To preface this article about how Taylor Swift is my biggest guilty pleasure, I am referring to early Taylor Swift. I do not enjoy current Taylor Swift. I am referring to the albums "Beautiful Eyes", "Fearless", "Speak Now", and all of her early original songs. I am fairly certain that every pre-teen girl related to her music at the time she was becoming popular and wanted to be just like her. I know that I did..

"Tim McGraw", "Picture to Burn", "Teardrops on my Guitar", "Should've Said No", "I Heart?", and "White Horse", were all songs that I had an emotional connection to, and still do. These were the original, relatable, pre-teen girl songs. "Tim McGraw" made me wish I had blue eyes and a cowboy to hold me during the summer under the stars with music playing from his truck. "Picture to Burn" was the anthem for every single, dumb, playground breakup. Of course, I had no pictures to burn in elementary school, because I was eleven and didn't even own a phone, but it still spoke to my heart. "Teardrops on my Guitar" is probably the most relatable song for me though. Wanting that boy, who is just a friend, is the hardest thing in the world to go through. Even more, watching your best friend getting treated badly by another girl, when you just want to make him happy, is even more difficult. Hearing this song, even to this day, is such a relief on the soul that another person could feel the same way as me. I cannot count how many nights I have sat in my room belting out the lyrics and feeling such understanding and feeling the emotion seep through me. "Should've Said No" is a lot similar to "Picture to Burn", yet it covers a whole other subject: cheating. Hopefully, not many people out there have been cheated on, but I have (if you count a high school boyfriend dating another girl). When I discovered what had been going on, "Should've Said No" was my go to song because not only are the lyrics so strong, her voice had so much emotion that it felt as if we were going through the experience together. Listening to this song brought me so much closure. I would play it over and over until I wasn't mad anymore. "I Heart ?" is my favorite song by far though. This was the ultimate "time to move on" song. "Wake up and smell the break-up, fix my heart, put on my make up," and that is exactly what I did while listening to this song. It gave me the encouragement I needed to curl my hair, do my make up, and get back out there feeling fine! "White Horse" was the song that would bring me back to reality. I understand that life isn't a fairytale, but sometimes I get swept up into romantic movies and songs and I forget that everything isn't going to turn out perfect. This song describes a girl getting let down by a boy and deciding not to wait for him to come to sweep her off her feet. I need this song to this day, to level me and remind me that guys will let you down sometimes and that's just how life goes.

In conclusion, early Taylor Swift is my guiltiest pleasure and should be for so many more people. All of her songs are so relatable and are the chicken noodle soup for my soul! I don't know about her current music, but I want old Taylor back, but I guess I can deal with listening to her old stuff.