saw this blonde girl in a red dress on a bed of roses. She was singing about slamming screen doors, sneaking out late, and tapping on windows. I looked the song up on Limewire and downloaded it to my iPod, ready to show all my friends once I got back to Kuwait for school in the fall.
From then on, Taylor Swift has become a constant presence in my life. Her songwriting remains to this day one of my biggest influences, both in my own storytelling and in the kind of music that I make. She was there through every delusional high school crush, every embarrassing heartbreak at university, and she’s provided more COVID relief than my own government has with her surprise masterpieces folklore and evermore.
I have, however, grown up with difficult feelings towards her public persona, a theme she touches on in her music as well. I have been guilty of co-opting edgelord ‘Snake Taylor’ sentiments in the past. Lover and reputation are two albums whose commercial success concerns me with its implications regarding white feminism, the optics and rampant capitalism of the You Need To Calm Down music video, and the general audacity of rich white people. That’s not what I’m here to talk about today.
Last week, when it was announced that the love of my life signed on as the lead in HBO’s live-action adaptation of The Last of Us, Miss Taylor Alison Swift did not want to go gently into the news cycle.
Good Morning America tweeted that Taylor was going to make an announcement. A deuxmoi submission claimed to confirm the release of Love Story and 26 songs on her upcoming Fearless re-release. Part of me was skeptical, but another part of me wanted to believe that those kernels of information were planted by William Bowery, the artist formerly known as Joe Alwyn. If I knew then what I know now.
After that slimy weasel Moped Braun got his grubby paws on her masters, Taylor began re-recording her earlier discography, similar to what JoJo has done with her work once she was free of her old label. Taylor confirmed her Fearless (Taylor’s Version) album would come with six never-before-heard tracks from her vault. I’m hoping one of those songs will be I’d Lie, a leaked track I discovered swapping memory sticks full of illegal downloads with a girl called Hana in my homeroom class.
She released a statement complete with a secret message, the way she used to leave them in her album booklets. Swifties, in my humble opinion, were the original fandom codebreakers. Where the One Direction fandom became the feds, the Swifties refused to co-operate or integrate with law enforcement and got their Private Investigators license. So when Taylor left the date “APRIL NNTH” in code as randomly littered capital letters, it was like coming home to my childhood bedroom for the first time.
I pinched the title for today’s newsletter straight out of the new Snyder Cut trailer that drove me and everyone I know insane. I’m not here to compare Taylor Swift to the Joker, although I know in my heart she would do a much better job than Jared Leto. I’m here to celebrate her discography and the ongoing Swiftie renaissance. We do, after all, live in a society. It’s Taylor’s Version, we’re just living in it.
It’s Thee Love Story, Baby, Just Say Yes
In her Shakespeare fix-it fic, as I’ve heard it affectionately referred to, Taylor posits herself as the heroine in a retelling of the Bard’s most prolific tragedy. She’s Juliet with a little bit more agency, and without all the poison and murder, two things she’s saved for no body, no crime (feat. HAIM). Taylor’s Version sounds like it could belong on evermore, wedged somewhere between ivy’s forbidden romance and cowboy like me’s cinematic storytelling.
Yes, I used the word cinematic. What good is my film degree if I can’t describe Taylor Swift songs as cinematic? I bet the girl has a burner Letterboxd account! I’d like to know what film she’s seen before, but didn’t like the ending to, as per her collaboration with the White Man Bon Iver on exile (feat. bon iver). In all seriousness, her songwriting has always had a vivid visual quality to them. She gives you the keys to her world for a day and has you reeling long after she’s walked you back to your car.
Love Story, especially this new version, is hopeful and stands its ground. It’s what I hope the rest of her re-recordings will be; proof that not only has Taylor Swift grown, but that she’s grown up with us. Her voice sounds full, filling every crevice of the song’s production instead of being overpowered by it. What I would give to scream “MARRY ME JULIET YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO BE ALONE / I LOVE YOU AND THAT’S ALL I REALLY KNOW” front row in a mosh pit at the Lover/folklore/evermore/Fearless (Taylor’s Version) Tour. It deserves to be celebrated that way. For now, I’ll have to settle for singing it in the shower.
The song evokes a longing in me, not for Romeo and/or Juliet to take me somewhere we can be alone, but for a simpler time to when my biggest problems were learning how to play this song for music class whilst some kid was trying to boy-splain the chords to me. All Love Story wants is for you to say yes, to take a leap of faith in whatever it is you’re going after even if it’ll end in tears. Taylor isn’t asking much of her listeners, she’s just asking them to be honest with how they feel, even if it is a soppy, Hollywood-bred romance you’d rather not succumb to. She’s telling me, at least, that there’s no shame in feeling your feelings. In essence, that’s her whole deal. All her music is unabashedly and wholeheartedly making room for her emotions.
Love Story (Taylor’s Version) is the first in many steps towards Taylor’s reclamation of her intellectual property. I also think it’s the first of many messages she’s sending to the men in her industry that she is not to be fucked with. She’s sent this message over the course of her career; in her music, films, or press releases but I don’t think any of them will ever come off as strongly as this. Of course, not many other women or marginalized artists have Taylor’s resources both creatively or legally, but I think it sets a precedent to try and demystify the invisible hand of private equity and its grip on the music industry.
