If Poor Kyle and I ever divorce, it will be caused by one of two things:
1. The fact that he shattered my dreams of Wedded Disneyland Bliss by refusing to ride Splash Mountain with me (who even does that?) and cuddling up with another girl the entire day, and I never payed for the therapy that would be necessary to overcome my grief of such a loss, or, more probably…
2. The fact that I never learned how to keep quiet about his poor choice in music.
It’s not just that he likes country. Really, it’s not the genre. There are a lot of country musicians who are actually really amazing (Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney’s island songs…heck, even Rascal Flatts and Big & Rich are pretty good). But for every one good country song, there are ten equally atrocious train wreck, sorry-excuses-for-music songs.
In my life, I need to be surrounded by music that says something…music that means something. A pretty good indication of whether I will like a song is whether or not it will change my life. It’s true. I don’t waste my time listening to music unless it will change my life. I stopped listening to local Canadian radio stations for this very reason—they could not offer me music beyond “Umbrella, brella, brella…” and “They call me Lisa! They call me Jane! That’s not my name! (clap clap clap clap) That’s not my name!” {What, you think I would validate those sorry excuses for music by actually learning and using their titles? Ha!} Now, I either listen to CBC talk radio or the French station; at least those help me get a little smarter, as opposed to the brain-deadening I was undergoing before.
And that is the sole reason I struggle with Poor Kyle’s music choices—not because of the twang, not because of the instrumental, not even because of the high incidence of cowboy paraphernalia gracing so much of his album art—but the lyrics.
Brad Paisley: “I would have to choose; If I hit that fishin’ hole today, she’d be packin’ all her things and she’d be gone by noon… Well I’m gonna miss her when I get home…”
Trace Adkins: “Honky tonk badonkadonk?” What’s a badonkadonk?
But of all the annoying country music singers, there is one who I despise more than the rest: One Singer to Kill Them All. And that person is…
Taylor Swift. Image from here.
I realise I am putting myself in great peril by announcing my unpopular feelings toward Taylor Swift in front of the whole world. However, this blog would not be my blog if I withheld from you, dear readers. I always blog about subjects I feel passionately toward, and this is no different; I am passionate in my distaste for Taylor Swift’s lyrics.
Now. Before I continue, I would like to note that she seems like a very nice person. She is lovely, for sure, and I’ve heard that she is very genuinely sweet. That’s fine. I’m not saying I hate her as a human being, or even as a singer—I actually think she has a striking voice. But her lyrics—her teeny-bopper-stereotypical-cliched-redundant-female-oppressing lyrics—make me want to claw my eardrums out with splintery toothpicks, if only to make them stop bouncing around in my brain.
See, I don’t think Taylor Swift gives herself enough credit. Her songs portray her as a girl whose entire sense of being is wrapped up in whether or not a boy likes her at any given moment. And that is a quality I cannot respect in a woman.
Here is a sample of some of her arguably most annoying lyrics:
…That I can’t even see anyone when he’s with me… [Why not, is his brilliance so bright it has blinded you? That’s a pity.]
…He’s the song in the car I keep singing, don’t know why I do… [Trust me—I’m wondering the same thing. If you don’t know why you keep singing, maybe you should stop.]
…Drew walks by me, can he tell that I can’t breathe?… [Not being able to breathe because of Drew? I could see being breathless at the sight of the Grand Canyon, or God, but a pimply-faced teenage boy in your homeroom class who, for the record, doesn’t even know you exist? That’s just silly.]
…Romeo, save me, I’ve been feeling so alone, I keep waiting for you but you never come… [That’s because he never will. Save yourself.]
…But she wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts
She’s Cheer Captain and I’m on the bleachers
Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find
That what you’re looking for has been here the whole time… [But will you really want to be with him after he’s ignored you all this time?]
It disgusts me, and it’s not just her lyrics, either—it’s the central theme in all her videos, too. In the music video for her song “White Horse,” for example, she apologises to her cheating boyfriend for not being able to forgive him. And then she spends three-quarters of the movie sitting on the floor weeping about it.
Image from here.
That was the last straw for me.
YOU’RE SORRY? He’s the bastard who cheated on you; you have nothing to be sorry for! Moreover, why are you sitting there SOBBING about it? He’s obviously a jerk, and you have so much going for you! You do not need him. I repeat: YOU do NOT NEED HIM to be happy.
That’s the thing about Taylor Swift’s songs—they’re all about boys. Nice boys, mean boys, dream boys, imaginary boys. It’s a bit excessive. Every time one of her songs comes on the satellite radio in Poor Kyle’s truck, I listen to the words and invariably come to the same conclusion: “This girl needs to learn who SHE is, aside from the influence of boys.” For example: she talks about princesses in a lot of her songs, which is fine. If she wants to be a princess (I can’t blame her), by all means, be a princess—but why does she talk about being a princess only in relation to the handsome young princes who she hopes will come rescue her and make all her dreams come true? Doesn’t she know that she should make her OWN dreams come true? That she has the power to do that all by herself? Hasn’t anybody ever told her that?
No, obviously not. Because according to Taylor swift, who sings, “Well, I’m only me when I’m with you,” she is only herself when she is with a boy.
I firmly believe that girls need to know who they are, apart from boys. I know about being boy-crazy; I know about being a teenage girl (it wasn’t long ago I was one) who wishes that someone would just come along and hold my hand and make me happy. I know that—I struggled with that from the age of twelve or thirteen to the time I was sixteen. Luckily for me, I was able to eventually break free from those ridiculous notions of “Gee, if only I had a boyfriend, I would be happy,” and learned to think, “I am happy to be me, and any guy would be lucky to date me.”
It’s not that I don’t believe in love or romance. It’s just that I know I can live without it. I maintain that I am actually a better partner to my husband because of this belief. Sure, sometimes I feel sad because of things he does (like consistently failing to place his dirty socks in the hamper), but my overarching happiness is up to me. If he ever gets a hankering to be with a younger, lovelier woman, it would be his loss. Not mine. I might be sad for a long time, but I know that eventually, because I knew who I was before I ever even met him, I know I would still have my self to cling to. He does not have the power to make me a sad person. Only I have that power.
I cringe for girls who have not come to this realisation. Many don’t achieve it in high school, but find it later in college. That’s okay—however long it takes, as long as they do find it. Some never realise it at all, which is the very saddest case. Sometimes I wish there was a way of speaking to all the girls in the world and just implanting this knowledge straight from my brain into theirs.
And that’s why, when Taylor Swift sings, “I’m only me when I’m with you,” I change the radio to another station. Poor Kyle hates when I do that, but I don’t know what else to do.
She might be the downfall of our marriage.
Sad.
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