Man! Selecting only 10 songs of Taylor Alison Swift’s repertoire turned out to be a whole new challenge in itself, but I’ve selected the songs that I spent the most time listening to and that felt the most fitting in describing this past year. I recently watched the new Eras Tour documentary on Disney+ and loved it. Especially the fragments where Taylor is in the dressing room preparing for her acoustic sessions and she’s jamming with fellow musicians Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams, but mostly because she’s hanging with her mum and their dialogues are so sweet and funny. Mama Swift and Taylor Swift are a solid comic duo (also enjoyed the mum tactics used by Andrea). I also loved the way her dancers shared their personal journeys.
I loved how Taylor called Florence and The Machine ‘Flo’, brought her cat Olivia into the stadium and showed us fragments of the making ‘The Life of A Showgirl’ in Sweden. She genuinely gave us some insight into the absolutely mental, gigantic and all encompassing enterprise the show has been. The absolute joy of making music and dancing together was palpable throughout the documentary. ❤️🔥
As Swifties we have since departed from The Tortured Poets Department Era (which was my favorite part of The Eras Tour) and now entered a brand new era of light-hearted bops. I know people had a lot to say about the new album ‘The Life of A Showgirl’, as a Swiftie I literally didn’t see anything else in my Instagram feed for two days and people blew my mind with their theories, criticism, commentaries, insightful analyses and bubbling thoughts, but I mostly love listening to her music. The Life of A Showgirl didn’t seem crafted as carefully as her previous albums and there was definitely a steep quality drop in her storytelling (unfortunately the same goes for the last season of Stranger Things, which also had all the right ingredients but due to various reasons wasn’t great, good but not great). So as El would say: halfway happy (ps: I didn’t like the ending with Schrödinger’s Eleven 💔).
January’s here so let’s say goodbye to the end of beginning and throw glitter in today’s face ✨
1. The Fate of Ophelia (Alone in My Tower Acoustic Version)
I thought this was a wonderful and light-hearted song to open The Life of a Showgirl. I love how simple and sweet this song is, but also how Taylor adds the same plot twist as she did to love story, where she decided to give the classic tragic Shakespearian ending her own spin, imagining a happy ending instead. Whenever I hear the song through speakers, I realize how smooth and polished it sounds, but I’m mostly into the soft acoustic version. Her writing in The Fate of Ophelia is very classic Taylor. I’ve been listening to Ophelia by Natalie Merchant since I was nineteen and I love this modern and rewritten personal Taylor-take on the story of Ophelia, as there’s a strong sense of newfound freedom in it. I love that it’s meaningful and silly at the same time and I love the clip where she’s on a ship with her red and wild Merida hair. She’s an absolute stunner in this videoclip again. Taylor has written a lot of very loving songs about being in love but this song is about something that should never (ever) be underestimated, which is being loved. Cause it feels good: “You wrap around me like a chain, a crown, a vine, pulling me into the fire”.
Maybe this song resonated particularly with me because I grew up as an only child, spent some time alone like Rapunzel in her tower, but considering the amount of people happily dancing to this song (there are video’s of people who have choreographed the dance with their dogs) I think she struck a pretty universal chord. My mum started doing the Ophelia dance in our living room, even though she thinks the song is slightly ridiculous she till knew the steps. I listened to it after I got into a post-covid patient treatment programme in the hospital and apparently my joy means I’ve been manifesting cause I work there now. I’m addicted to that one particular eighties synth threaded through it. This song is like a spark.
2. Opalite
I remember my first experience of listening to Opalite was a confusing one, because we start with missing lovers past, eating out of the trash and living with ghosts – again. So the beginning sounds like a throwback to darker times with gnawing feelings, but then she switches to: “My mama told me it’s alright, you were dancing through the lightning strikes”, so the happiness is pretty much packed in the chorus. When I hear the chorus of Opalite, all I can see is animals (dogs, horses, goats, chickens, capibaras) happily jumping, hopping and running around.
The light-hearted way she reflects: ‘All of the foes and all of the friends, have seen it before, they’ll see it again” and “All of the foes and all of the friends, have messed up before and will mess up again” gives a glimpse into the slightly detached but accepting and peaceful mind’s eye of a thirty-something. Once you’re in your thirties, you’ve sort of learned how to groove with life. You’ve experienced so many plot turns and witnessed so many twists in the lives of your loved ones, that it doesn’t upset you as much anymore. I love: “You had to make your own sunshine” as in the end, this goes for everyone 🧡
Thought its happy and catchy I also love the reflective, meditative bird’s eye view of the song. It emphasizes an experience of solid bliss instead of short-lived euphoria, because you took your own agency and made your own decisions. Since 2025 was the year Taylor bought her music back, it’s very fitting. It’s definitely a song about the strength and resilience to get your ass out of difficult situations, but with ‘I can bring you love’ she ends it in a funny Alice in Wonderland note, to convey that life is not about winning or losing, it’s mostly an adventure driven by love.
3. Father Figure
I’m so psyched about this one, because this is her George Michael recognition and tribute. And who doesn’t love George Michael? I recently saw a documentary about Queen (Freddie: The Final Act) that ripped my heart out 💔 After Freddie Mercury’s death, the British press and tabloids turned on the absolute icon in the most vile way you can ever imagine, so his (grieving) bandmembers organized a tribute concert to remember him, where Elton John, Annie Lennox, David Bowie (telling spacey Bowie jokes) Elizabeth Taylor and George Michael performed. George Michael gave the sweetest short speech.
My husband started chirping quite happily about The Godfather when he heard Father Figure while he was driving. When it comes to Taylor being crisp, cut-throat and clear, this is that one song for me on the whole album, that shows she’s still the best writer. For the people still wondering if she’s talking about herself in her role as a father figure, this is probably written from the perspective of someone else (maybe Scooter Braun talking to a young Biebs or something). I don’t think Taylor will ever tell a younger musician they will be sleeping with the fishes. She’s very big in the music industry, but I hope she doesn’t act like Michael Corleone. This is a song for the people who have suffered in the music industry at the hands of their labels, management, agents and “supportive” figures with nothing but dollar bills in their eyes. People who pretend to have the best interest at heart of the people they are supposed to guide and protect, but are driven by greed in reality.
I think the song is beautiful because of its ambiguity. Following the Father Figure’s narrative, everything he’s telling the protégé starts out quite inviting, friendly and advisory. This person is protecting, guiding and teaching, and in return all he seems to ask for is loyalty. It’s only in the end when the pupil starts longing for their autonomy and wants to claim his/her artistic freedom (Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Bob Dylan – George Micheal was “rescued” from his record label by Steven Spielberg) that there’s a sudden change of tone: “Whose portraits on the mantle?” 😂 (I don’t know why but this line pretty much sums up the entire patriarchy for me in such a comedic way) (the grandioseness of it) And: “Who covered up your scandals?” “Mistake my kindness for weakness and find your card canceled!” The father figure is able to make or break the other person, when the protégé makes the mistake of biting the hand that fed it, there’s a switch in the tone, followed by rhetorical questions and accusations. The father figure turns into the classic ‘mafioso’: they are not letting their pupil go (not without a fight or revenging themselves).
The reason why I think this Father Figure is even more impactful than The Man is because it’s so extremely witty and funny. It almost makes patriarchal and power-hungry men look pathetic and therefore a little endearing too, but includes the very classic colonial line: “This empire belongs to me”. As we know some corrupted and warmongering politicians have said and still say that, even when it’s not true. The message to the protégé is that if they want to develop themselves and become a success, they’ll have to do it with this dominant and powerful person by their side, otherwise they won’t only be tossed out and on their own, but their former guide will also act like an antagonist in the world where they are trying to find their feet, stand their ground and remain true to themselves.
So it’s a song about oppression from the perspective of the oppressor and I thought it was quite a refreshing take. I won’t bother you with all the times where people looked at me like: “Oh right, blondie has something to say, let’s pretend for a moment to listen”. Taylor’s very good at holding up mirrors to old structures in our society and this song has so much comic relief. I literally love every line of this song, but in my defence; my dad is from a very big catholic family filled with perpetually fighting brothers (monstrous patriarchal battles is pretty much how my family rolls).
Although there are definitely dark undertones, I’ve also seen people use it as a very loving and warm tribute to Steve Harrington being everyone’s father in Stranger Things and that cracked me up 😂 I still want him to have his happy ending, to get together with his Fancy Schmancy Walk Em Down Wheeler Nancy and go on road trips with his best friend Dustin, his girlfriend Suzie and all their little nuggets ❤️
4. Eldest Daughter (Now You’re Home Acoustic Version)
“Everbody’s so punk on the internet” I truly love that opening line. Though this doesn’t feel like a classic track five (maybe because it’s the most poorly written track five we ever got?), I do love how Taylor summarized people’s general attitude on the internet. I love it when people are truly invested and take their time to reflect on something, but there’s a vast majority of people who just seem to enjoy trashing and bashing everything. “Honey, life is just a classroom” from 1989 feels pretty old school and vintage, with everything that has been going on lately, like the explosion of the socials, the arrival of Chat GPT and the algorithms playing a big part in how we perceive the world, offering use more of the same just to keep us glued to the screen. I’m not an expert but I think quantity has become more important than quality in this constant battle for attention. Netflix is apparently assuming that we don’t care about the stories we’re watching anymore and so the dialogues are often dumbed down. In retrospect Twilight looks highbrow because the makers still assumed that we knew the books and were familiar with the story.
