Thread by @its_chris_green

My Facebook and Instagram is ALIVE with bad and maddening takes, so I'm going to park here and celebrate #BellLetsTalk day by tweeting about Taylor Swift everytime I feel like spewing a hateful and angry opinion.

So until I sign off for the night, whenever you see a Queen Taylor tweet from me, just knowing that I'm battling my worst, innermost demons, and trying to deal with it the best way I know how.

Taylor Swift came alive for me when she released Fearless, both the album and the song. The melodic earworms of that whole album had this 21 year old boy completely captivated
Hey Stephen? Love Story? Fearless? You Belong With Me? Absolute heart vibes.

I was in a brand new relationship with a girl who had captivated my heart, and here was this young woman on country radio ABSOLUTELY PUTTING OUT THE SONGS OF MY SOUL.

Speak Now held less control over my vulnerable emotional state than Fearless did, but at this point I was already sold on Taylor Swift. Speak Now? Sparks Fly? Enchanted?

I don't even think I made it to Long Live until YEARS later when I returned as a Swiftie (more on that later)

By the time SN was released, I was headed into my graduation year and LIVED for simple, clean, in-and-out, punchy, pop-country melodies on the electric guitar, and SN gave that to me in droves

Damn, I hate that I didn't do a TS tune for my grad concert.

Red was actually a bummer to me the first time I heard it. I was so sold on pop-country Taylor that I couldn't get my ahead around acoustic, rock, pseudo-country-a-little-bit-still Taylor.
LOVED 22, LOVED Red, but this was also when I started wondering if I was "too cool" for TS

Felt weird as a "grown man" (barf) to be listening to a "girl" (barf) putting out songs about breakups and boys.

(This actually lined up with my experimentation with Calvinism and complementarianism, and I'm just lining up those two things now. Yikes)

SO I started deriding her songwriting with the classic misogynistic stuff you still here. "She only cries about boys, she dates around, grow up" (barf)

Tweeted out the memes, and gave up on Taylor. </3

And then 1989. Beauty, grace, redemption, stunning 1989. The unapologetic and LOUD entrance of Queen Taylor into pop royalty. An album for my heart. My first, top to bottom, no skip album. I cried the first time I heard it because it was everything. It was pop Taylor, perfected.

I no longer needed--I no longer WANTED the country princess. I was working in a server room wiring up a few switches when I heard All You Had to do Was Stay the first time, and I gasped. She belongs in pop, everything before paved the way, and she had finally found her home.

So anyways, the 1989 to Reputation pipeline was a BUMMER! Reputation stands on its, but my first listen through was a MAJOR "wtf...?". I wanted 1989 pt. 2 and the whiplash was a bit much. No more happy Taylor? Angry bad ass from now on?

I've since come full circle on Reputation. I originally thought it was a throwaway, but necessary album for her to put out. And it certainly doesn't top my list, but I will willingly listen to it on an edgier day.

BUT CHILD SIT DOWN AND LET ME TELL YOU about 10pm, April 25, when she released ME! as a music video.
9:59, sitting at my laptop, breath held. Uncertain what to expect. Hoping. Optimistic. Bated breath.

A snake enters the monochrome scene. Slithering. Snaking. Jaw opens...SNAP

GLORY! VICTORY! Out of the grey, COLOUR. Out of the evil, BUTTERFLIES. Out of the darkness of Reputation, ME! gave me exactly what I was hoping I would see. Happy Taylor. My Queen, rightfully reclaiming her throne after a war.

And I promise that you'll never find another like me

(I'm less angry... this actually worked! But I'm way too far down this rabbit hole to stop now)

@SandyAshton5 you may consider this whole thread a testament to my healing mental health.

Then Lover. Early morning coffee to listen.

Finger snaps. Chill synth beats.

"And then something happened one magical night...I forgot that you existed"

Lord, I cried. Misty eyed, turn to Courtney, "baby...she's happy again...🥺"

Lover? Cornelia Street? Cruel Summer? I THINK HE KNOWS?! THE MAN!? Are you kidding?! This was it. This was 1989's little sister that came along with an explosion of light&love.

Bop after bop after bop after bop. 1989 is her crowning achievement, but Lover is her world dominance

I was also firmly into egalitarianism at this point and well down my deconstruction path, so best believe I posted the You Need To Calm Down music video all over Facebook where my old associates hung out. Dropped that grenade and didn't look back.

I know this is actually an unpopular take, but folklore + evermore aren't my music scene, and that genre truly never has been.

BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. At this point, I'm already a Taylor evangelist, and I listen to those albums religiously to this day.

I mean, You, Season 3, ENDING THE F***ING SEASON with exile ft. bon iver? The devastation of that entire last scene...it was too much. I was an emotional wreck for two days after.

Queen Taylor gave Love Quinn everything with that single.

Fearless (Taylor's Version). Oh my heart. There's still a part of me that's old and doesn't have energy to keep up with controversy and celebrity gossip, but I love Taylor, so obviously I knew the whole SB fiasco and the re-recording threat. I screamed the day TV was announced.

Court & I go to bed at the same time, and she's a light sleeper, so I told her I was going to sleep w/ her, but I lied & popped my headphones in and listened top to bottom. Twice.

Maren Morris? Keith Urban? An homage to her earliest fans.❤️ And I was all in for Taylor's Versions

So, of course, by this time, I'm DESPERATE for 1989 TV, and my earliest experiences with Red led to a bit of disappointment when she announced that was next, but of course, I'm full Taylor, and I'm going to cheer on everything she does.

And oh. my. god.
The heartbreak I experienced listening to Red (TV) the first time.

This time I told Courtney I was staying up to listen and she should sleep without me.

And I was gutted. I finally understood a girl who opened herself to love and was left shattered.

Red finally made sense to me. Because this was a woman who didn't know who she was, and was writing her way through it. Was she 22 and boppy? Was she WANEGBT and edgy? Or was she All Too Well heartbroken. The album reflects who she was at the time.

And that's not even talking about the vault songs. Ronan? Dead.
Nothing New? Slaughters me.
ATWTMVTVFTV? Ab. So. Lute. Ly. Gutted.

So here I stand. Taylor Swift apologist. Unapologetically unwavering in my commitment to an AMAZING woman and artist who paved a way into pop royalty through my country music heart.

Queen Taylor, until the day I die. Forever and ever.

By the way, Taylor also made me a feminist. She continually calls out sexism and misogyny with strength and poise and has opened my eyes to my own blind spots and how I've upheld patriarchy and how I can help dismantle it and how AMAZING women are solely because they're women.

So I close out this ridiculous thread with the benediction from Lover.

"I wanna be defined by the things that I love
Not the things I hate
Not the things I'm afraid of
Or the things that haunt me in the middle of the night.
You are what you love."

(ps, Karma is real) ❤️

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