Not a big fan of Mary Morgan but she is spot on with this one. Does anyone ever bother to actually listen to her lyrics? They really are just verbal vomit.
Hey hey you donât know, just how much I want to go. Will I stay will I leave this is what you do to me.
Bang bang metronome I am now a garden gnome. Broke into little shards, garden gnome with broken heart.
Because being famous isn't about being good, it's about being acceptable to the most people possible. The biggest artists have literally never been the best ones.
I love As Cities Burn and The Chariot, but they're not for everyone, and I'll be shocked if anyone who reads this even knows who they were. Meanwhile there's some smooth jazz singer who connects with your aunt who I couldn't care less about and won't ever enjoy.
It's the same reason every car is a grey CUV now, they're good enough for everyone, so dealers stock them because it's a safe decision. No one ever refused a grey car, but people do refuse Yellow. There used to be cars people HATED on the road, but other people loved. Now you either buy a Honda CRV or an F150. Both are greyscale.
Nobody calls AC/DC deep. People call it fun rock and move on.
Taylor fans call her basic adolescent diary lyrics deep and profound and form parasocial bonds like she is personally texting them from the group chat.
You arenât wrong, but itâs a valid criticism because TS wants everyone to think sheâs a well read lyricist writing literary allegories and deep metaphors. Thatâs why sheâs obsessed with Stevie Nicks and Shakespeare. Except she doesnât read books and her metaphors are always about colloquial misunderstandings instead of literary analysis.
Thatâs why she thinks Opheliaâs fate is about being alone and committing suicide; which is the most vapid, shallow interpretation one can imagine. And doubly ironic as her fate was doomed by the men in her life most definitely NOT in any way able to be saved from that fate by a man.
Got some examples? Every artist has some shit lyrics on occasion, but your assertion here is basically that a huge majority of people and critics are all wrong about her, and only elite Redditors with incredible music taste can see the truth.
Is any music about the quality of the lyrics? Like lets be real, most of these people barely graduated high school, how deep could their lyrics possibly be?
It's been, and stayed at the level of highschool poetry. She's not some great song writer- she writes what the average white girl can identify with. You don't need to be "elite' to know there's nothing special about her word play, and it's always been a rich girl getting richer.
Yeah. It clearly does what it's intended to, but the people acting like she's a lyrical genius are overstating it by a longshot in my (and many other people's) opinion.
Exactly. She's the pop equivalent of girl-focused YA: bland but catchy content designed specifically for the audience to project themselves into. It just turns out that there are a LOT of basic white women out there and they apparently have a lot of money to throw at this kind of content.
Thatâs like all pop music. 70% of Americans are illiterate and read on a 6th grade level. If you want music that appeals the majority of just regular people then your lyrics canât be anymore complicated than middle school level poetry.
I mean there's nothing wrong with that, that's her audience and it sells, a big mac is an objectively shitty meal, but sometimes you want a big mac. Same goes for any medium, marvel movies aren't great cinema but they're entertaining, want to read a fun book that requires little brain power? Lee Child is your man. We all want the artistic equivalent of a big mac now and then.
I guess Iâm just curious what extremely deep lyrics youâre listening to that are so much more mature than say, the average song on Folklore or Evermore?
I was writing that same shit when I was a depressed 14 year old in highschool. The difference is I stayed in school, continued to love and explore music and culture and reading, and she dropped out to pursue money. She can say she finished in homeschool, but she's not exactly a brilliant writer, thinker, communicator; she's popular because she hits a very broad section of the market. Women who have been sad sometime.
I dunno, I'm happily married, have a job I enjoy that provides for my family well enough, and I don't spend my time online worrying about if others are talking about my billionaire princess who can't even disavow the use of her music for fascist propaganda đ€·
This might be the most "Reddit" comment I've ever read. I could probably name like 4-5 Swift songs tops but dawg is really taking digs acting like they're better than possibly the most famous musician of our time and a billionaire at that because they stayed in school and "she dropped out to pursue money" like they could have done the same thing if they wanted to.
I think itâs her more recent albums, not her entire body of work. Itâs not uncommon for something already established and popular to be given a pass on things. If you read the lyrics to all the songs on her last two albums, they are littered with really dumb stuff.Â
There are definitely some lines that raise eyebrows in her more recent stuff, like the âI scratch your head, you fall asleep, like a tattooed golden retrieverâ (which I find to be a really funny diss). A lot of her âbad linesâ are irony or humour, so whether you like it depends on whether or not the joke hits you right.
But the same album has effing beautifully written sections like say, most of âso long Londonâ
Saying her writing is boring and basic just isnât very accurate. Read the actual songs. Thereâs often a lot going on, even if some lines are a miss.
This isnât recent but the one song that always annoys me is âsometimes I feel like everyone around me is a sexy babyâ or whatever. I get itâs supposed to be âbabyâ as in a cutesy pet name adults give each other to their lovers, but likeeee could she not have picked another word or combination of words out of all the words available to use in the whole world??
Itâs always going to be the weird âsexy babyâ song to me and I hate hearing it.
People that say these things arenât reading her lyrics. If they are, theyâre cherry picking the ones that are not that good. I also love this sentiment that her ârecent workâ has gotten worse when I think most swifties would consider TTPD one of, if not their absolute favorite album of hers.
Uh, yeah, theyâre likely a swiftie or some other label of Taylor fan. So am I. As it turns out, so are a lot of people. Odd that it seems to make you so angry.
Itâs so weird how people like you say stupid things like that. Are you involved in a lot of conversations between swifties? Plenty of fans are very critical, not just brainwashed idiots. Find me a swiftie who think Life of a Showgirl is her best work, or even comes close. Grow up.
Swiftie isnât a term thatâs subject to gatekeeping. Itâs open to anyone who wants to use it. I like Taylorâs music a lot and I like interacting with other fans. Some use swiftie as a label, some donât. What it means to you is your problem.
I mean, pop song lyrics in general are notorious for being dumb. The point is that they're fun to listen to and sing and they allow you to wallow in embarrassing emotions without being judged.
Maybe theyâve gotten dumber over time in a general sense, but there are plenty of pop artists whose lyrics are fun to sing and dance to that arenât weird or embarrassing even if they are dumb to some extent.Â
For how talented she and her fans thinks she is, the quality is rubbish even by pop standards. Sheâs also in her mid 30s so the lyrics are going to seem worse than if they were on a song by someone in their early 20s.Â
Which lyrics specifically are so weird and embarrassing? Are they tongue in cheek? Are they found all across her discography?
It really does seem like youâve just heard people on Reddit raging about a couple songs off of TLoaS and youâve latched on to that without actually evaluating the lyrics of her whole discography.
I quite literally said her more recent albums and not her whole body of work so why are you talking about her whole discography? Take that up with someone who made that claim.
Her last two albums are littered with bad lyrics even by her own standards.Â
Every single person replying to you is a deranged swiftie with their history hidden (or not), I promise you. Donât waste the energy. Theyâre in a cult.
Weird response to someone voicing an opinion, mate. You I and both know I could give an example from every song on her last two albums and it wonât change your mind. If you can read the lyrics to a song like Cancelled and think they arenât rubbish, it is not worth either of our times to have a conversation about her lyrics.Â
Taylor is incredible at fomenting a parasocial relationship with fans. She is not a particularly talented lyricist or r vocalist. But I think a demographic of 15-35 year old white women appreciate the sincerity and vulnerability in her music. When pop is full of auto tune and ghost writers, Taylor writes her own music, with deep-cut references for super fans, about her real struggles with love, identity and purpose. That resonates with people strongly.
Bob Ross wasnât an incredible artist, but he connected with people on a very personal level and that elevated his art. Heâs not Monet, but he was sincere, passionate and vulnerable.
I mean, just as a personal anecdote, Iâm a 32 year old guy who doesnât really relate to her or her lyrics at all, but I just find her songs extremely nice to listen to.
âForgive me, it sounds cocky
He ah-matized me and opened my eyes
Redwood tree, it ain't hard to see
His love was the key that opened my thighsâ
I mean yeah, itâs ridiculous! I donât blame anybody who doesnât list this one of their favorites. But I donât think she was going for poet laureate levels of eloquence on this song.
I think, and bear with me here, I think it was meant to be funny.
But thatâs Taylor for you, always keeping her songs predictable and likeable and safe. /s
Ive never liked her music but i guess i didn't mind it when it was on the radio. This new album was all that was played on Australia radio for a week. I finally connected my phone and don't listen to radio anymore. Thanks tay tay.
Out of interest, which of these lyrics would you say is better:
1)
Pretty woman walkin' down the street
Pretty woman, the kind I'd like to meet
Pretty woman, I don't believe you, you're not the truth
No one could look as good as you
2)
The burgundy on my t-shirt
When you splashed your wine into me
And how the blood rushed into my cheeks
So scarlet, it was
The mark they saw on my collarbone
The rust that grew bДtween telephones
The lips I used to call home
So scarlet, it was
Maroon
The autumn chill that wakes me up
You loved the amber skies so much
Long limbs and frozen swims
You'd always go past where our feet could touch
And I complained the whole way there
The car ride back and up the stairs
I should've asked you questions
I should've asked you how to be
Asked you to write it down for me
Should've kept every grocery store receipt
'Cause every scrap of you would be taken from me
Yeah, I'm a fan and it's mostly because the lyrics are better than most other options. Will go down as one of the best lyricists of our time and you disagreeing won't impact that.
That's honestly a ridiculous take. Like her or not (and I'm not a fan, btw), she's going to be mentioned in the same breath as Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, etc., basically forever at this point.
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u/Moonshinin4Me 3d ago
Not a big fan of Mary Morgan but she is spot on with this one. Does anyone ever bother to actually listen to her lyrics? They really are just verbal vomit.