If anything, hearing 31-year-old Taylor sing Love Story gave me what I’ve been soothing myself with for the past year: comfort nostalgia. She lets me romanticize a time in my life that I never thought I’d be able to romanticize. She lets me off the hook a little, telling me it’s okay to not live in a society for a little bit.
But the song also reminds me of an incredibly precarious balance I’ve been walking recently–between honouring the past and living in it. I love talking about this stuff. I love gushing over Taylor Swift at my big age as much as I love trying to think critically about my love for her. I love re-examining what 13-year-old me loved and why ten years later these loves persist. In a way, this is what Taylor is allowing herself to do, to reflect on the work she’s created a decade later, especially how much she loves what she’s created. I hope that I’ll be able to look back on this period of my life fondly, who knows what I’ll be writing about then. We’ll just have to wait and see.
CSI: Crime Swift Investigation
Like Pedro Pascal, Taylor Swift has also appeared on CSI. Before Bombalurina in Cats (2019) or the pinnacle of bimboism in Valentine’s Day (2010), Taylor Swift portrayed troubled teenager Haley, on a season nine episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Turn, Turn, Turn”.
As someone who grew up consuming a lot of police procedurals, it never came as a surprise to me when pop stars/idols would pivot to network television either for promotional tie-ins or incept the idea of their acting chops to the general public. It’s a one of the more bizarre yet effective PR moves that worked on me in my youth. This was not an isolated incident, either. Who am I to deny you of Justin Bieber’s appearance on the same show as a serial bomber two seasons after Taylor? Or Kim Kardashian’s appearance on CSI: NY, the superior CSI iteration?
Taylor’s episode follows CSI Nick Stokes (George Eads) as he investigates the murder of Haley Jones (Taylor Swift), a girl he’s gotten to know from a series of cases over the years.
I didn’t manage to track down the whole episode in preparation for this week’s newsletter, but I’ve found something better: a compilation of only Taylor’s scenes, including a montage set to a pseudo-techno remix of You’re Not Sorry off of the original version of Fearless.
The episode is told through a series of flashbacks leading up to Haley’s murder. So to show the passage of time, much like Tom Holland in the Russo Brothers’ upcoming film Cherry, they put Taylor Swift in a bunch of wigs. It’s reminiscent of the You Belong With Me video, where Taylor dons a brunette wig to play the antagonist, a popular girl dating blonde Taylor’s best friend/love interest.
Haley goes through a myriad of hairstyles, each representing a facet of her identity crisis. We first meet her as Horse Girl Bangs Haley, with a peaking interest in forensic science as she befriends Stokes when first arrives to investigate the death of her neighbour. When a friend of hers disappears, Stokes meets her again as a blonde with Swift’s signature country-era curls. And finally, when Haley meets her end at the hands of her mother’s shears, she’s a raven-haired goth. It’s an interesting parallel with the many personas and reinventions Taylor later takes on in her career, most notably in the Look What You Made Me Do video where she reunites the other Taylors when the old Taylor couldn’t come to the phone (because she’s dead).
Pedro Pascalification 2: Electric Boogaloo
It’s been quite the week for Sarah Paulson’s bestie, Pedro Pascal.
Earlier last week, actress Lux Pascal, Pedro’s sister, came out as trans as she graced the cover of Revista Ya. She mentioned in the feature how Pedro was one of the first people to gift her the tools that started shaping her identity. Honestly, my heart exploded. They’re both so sweet and so brilliant, and I can’t wait for Lux to outshine her brother by stealing all his stans from under him.
This tidbit of news flew under the radar a little bit: Pedro has joined the cast of the latest Judd Apatow project. It’s a film about actors stuck in a hotel trying to complete a film during this pandemic. Apatow is trying to get in his Charlie Kaufman bag, and you know what? I’m not mad about it. Pedro Pascal is long overdue for more comedic roles. He’s an Aries. Set him free. Let him make us chuckle, and not just giggle while we bat our eyelashes at him twirling our hair. And by “we”, “us”, and “our”, you know I mean me.
February 11th will henceforth be known as International Pedro Pascalification day. After right-wing pundit wannabee and the worst part of Fast and Furious 6, Gina Carano, was sacked from The Mandalorian and dropped by her agents, it was announced that Pedro would be portraying Joel Miller in the HBO adaptation of popular video game The Last Of Us alongside fellow Game of Thrones alum Bella Ramsey. Of course, the internet rejoiced. I’ve completed only three video games in my life: The Last Of Us, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and whatever version of Harvest Moon my cousins had on their PS2, so this is a big deal for me! Joel is a very complicated character, and yet another father figure dying of head trauma and therefore right up Pedro’s alley. Lest we forget, Oberyn Martell had eight daughters. That’s DILFery. I can’t wait to watch him sink his teeth into his role.
Watching the whole world fall in love with Pedro Pascal has truly been an experience. I feel 16 again, obsessed with that Game of Thrones fella wearing flower crowns at San Diego Comic-Con 2014. The Pedro Pascalification will only expand its reach. It’s inevitable. Soon enough, some outdated publication will knight Pedro Pascal as “The Internet’s New Boyfriend”.
Like many men that live in my head rent-free, I’d like to keep them away from straight girls on TikTok. It’s not nice to gatekeep, but I think just this once we can make an exception.
See you next time on Hyperfixate!
Love always,
Ari.