Suresh Subrahmanyan
Where do I begin?
Despite American singer-songwriter Taylor Allison Swift’s surpassing all female artistes in music history with the most # 1 albums on the billboard charts and with four albums simultaneously in the Top 10, I must confess I hadn’t heard her even once till I started writing about her. I blush to disclose that the lady’s name passed me by as an idle wind. I say this as a person who consumes all genres of music from Western Pop, Rock, R&B, Jazz, Musicals, Classical, to Carnatic, Hindustani classical and Hindi and Tamil film songs of the 1970s.
In my adolescent years, I recall when I played The Beatles’ I Wanna Hold Your Hand and She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, 45 rpms on our Grundig radiogram, my parents were not best pleased. My mother went to the extent of saying that they were sounds emanating from hell and that her sons were headed for purgatory. To steer me back to the straight and narrow, she would make me sit down and take Carnatic music lessons — first from her, and then from a qualified music teacher. Though to be fair to her, she looked more charitably upon Dancing Shoes and Bachelor Boy by Cliff Richard.
Essentially, it all boils down to a generational thing. Taylor represents a brand of music that I have had little time for. I realise, however, that I ought to listen to the young lady before passing judgement. And so it came to pass that it was time for some Taylor Swift as I simply had to know the magic that makes her the most sought-after musician today.
But what is it about Taylor that each time I begin to write about her, my mind drifts to other things? Part of the reason could be lack of sufficient knowledge of her evidently impressive body of work, the other part being a deep-seated reluctance to make the effort to know what makes her tick. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I worry that I might end up liking her passionate outpourings which may not be undesirable, particularly if I encounter a bunch of Taylor Swift crazy adolescents. I could keep the conversation going for a while, if not actually impress them. That being the case, I googled ‘Greatest Hits of Taylor Swift,’ and Google obliged with 30 smash hits.
At which point I discovered that Taylor Swift was not just about songs and music but acting and dancing as well in her hits Love Story, Shake it Off, Blank Space, You Belong with Me, Anti-Hero and All Too Well: The Short Film. After ‘watching’ her for a while, I felt my eyes shutting. None of those songs meant anything to me. If anything, Taylor reminded me of a souped-up version of Madonna from the 1980s.
When I came across Taylor’s Love Story music video, I thought it was a modern-day cover of that soulful Andy Williams classic Where do I Begin from the 1970 film Love Story. Such was not the case. This was her original version which bore no resemblance to the 1970s hit.
The problem is, I am searching hard for the music, based on which these ladies have been raking in the shekels, and I am not finding it. If there is a smidgen of melody in them, it’s being kept a closely guarded secret. Rhythm, there is plenty of I admit, but too much of an insistent, driving beat can only result in a splitting headache.
There’s a school of thought that with some songs, a single hearing can never do justice. Therefore, I listened to Taylor’s hits four times over, even went to sleep on them, waking up the next morning to determine if I could recall the tunes. Complete blank. Which led me to conclude that Taylor and her tribe have a massive fan following but clearly, I’m not one of them. It could be a generational thing, but I wouldn’t be holding my breath on the assumption these songs will be remembered and sung 50 years from now.
In sum, I must say that my not being able to appreciate Taylor Swift’s music has nothing to do with her performing skills. I need to reason why I am unable to rise to the level of musical sophistication being demanded of me by Swift’s oeuvre. As Shakespeare, succinctly put it: ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.’
Postscript: Taylor Swift’s recent performance at a Seattle stadium generated seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3-magnitude earthquake by her dancing fans. As Carole King sang all those years ago, I Feel the Earth Move Under my Feet.
(Suresh Subrahmanyan is a Bangalore-based former advertising professional)
