I can remember the first time I heard Taylor Swift. My older sister was playing it from her room, where she then called me in and said she just found this amazing new artist. I have always looked up to my sister, so I thought I had to listen to her to be cool. The first song was, “Our Song” off of her debut album. We listened to it on replay more times than I could count. Then, I am pretty sure we asked our parents to buy the album on iTunes.
From then on we have been the biggest Taylor Swift supporters. We went to every concert after that album. At the Fearless concert, I almost cried because I couldn’t believe the talent. She put in everything she had into that show. I remember my sister somehow got front row. Taylor made eye contact with my sister and waved at her. I can only imagine that feeling. If her music doesn't make goosebumps appear everywhere then you are not listening to it correctly. I still today want to sing to Romeo and have him tell me he talked to my dad and that I will be picking out my white dress.
The second concert was Speak Now. Now that was a concert. First of all, Speak Now is just such an amazing album. "Back to December" and "Enchanted" are the best (in my opinion). What made the concert so great was that she had so much going on. She drifted across the stage on a balcony, sang on a purple revolving tree and had a wedding during her concert.
The third concert was Red. Now…Wow. I remember it all too well. I could listen to that song on replay over a trillion times. I remember hearing it and I played it for my mom. She said it brought her back to some of her previous relationships. I listened to that whole album almost everyday with my best friend junior year. We played it until we were making up lyrics to sing a long in a funny way. For that song, I loved it before I had my first relationship. After my first relationship when I got to college, the song was like a new connection. It put words to a lot of things I was feeling. “Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much. But, baby, this thing was a master piece until you tore it all up.”
A lot of her songs have done this for people. She has so many songs that just speak the truth of relationships. They aren’t easy, but when you are in love you feel like nothing can stop you. You feel that complete happiness to write a song about it just to express how you feel. Then, there are times that you think how the relationship went wrong and what you did. What did you do? I know people gossip about her, her relationships and how she writes songs about everyone, but if you feel something that powerful, shouldn’t you? She has that talent to write songs to reach people who may be feeling the same things.
The last album, 1989. Another huge success. Another “to be honest” moment is that I didn’t know how I would like the change of her genre of music. “Shake It Off” took me by surprise, but it was so catchy. The rest of her album became all I listened to freshman year of college. "Blank Space" and "Style" fit so well into the fall feel. Again, being one of Taylor’s biggest supporters, I let the whole album continue to play on repeat. Slowly, most of her songs on that album became some of her greatest hits. For her concert, it was the best surprise to find out my uncle had got my cousin, sister and I floor seats. Of course, there is a funny story to this. So, it was last summer (2015). We all get dressed and ready to go. I literally couldn’t handle knowing we had floor seats to her concert. So, we get in line to present our tickets as the first round of people. When we get in, they led us to the next section we had to go through and we wait again. We finally got down to the floor sections and the guard led us to our seats, but there were girls sitting there. I thought, oh no. No one is taking our seats tonight. We have these tickets, they are wrong. We asked them if they had the wrong date, because these were our seats. Only then did they say, “what is the date on your tickets?” We all looked down and we had the tickets for the next night. So, we had to leave and come back the next night. So worth it.
I screamed every song on the top of my lungs. She stopped the concert in the middle and talked to everyone. She told us not to compare our lives to someone else’s. To be nice to yourself and what you think. That you are special, different and important. Look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are important and good enough. You are not the opinion of someone who doesn’t know you and you are most definitely not damaged goods just because you make mistakes in your life. You are not going nowhere just because you haven’t gone where you want to go yet. You are your own definition of beautiful and worthwhile. You get the point. Tears are pouring out.
Thank you Taylor for being yourself. Thank you for helping me through all of the stupid boys when I had a crush on them and when they broke my heart. Thank you for letting have something so special to share with my sister and friends.
