“I write songs about people that I date. When you buy my album you are going to find out what I’ve gone through in the past two years. And you’ll probably be able to figure out how many break-ups I’ve gone through, how many people I’ve fallen for — it’s very autobiographical. If guys don’t want me to write songs about them, they shouldn’t do bad things! And if they’re afraid, going into the relationship, that they’re going to end up having a bad song written about them… Well, then they don’t have the best of intentions, do they? It’s a nice weeding-out process.”It's preemptive, and it's nasty. And most of all, it's just really, really young. From a personal perspective, folks who aren't public figures, or public figures who keep their personal lives very private, don't deserve to be threatened in advance of a relationship that if they somehow displease the person they're dating that they'll be vilified in popular song. And from a commercial perspective, a young songwriter who has made a mint annd her reputation from her ability to write popular songs that sound extremely universal, it's bad marketing for her to identify the boys the songs are based on, tainting them by association. Only someone young, and very on top of the world, would be as bold as to make declarations like this. She's clearly not particularly prepared for the idea that some guy will do something worse than write an anemic response song to her own musical tongue-lashing: some day, it'll be someone selling truly nasty stories, or pictures, or videos. In about five years, maybe, she'll understand that breakups can end in something more impactful than 27-second phone calls. And maybe it'll make her songs even better than they already are.
Tabloid Teardrops
I find Taylor Swift extremely charming and engaging. But I have basically no sympathy for her when she says things like this: