"Shake It Off" Music Video

Here is the music video for "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift from her "1989" album.

You can buy the single here, as an MP3, or as a cd.

 

Read more

Eyes Open

Today's Taylor Swift song is "Eyes Open" from the Hunger Games soundtrack. This is my favorite song on the soundtrack. I love the sound, the words, just everything about it. Taylor describes it as "more frantic and fast-paced, a completely different shade of music.”  I love that shade. Hopefully with album 5 we'll hear more songs like this. I also wish they had made a music video for the song.

Who is this song about?

It's about Katniss Everdeen from the Huger Games. 

Taylor says, “I wrote it about Katniss’ relationship with the Capitol. It basically serves as a warning for her not to trust anyone-in many ways the opposite of ‘Safe & