You Better Believe I'm a Swiftie
You Better Believe I'm a Swiftie
I come from a long line of Swifties
Most of the time I write about music and music-related topics here - it’s something I’m passionate about. Music, however, is not the most important thing in my life. Not quite.
I try to keep the most important, most personal things in my life private. My family, my faith, politics, service - I don’t see much point in bringing these things into any public conversation. But I do love music, and sometimes my love for music intersects with my family life.
Some of the greatest times have involved sharing my love for music with my kids. When Anna was a baby, I wrote a song titled Anna about how I hoped it would be to be a dad. I imagined the timeline of our life together around the refrain “and I wanted to sing this song for you.” That was the dream, the promise, to be there every day and share music with my kids. I’m proud of the song, even though I’m not all that concerned about what anyone else thinks of it. It’s like a note to my future self. Now that she’s grown, it’s played out just about how I imagined it would - including the private heartbreak of sending her out on her own to live her life.
Anna was a precocious kid from the start, a music lover from day one. I spent a lot of time driving her around, and we talked about everything. We had full-blown conversations by the time she turned 2. From the time she realized it was an option, she dictated the music we played. At first it was kids music, then Disney Radio, mixed with all the stuff I forced her to listen to. She had her favorite songs, but she never had a favorite singer. Until age four, thanks to the forbidden Disney Channel, where she discovered Hannah Montana, the rock star alter-ego for Miley Cyrus, daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus.
The first Hannah Montana album came out in 2006, and we proceeded to wear out every Hannah and Miley album for the next three years - all six of them. Anna’s brother Bennett arrived in 2004, and he rarely complained about the lack of minivan listening options. We took Anna and Bennett to see Miley perform in 2008, and I wrangled a meet-n-greet pass for a photo opp. Miley came out over an hour late, completely detached and obviously very stoned. I should have been annoyed, but I was fascinated - maybe there was more going on with her than being a Disney character. Compared to the typical Disney Radio fare, which is borderline unlistenable, I found Miley’s stuff to be consistently decent, occasionally pretty good. Some of my Boston music friends from the band Letters to Cleo worked on her creative team, and her voice, as we’ve all learned, is quite good. I didn’t hate it.
I’m not sure exactly when Taylor Swift came into the picture. We missed the first album (on my radar, but not of interest), then we bought Fearless around its release in 2008. I remember taking Anna to the Hannah Montana movie in 2009, featuring Taylor singing her song Crazier.1 After that, Hannah/Miley faded from prominence, and it was all Taylor, all the time. She’s been Anna’s favorite artist ever since.
Although I didn’t actively dislike Hannah/Miley music, nor did I dislike other minivan staples such as Justin Bieber and Beyonce, I didn’t really consider whether I actually liked any of that music. It was fine with me, even hearing The Best of Both Worlds, Baby, or All The Single Ladies 100+ times in a row. After all, I’m a good sport. Once we went deep into Taylor’s music, however, I actually found that I truly loved certain songs. Fearless is a great album. I’m a songwriter and an obsessive, lifelong fan of great songwriting. I realized that, not only are these truly great songs, but that she wrote some of the best of her early work such as Fifteen, Love Story, and The Best Day by herself as a teenager. The more I listened, the more I liked.
By the time our shared Taylor fixation took root in 2007, baby Sophie came into the picture. Sophie expressed her opinions on music right out of the gate. I’m not really sure what Bennett thought about all the Taylor music, and he still doesn’t. He discovered at the Nashville Eras show that he knows all the words to all the songs. His attitude at the time: just so long as we worked in something by Queen or the Cars soundtrack every drive, he let the girls control the aux. The girls just wanted more and more and more Taylor.
Fearless is probably my favorite Taylor album, but I wouldn’t argue it’s her best work. It’s great, but my attachment is largely semtimental. I love it because it is so packed with memories and cherished moments from those wonderful days connecting with my kids. I can’t listen to The Best Day without getting choked up. Every parent must experience that ache when their kids are bullied or excluded. I remember driving around with Anna during those times and listening to that song. I’m not sure what she was feeling, but her lines just tore my heart out. That song made me want to be a better dad, to always be there for my kids in their times of struggle.
It won’t come as a surprise that I insisted on making the minivan musical selection once in a while. I’m probably not like most music listeners…I have a very specific, occasionally obsessive approach to listening. When I want comfort, I listen to the music I know I already love, music that feeds my soul, music that carries the memories and all the good feelings. For exploration, I listen to things people recommend or pimp, playlists, demos, etc., and I never feel obligated to listen to an entire song if it isn’t for me. This annoys Heather, who finds it jarring when I skip ahead in the middle of the song. But if I’m not into it, why waste time? And then once in a while I get completely head-over-heels obsessed with an album or even a song, and I’ll listen to it over and over and over. If I’m in that mode, all the other stuff can wait; I’m gonna chase that dopamine hit of one more listen (and then another). I understand this can be very annoying for everyone else in earshot, but it’s what I enjoy the most.
