August - Taylor Swift

August - Taylor Swift
4:21
Folklore, 2020
Written by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff

As with almost all of Swift's songs, this is about a love that didn't last.  The song drifts forward on gauzy guitars and soft percussion, Swift's lush, ethereal voice hovering between nostalgia and quiet resignation. She writes from the perspective of the girl who wasn't "the one," citing secret assignations and hoping she and the guy are an "us."  She leaves the love triangle drama out and focuses on the emotional blowback: stolen afternoons, hope that lingers longer than it should, and the slow realization that the future belongs to someone else. "And I can see us twisted in bedsheets / August sipped away / Like a bottle of wine / 'Cause you were never mine."  It's a good song, but as usual I'd prefer more verses and fewer choruses.

Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift

Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift

3:21

Midnights, 2022

Written by Taylor Swift & Jack Antonoff

I'm pretty much everything that might make up an anti-Swiftie, yet here I am having Taylor be the first artist I repeat on the blog.  But I love this song!  Catchy, bouncy, the kind of bubbling tumbling internally-rhyming vocals I like, with introspective lyrics, self-critical and insecure.  I always said that if Taylor used her not insignificant talents to write songs about something, anything other than boys and heartbreak, she'd be a star not just with the teens but with the old folks too (not that we matter).  This song is amazing.

You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift

You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift

3:51

Fearless, 2008

Written by Taylor Swift & Liz Rose

Catchy country-rock anthem for pick-me girls.  Girl declares she's just one of the guys, the perfect one for you, but you're distracted by the cheerleader princess.  Of course, as a songwriter, Swift can sing from any point of view she wants (you don't have to pilot a boat to write "The Downeaster Alexa"), but some might be struck by the vast disparity between the pretty, popular, talented Swift and the person she's inhabiting in the song.  If the script was flipped gender-wise, this would be about one of those guys who pretends to be a girl's friend, resenting her boyfriend the whole time and seething that she won't give him "a chance" despite his refusal to engage in the sort of self-improvement that might catch her eye.  For that reason I find this song just a tad off-putting.  But it is a nice singalong.