When I was younger I used to read the most obscure and random young adult fiction novels, published by different publishing houses, written by very different writers, of whom some no living soul had ever heard. Sometimes they had only written one or two books and their would be a small biography like: “this is written by Jean-Luc, he’s a French teacher, has two children and a dog”. Or: “this is written by Paul, he’s a mathematics teacher in Sweden” with one black and white portrait, and that was pretty much it. Even the covers often looked like someone’s neighbour, who had recently started with oil painting, was just asked to read the manuscript and create something impressionistic. But most of these stories were actually very gripping, heartfelt and often unpredictable, because they hadn’t been endlessly revised by editors. It’s a contrast with today’s young adult fiction that has clearly been designed to captivate as many readers as possible – and though there’s nothing wrong with big audiences – this constant cut-throat competing for attention can make it difficult to discover something new and cherish it.
After I graduated literary studies and discovered that a book published five years ago was already considered old, I was completely mortified: “Virginia Woolf’s books are old, but in the history of literature To the Lighthouse is still relatively new and modern”. My boss replied: “Girl, I’m gonna need a more commercial attitude”. When I worked as a film marketeer I discovered the same nowadays goes for the film industry. There’s an absolute incredible and overwhelming amount of films arriving in cinemas (and on streaming platforms) every month, but their time to flourish in movie theaters has been diminished. Their lifespans have shortened and because film companies like to play it safe with betting on blockbusters, there are more adaptations, remakes and spin-offs than ever. My mum told me that films would play in movie theaters for about a year when she was young, so you could more or less go to the same film every month (which is why she knows Once Upon a Time in the West so well and my aunt was able to sneak into Grease with her after first having persuaded her for several weeks). I thought damn, that must have been fun.
I love Taylor’s reflection that even though she’s jumped into this commercial corset herself and is very much a part of it, she still longs to be the softer version of herself. She reflects that she’s very aware of the fact that people are full of plans, schemes and promises, but in the midst of all the chaos, she vows to stay true to her lover, because he brought her back to a genuine and good place. My husband is the oldest son (the golden boy, the gold rush) in his family but the family is a bit, you know, complícated (which is often an intrinsic, inevitable and integral part of families) and sometimes when there are family drama’s or family issues (what I’ve learned from his life with siblings: never a dull moment) he’s like: sigh, well they are my family, but you’re my home now. As an only child I’m resembling the eldest daughter as well (at least according to the general psychology of family roles and constellations). You’re the one paving the way and without older sisterly or older brotherly advice and that’s not always easy. I think: “So we all dressed up as wolves and we looked… fire”(alright hottie :p) is the most random unfinished line she has ever written, but Eldest Daughter is written from the perspective of having felt like a super klutz (and I’ve often felt like a super klutz).
5. The Bolter
I don’t know why but this song just kept growing on me, maybe because some days I feel old. But I mean like – oooooollllddddd. This year I’ve been lunching with an old friend who became a philosophy teacher and I thought she had the best (bildung) stories and she thought I had the best (bildung) stories; I loved hearing about everything she had learned and discovered over time. Growing up can be quite intense. Watching my friends becoming the witty, strong and resilient adults they are today has always been the best thing. So maybe this has overall been a reflective year filled with reflective songs. I love that the song conveys several seasons of The Vampire Diaries in its tone, where there have been so many fights, love triangles, break-ups, humanity switched on, humanity switched off, birthday parties, hospital visits, plans that went wrong and had to be winged, that you get the general growing sense that everyone will be fine (at one point Caroline had three romantic love interests, everyone had been resurrected from the dead and they just couldn’t kill Matt anymore because he was the only lasting human on the show 🙈).