Speak Now, the follow-up to Fearless, came out in 2010. That fall, I had a pre-release burn of the yet-unreleased second Bon Iver album. I’d spent a couple years deeply involved with Bon Iver’s business, and in those days it was one thrill after another amid explosive growth. I visited the studio when Justin Vernon was working on the album at his studio in Northern Wisconsin that summer and heard some of the tracks in process, observed some of the recording. I was, quite literally, obsessed. Any time it was my turn to DJ (I made the rules but not really), I’d put on that CD. The kids HATED it. Dad’s turn meant Speak Now came out, and for most of the next hour they’d have to suffer the dreaded Dad’s Music, the abhorrent Bon Iver.
Then a year or so later something wild happened. A duo I worked with at the time, The Civil Wars, made a record with Taylor, Safe and Sound, from the original Hunger Games soundtrack. It’s like a crack appeared, and wall between “the kids’ music” and “dad’s music” started to crumble. That changed the narrative. Could it be, was it possible, Dad’s music was…actually…cool?
We devoured every Taylor album on our school drop-off and pickup, Red through 1989, Reputation into Lover. Our kids have been to three Taylor tours, and those were magical experiences for our family. It was Red that made me accept that it isn’t just music I listen to with my kids, I’m a real fan. My kids drive themselves now, but I’ll confess to listening in the car by myself on the regular. Not exclusively, not obsessively, but consistently. If Taylor comes out with a new album, it’s an event in our family, and I’ll spend a couple days immersed in the music. Some of her music has entered the hallowed comfort listening category, along with all my favorites, from Bob Dylan to Black Sabbath to Fleetwood Mac to A Tribe Called Quest to Squirrel Bait. Comfort music is music that makes you feel good, music that triggers memories. That’s something music does so well: it’s as close as we’re likely to come to being time travelers.
If Fearless is my favorite Taylor album, Folklore is the one that I consider her finest work. Folklore came out four years ago - July 2020. That was such a long, difficult summer. Everyone in the world felt unsettled and anxious about Covid, as we struggled with all sorts of unwelcome changes and challenges. I was struggling in my job, struggling as a parent, and, at times, struggling just to keep it together. I feel like that was most of us, there’s so much trauma from that time we haven’t even begun to really address. When Taylor surprised us with Folklore, it felt like such a gift from Heaven.
One of my favorite albums from the pre-Pandemic is Big Red Machine. That’s one I obsessed over for months. That’s Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner from The National. That’s a truly magical album - listen to Hymnostic, holy shit. I assume Taylor agreed, because most of Folklore is produced and co-written by Dessner, and in 2021 she even co-wrote and sang the vocal on a track by Big Red Machine. Obviously, the hilarious turn of events is that one of the album’s many standouts is Exile, which is a duet with Vernon, credited as Bon Iver.
You might think this is a moment of vindication for me, but no, not really. My kids already figured out they got that one wrong (but only after rolling their eyes through Bon Iver’s 2012 Mainstage performance at Bonnaroo). Bennett discovered Bon Iver through Kanye. Anna casually informed me six years ago that she had For Emma, Forever Ago saved and that it’s a great record. No, I’m not one of those “told you so” music fans. I just want everyone to love the music that I love, to connect through music. In that, it’s deeply satisfying.
I love that Taylor is an artist on a constant path of discovery through collaboration and genre exploration. It’s validating that she’s featured three of the artists (+Phoebe Bridgers) I worked with from the early development stage. I’m sure she’d helped make Aaron Dessner wealthy, but I’m just as sure he’s brought her immense value in helping her to push boundaries and discover her sound. She’s grown through collaboration, from the Nashville writers and producers through mainstream pop hitmakers to more experimental artists on the fringes of pop. That’s an artist’s path.
It used to feel a little confrontational to proclaim my love for Taylor’s music to members of my generation, because it was so often met with hostility. Gen Xers carry a lot of baggage, including the knee-jerk hate for all mainstream pop. I get it. When we came of age in the 80s, it was underground vs. mainstream, us against them. I’ll pontificate about my favorite underground artists of the era, but don’t look to me to write a defense of Paula Abdul, New Kids on the Block, Michael Bolton, Vanilla Ice, or Poison. It was us against them in those days, and most of us agreed that the art existed in the margins. Taylor doesn’t fit within any GenX definition of “cool,” and that’s disorienting. But for me it always comes back to the songs. I loved The Replacements because of the songs, not because they were confrontational and anti-commerce.
Taylor is so many things to so many people now as the undisputed Biggest Artist in the World. It no longer feels remotely confrontational - or provocative in any way - to proclaim my love for the Biggest Artist in the World. I’m sharing this history simply to make the point that Taylor’s music is a huge part of my family’s culture. The music, as a shared pleasure, has brought us closer together. Heather has her own stories like this, because she did her time in the mini-van too. She shares these same bonds and the same reverence for the music. We went to the Eras tour as a family, and it was just as special for us as it’s been for millions around the world. It’s a thrill to have an artist so passionate, compassionate, adventurous, and deeply committed to quality leading the pack. It’s a gift to share it with the people I love the most.
We listened to the soundtrack a hell of a lot as well, and it’s actually quite good. Crazier is a strong early Taylor song, and there are a couple of excellent Miley songs - The Climb and Butterfly Fly Away (with her dad).