From high school days spent with Teardrops on My Guitar, You Belong With Me and Love Story playing on repeat on our iPods to not stressing over missing the metro because Delicate, Getaway Car or Opalite was there to keep us company on the commute to work, Taylor Swift has become the voice of a generation.
Though infamously attributed for inducing unnecessary toxicity in her lyrics encouraging ‘hatred’ for men — Taylor Swift kept reminding fans that love is always worth another shot, with even her heartbreak anthems inspiring hope.
As reports of her upcoming wedding excite Swifties, My Kolkata spoke to fans across Kolkata about how her music shaped their faith in romance. While not everyone agrees with Swift’s headfirst approach to love, they all agree on one thing — they’ll never stop loving the artiste.
From butterflies to best friends
All pictures sourced by the correspondent
“Her songwriting charts the progression from teenage innocent optimistic love to the early 20s chaotic and turbulent form of heartbreak to finally a quieter mature kind of love — love that feels like peace and stability. I think as we grow older, we tend to lean towards a love that grounds us, contrary to just butterflies, chemistry and attraction. Love, especially in the later 20s, is more about being able to be oneself and finding a best friend in the lover (her songs for Travis and even Joe Alwyn embody this friendship angle) — someone who sees and accepts you for who you are, with whom you can be happy even in silence.”
— Sourima Rana, 25, research scholar and poet
Heartbreak is not the end of the story
Long Story Short (from Evermore) tells a younger self that the wrong turn was just a detour, and not the end of one's life. There's more to life than just one bad chapter. Her recent love songs show the shift from teenage love to more mature love, and I feel the same. It's all about the right time and right person. I would always agree because her life and music act as living proof that heartbreak is survivable and that love is always worth risking again.
— Sanchita Roy, 31, teacher
Believing, despite the doubt
She has a great many love songs, but I hardly believe in love these days. Great songs though, but I don't think any of them make me believe. Maybe for a moment. Her Invisible String from Folklore is a favourite, because despite my cynicism, it talks about how your experiences have all led to you finding your future soulmate, and maybe part of me still believes… Just like her music, my view of love is more subjective and mature. Evolving like her.
— Shibansu Ghosh, 36, dancer and drag performer
When your favourite artiste takes a different path
I believe in a mature, empathetic, and socially conscious love — I no longer believe in the brand of love Taylor Swift is selling. That being said, if you play All Too Well right now, I will still scream the bridge and cry. I still vividly remember what it felt like to be ‘happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time’ listening to 22. I am incredibly nostalgic for that era, and those songs will always mean the world to me. But realising I can no longer connect with who she is today feels like a profound heartbreak of its own. It feels exactly like losing a childhood friend—the one who spoke directly to your soul, who held your hand through your messy 20s, and who was there exactly when you needed her, but who simply took a completely different path in adulthood. It is a sad loss, but I suppose that is just part of growing up.
— Kiya Mukherjee, private sector employee
She makes me feel seen, in every single circumstance in life
Her music appealed to the complexities of human relationships: the little heartbreaks, the rage of a mad woman, the inexplicable pain of being a secret in a lover’s life, and finally the softness of beginning again; the hope that on a Wednesday, in a cafe, life would begin again. I was never cynical about relationships in the first place. I am a tortured poet with a folklore vibe. But the lover girl in me was never dead. What Taylor’s music has done for me is that she taught me to never leave my own hand, on my darkest nights; and to reinvent myself over and over through thick and thin. The trick she taught me is to keep the self-love coming, because we can all do it with broken hearts.
— Meghna Dutta, 26, Phd Scholar