Is she the best single songwriter living?Ĭompletely Rediculous. So is she a good songwriter? With out a doubt. But its fairly simplistic and "hooky" as opposed to truly digging deep in the language of music and the complexity of it. And I think more of it has to do with melodies then lyrics. I think Taylor showed her talent from early on. Taylor has done this, but I always have to ask "was it by accident" because she does have such a tendancy for her lyrics to just run on and on and on. Having meaning in every rise and fall of every note. Giving credit to this is limited in that as long as you keep talking, sooner or later you are going to fall upon interesting ideas, Wink!īut to craft a perfect song, is all about what is not said! The purpose for every phrase, placed in every rhythmic pattern, each vowel sound being important. With that I think Taylor allows herself to open up and say what comes to mind and like poetry it creates a bigger theme as it goes, often times with the speaker not even sure of where they are going. But I am a great believer in what Paul McCartney said about "how much gets left in the waste basket" when trying to create great song. and that comes up with really great material. I believe in a very fluid way of lyric writing where "truth" sort of spills out here and there. I actually disagree with more of what the writer says than I agree with. ^ I feel like this was written by someone who was already convinced of their fandom and went to lengths to try to tell me why she is amazing! The song rises to an emotional victory, as Swift goes from paying witness to "all the girls that you've run dry (that) have tired, lifeless eyes 'cause you've burned them out" to being the one who "took your matches before fire could catch me, so don't look now: I'm shining like fireworks over your sad, empty town." Compare this to the other great fireworks song of 2010, Katy Perry's, and there is simply no pyromaniacal contest. It's a ballad that creates the illusion of the artist having vomited onto the page-for those of us who like that sort of thing-but actually belies a severe level of craft beneath the bile. Never mind the lucky stroke that apparently had the rock star who used and discarded Swift being a guy really named John Swift does like her literalism, so she probably wouldn't written a public dear-John letter to a Tom, Dick, or (even) Harry. (Hyperbole intended.) This was Dear John, a slow, epic-length missive to a love-'em-young-and-leave-'em type that was jaw-dropping in its vulnerability and rage. 'Speak Now' also incidentally included the most searing, stark, boldly confessional song by a major artist since John Lennon's Cold Turkey. But is finding out whether All Too Well was about Jake or Harry that terribly different than the thrill of figuring out whether Dylan's It Ain't Me, Babe was about Suzi or Joan, but with Google taking the place of waiting years for a biography? It may seem peculiar to the 21st century that we can confirm who the significant others in Swift's songs are by picking out lyrical details about eye colors or fire signs or scarves and checking them against her exes. But the specificity of the bridge makes the universality of chorus more meaningful, even if the unstable relationship you're being reminded of by the song didn't involve a visit to the ER. When Swift interrupts Out of the Woods to mention "Twenty stitches in a hospital room/Remember when you hit the brakes too soon," that's about as un-Brill as Bruce talking about Crazy Janey and Greaser Lake. have faith that, whatever is lost in relatability by including something specifically autobiographical is a gain for fans who know that that weird minutiae confirms the rest of the emotions as authentic. If you're writing by the books, you learn early on not to include random asides that throw listeners out of the commonality of the lyric. Where Swift is most like the great confessional rock writers, and least like the Brill Building set, is in her propensity to fill her songs with seemingly stray details.
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