fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3339 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3339 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Taylor Swift]

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03.

(Hamilton the Musical)

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04.

[Pokemon]

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05.

[Supernatural - Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins]

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06.

[Pokemon]

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07. [titc]

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08.

[Battlestar Galactica]

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09.

[Fried Green Tomatoes]

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10. [TW: rape]

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11.

[Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 025 secrets from Secret Submission Post #477.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"All Too Well" is my favorite Taylor Swift song. And yeah, that part you quoted is my favorite part too. It's actually the song that got me into her in the first place. I heard it in Future Shop one day and liked it so much it prompted me to check out her entire Red album, which, like you, is my favorite of her albums. Though I do also think Speak Now is excellent. It just feels a bit younger. Whereas Red is youthful, but a lot of the songs are kind of ageless (exempting all the ones that were radio hits, lol).

And I'm happy to see "Dear John" on your list. IMO that song is really underestimated. She writes so many songs about failed relationships that I think "Dear John" ends up kind of buried in the pile for a lot of people (it doesn't help that it's way too long and slow for radio play). But there's a rawness and force to it that's not there in a lot of her other songs. Plus, I love the sort of architectural arc of the song - the huge amount of time it takes for the song to bend around from "the girl in the dress cried the whole way home / I should've known" to the final iteration, "the girl in the dress wrote you a song / You should've known." It bothers me that people don't see the feminism in that; a young woman's journey from feeling diminished by someone who has treated her badly to prevailing over that hurt and declaring herself not diminished.

And yeah, "Long Live" is another favorite for me. Up until now, I'd sort of lumped "Long Live" and "Change" off of her previous album together. They're tonally pretty similar, I like them both, and I wasn't sure which one I liked better. But I just listened to them back to back, and "Long Live" definitely emerged the superior song.

I like "The Story of Us" and "Wildest Dreams" too, I just don't really have much to say about them. Except that damn it, the lowest notes in "Wildest Dreams" are just that little bit too low for me to be able to karaoke it. :P

I love you and your lengthy Taylor Meta.

Speak Now is really the turning point for her. It's still very young, (Speak Now itself as well as Better Than Revenge are both catchy but incredibly childish) but it marks the point where she began to develop into an adult.

No one ever talks about Dear John, because I don't think it was ever on the radio and everyone only talks about singles, but it's heartbreaking and has some brilliant lyrics. I love the little bit you pointed out.

I really love Long Live, it came out right around or after the time I was graduating high school so it really resonated with me. Change remains the only song of hers that I absolutely cannot stand. I have others that I prefer not to listen to, but Change is the only one I don't even know the words to because I've listened all the way through maybe twice. I just really dislike it and always have.

Story of Us makes me love it because of "I've never heard silence quite this loud." The way that line is preformed gives me chills, I don't even know why. Wildest Dreams I like because it's the closest 1989 has to her slow sad songs of the past, and it's got this beautiful wistful tone.

I love you and your lengthy Taylor Meta.

Aw, thank you!

Speak Now is really the turning point for her. It's still very young, (Speak Now itself as well as Better Than Revenge are both catchy but incredibly childish) but it marks the point where she began to develop into an adult.

I completely agree, and am laughing about the truth of "Speak Now" and "Better Than Revenge" being immature. I actually like both of those songs enough to keep them around on my hard drive, but at the same time, they're not songs I would want anyone to catch me listening to - "Speak Now" because of it's immaturity, and "Better Than Revenge" partially because of it's immaturity, but mainly because, well, slut-shaming. There are things about "Better Than Revenge," musically, that I actually really love - particularly the way her voice layers in at the end in this really taunting way ("So much better, yeah?"). That's where the song actually feels like it has claws - which, because the point of the song is for it to have claws - makes me appreciate the compositional choices that went into achieving that effect. But at the same time, I can't support the song from an ideological standpoint. So basically I chose to roll with the cognitive dissonance, and only listen to it when I'm alone. :P

I really love Long Live, it came out right around or after the time I was graduating high school so it really resonated with me.

Oh man, I would have loved to have "Long Live" for a grad song. I honestly think it's everything a grad song ought to be. Dramatic, triumphant, emotional, a bit wistful. And I really resonate with the positivity of it. When she sings, "I had the time of my life- with you," I don't get the impression she's just talking about her friends. I think it's a tribute to all of them, the entire grad class - even the people she may have clashed with in the past. Maybe I'm giving her too much credit, but eh, I feel like most people don't give her enough.

Change remains the only song of hers that I absolutely cannot stand.

This is really interesting to me, especially because I do find it like a younger sibling to "Long Live." Do you know what it is about "Change" that you hate? Is it the lyrics or the sound or both?

I don't think I have any Taylor Swift songs I really dislike, but let's see..."Stay Beautiful," "Breathe," "Never Grow Up," "Hey Stephen." All songs I have no real desire to hear again. I'm not wild about "Starlight" either.

Story of Us makes me love it because of "I've never heard silence quite this loud."

Yes! That's exactly my favorite part as well! There's that little bit of extra power in her voice that just vaults the whole song into the chorus with this really great emotional urgency.

Wildest Dreams I like because it's the closest 1989 has to her slow sad songs of the past,

I hadn't really thought of it that way!

When I first heard "Wildest Dreams" all I could hear was how blatantly it seemed to be inspired by Lana Del Rey. And while I think Taylor is far more skilled as a song writer/performer/businesswoman than LDR, when it comes to LDR's sound, nobody does it like LDR. Certainly not Taylor, who just sounded like a kid trying on her older cousin's high heels.

It wasn't until the music video came out that I was able to see it as more than just LDR Lite, and finally started appreciating the song in its own right. I do think it's a good song. But for me, there's just something about pop - true pop, as opposed to the country-tinged pop of Red - that feels...plastic, like it's not emotionally real. I think that's why I love Taylor's live Grammy Museum performance so much. Because even though I'm 98% sure her mic was autotuned for that performance, most of the pop voodoo was stripped away, leaving just the songs at their most basic. And they were gorgeous. (You've seen those Grammy Museum performances, right? They were all over the internet for a couple weeks, so I presume you probably saw them then, but in case you didn't, I'll leave a link to the Wildest Dreams one.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGDkg3QiJmk

Better Than Revenge is a 'technically' good song, in that it is pleasant to listen to, but it's the most vindictive of all her songs (And the most gleeful about said vindictiveness) and it's definitely got the slut shaming. I think Speak Now came out when she was still insistent on being a 'good role model' when it came to sexual and adult things. By Red, it's pretty clear to me that she's come to terms with the fact that she's an adult and allowed to feel sexual.

She wrote Long Live specifically about her band, and she just seems to love them so much. My friends and I were all going separate ways after high school, so it was a good kind of hurt.

I don't know why I don't like Change. There's nothing in the words or music that I enjoy. It's just noise to me, it's not the storytelling I like from Taylor.

I don't listen to LDR, so I can't comment on that. And I did not see the Grammy performances, so I will absolutely check them out!

Huh. I read somewhere Long Live was written specifically for her grad class, and that it was Change that was written for her band. But maybe whatever article it was was wrong. I must now go look into this more. :)

[ SECRET POST #3339 ]

Re: Op

Re: Op

Oh god, so much tl;dr, I couldn't stop, ignore this whole thing if you need to, I'll understand.

No, please, talk forever!

Re: No, please, talk forever!