I listened to The Bolter in memory of Brigitte Bardot who passed on the 28th of December. There’s currently a whole debate about how BB was an iconic actress in the sixties, but that she was also difficult, controversial, wild, autonomous, rebellious, and even became homophobic and racist. Don’t get me wrong because there’s no excuse for this hatred, NONE. She was a beautiful French actress but she had a turbulent life and her ideas became very extreme and messed-up. Sometimes I just get aggravated by the fact that people can never seem to handle, on a public and cultural level, that both light and dark can reside in one and the same woman. Women still have to be perceived in a particular way; they are either good, sweet, angelic and innocent, they are strong calculated bitches or they are deceitful swamp witches, while they’re (we’re) are human beings who are perfectly capable of making mistakes, acting out, stumbling and screwing things up with the people we love. I believe a big part of feminism is acknowledging that women are very human. We have to learn how to handle our stuff too. In some cases, we just know, we must bolt. I love: “All her fuckin lives, flashed before her eyes. It feels like the time, she fell through the ice, then came out alive”.
6. The Black Dog
When Taylor discussed during a radio interview, while promoting The Life of a Showgirl, that people still have no clue what The Black Dog is really about, I went back to listen to it again. I knew people thought it was about her ex-boyfriend visiting bar in London and I thought it was about being in love with someone who is clinically depressed (the title just reminded me of Sirius Black 😂) but when I started listening to it again it struck me how sweet, soft and sad this song is. I love: “But she’s too young to know this song that was intertwined in the magic fabric our dreaming”. The first time I heard The Black Dog I thought it was down bad, but it’s actually also quite soothing, even though “old habits die… SCREEEAAAAAMING” struck me as Outlanderishly (I know this technically isn’t a term) and disturbing. Outlander has the most beautiful and peaceful woodsy scenes with beautiful light and all of a sudden Geillis Duncan opens the door or Claire gets shot while she’s tending to patients during the war. I don’t know why but it took me a few years to discoverThe Black Dog is extremely beautifully written. The song is filled with silent grief and it sounds like saying goodbye to someone who isn’t invested enough in you anymore to even give a damn about your goodbye, which sort of makes it more painful and pathetic than the whole Red album in its entirety. Red was fiercesome, TTPD is bleak. It’s not about burning but about fading out. There’s a brittleness to this song. Somehow it’s like I’m always one album behind her: I was absolutely into Midnights during The TTPD era and now that I know she’s in a wholesome, happy and good place I’m revisiting TTPD with a new curiosity. But this song probably strongly resonates because I miss my soul sister whippet snout Bliss. Been howling for years but I’ve recently found my composure to honour her again.
7. The Great War
The Great War is from Midnights (I’m still processing that this album appeared four freaking years ago) but it just kept getting better. At first I loved the atmosphere Taylor depicted, these Game of Thrones tombs with angry and hurt Sansas in their big cloaks, carrying their battle scars, with old and familiar wounds still stinging, filled with ghosts from the past, screaming from the crypt. But even though it’s a battered and bruised, very exhausted and exasperated song (like having had a big battle or the same fight over and over with a loved one) I really love the music. I was so sucked into the story that the music sounded like a score, but there’s actually a lot of subtle percussion going on, almost recalling a dawn that’s arriving after a terrible battle. In my interpretationThe Great War is also healing and wholesome ❤️🩹 My parents sent several important belongings to Ukraine this year in order to support the people in Ukraïne, who are still defending themselves against Russia, a war which Europe can’t loose cause in that case we’re not burned for better but toast.
8. August (long pond studio sessions)
Since the Augusta backstory I didn’t think this would become a main summer song for me and my husband since he is definitely mine (luckily) but I’ve switched from Cruel Summer to August this past summer. This February we will be together for seven years and I think August has grown on me because of our careless, whimsical, romantic beginning and I still love: “Back when I was living for the hope of it all”. Not that I’m no longer living for the hope of it all, but some dictators weren’t throwing us (people, civil rights, peace, laws, logic, you know – democracy) off yet. August really captures the atmosphere of having dinners in rusty places with wild hair, a salted skin and bare feet. We enjoy spending time at the beach during every season, even when it’s freezing cold. We love our rituals like plunging into the sea when we’ve arrived, drinking coffee on the beach, lounging on a plaid, collecting shells during long walks, eating big Italian pizzas as the sun sets and going for walks through the dunes, especially when I’m feeling pensive. When we visited the beach on an evening between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, we stuck around for bonfires during the evening and when we came out the restaurant, everything was completely deserted. We could see a bright night sky filled with stars. The whole landscape was frozen, it was beautiful and magical. We could hear the wind blowing and the waves crashing on the shore. On our way back, we passed these solitary Christmas lit houses that stood in the middle of nowhere (we still listened to Fortnights because even though it makes no sense, it’s still our song for when we’ve been to the beach). But I love the long pond versions of August, though it sounds like a total mid summer night’s dream listening to it during the winter, but I’m always longing for new long pond sessions and acoustic songs.
9. Carolina
This soundtrack is so soothing and haunting at the same time. Whenever I hear Carolina I want to sit on a porch in my rocking chair with an iced latte, burning letters that I’ve written but will never send. Some days when I’m with old friends and learn new things about them I wonder if I’ll ever be able to truly see them, or if I’m always condemned to just seeing one version of them, never actually knowing their full life stories, their souls or their secrets, but there are also days where I wonder if some of them, in our group dynamics, ever paused to truly take a look at me, or if I’m just the girl they remember from school and a figure in the stories they’ve told each other. That’s the problem with time passing and no longer being in touch with everyone as much. I’ve had several warm, funny, loving friend groups that I will always cherish, but during the summers days where I roamed through my hometown, all by my lonesome (this is a song for being all by your lonesome), I felt this gritty and bitter acceptance of my fate as an only child, that grief solidified in Carolina. Though it’s not as dramatic or sad as it sounds (I grew up with two Afghan hounds, two orange cats, a bird, a bunny, three guinea pig, fishes, frogs, of whom some had invited themselves, but there was never a lack of pets in our house) this is my say what they may anthem. It’s the official soundtrack for Where The Crawdads Sing which (maybe needless to explain) is a heart-wrenching but beautiful coming-of-age story.
10. Cardigan (cabin in candelight version)
When I graduated Comparative Literary Studies and moved back to my hometown I signed up to become a yoga teacher, but this year I realized it has been five years since I graduated as a yoga teacher too, and the time where I was forest bathing already feels like a long time ago as well. Though I gave several yoga classes, it was something that very much belonged to my mid twenties. When I listen to the classic version of Cardigan I’m instantly transported to being nineteen again, back to the living room of my parents filled with big Persian rugs, ancient closets and the ornaments gathered from all over the world (my mum recently reminded me I was always having a fittie with a Russian doll she brought back from the Soviet-Union), where my friends would hang with tea after getting drunk off their faces in pubs. When I didn’t feel like going out myself and just wanted to watch a film cuddled under a blanket, people would often still join me during the evening. But this year I grew really fond of the cabin in candlelight version because it reminds me of the time in my yoga school. The acoustic version feels lighter, almost like a daylight version instead of the nighttime version. It sounds like it’s more about taking good care of yourself and nourishing yourself, reflecting on the people you grew up with somewhere in the back of your mind, and knowing that they are still out there somewhere, while also being happy with the calm and serenity you’ve found. During my mid twenties, I definitely loved the ability to lean back more peacefully, instead of still being very much in the midst of everything. But that’s probably also because the candlelight version is so linked to the time I’ve spent in my soulful yoga school doing yoga-poses, meditations, breathing exercises, often surrounded by blankets, candlelight and cups of tea.
Eleven: Marjorie ✨
This is one of the most beautiful songs in all Taylor Swift’s songwriting history. When I listen to it which is a beautiful tribute to Taylor’s grandma, who was an opera singer (my grandma was also very into opera and Maria Callas), I think about the days where my grandma, my mother, my aunt and I would be rummaging, bickering, laughing and hanging together at my grandma’s place. I loved how my grandma would always follow my mother into the kitchen, her whole place filled with smoke, the chaos my grandma would always create and the attempts of my mother to structure and tidy her place. “Every scrap of you would be taken from me” is something that I’ve really felt this year. Sometimes my mum and my aunt share their memories,.. I don’t like that some aspects and elements of her life are still shrouded in mystery for me, so I still really enjoy it when I’m hearing new things. If I could talk to my grandma now there are endless questions I would ask her about her life.
I was so used to my grandma being a presence in my life for as long as I could remember, that we would eat from the same plate while having discussions with my mum and my aunt, or get between discussions they were having with my grandma, who was also almost simultaneously smoking, calling the cat and watching soccer. She died when I was twenty-seven and the first few years after her death I missed her but felt relatively optimistic as she got be 80 years old (I’ve had girlfriends who died before turning 20), but even though I rationally knew the dead don’t return, this year I fully understood that as a granddaughter, I’m going to miss her for the rest (majority) of my life. The first year I was more focused on my mum and my aunt getting through missing their mother, but I miss our friendship. When I think back to the caravan I spent weekends in, it almost feels like a dreamscape I sometimes return to, at at times my mum and my aunt have no idea what I’m talking about. Like a small suitcase with their old dolls which my grandma saved there and I used to play with. There were many weekends I spent alone with my grandpa and grandma, but all I can do now is remember them through the eyes of a child. They gave me this incredibly optimistic and joyful look on life that is still protecting me today. So I’m finding solace in: “What died didn’t stay dead, you’re alive in my head.”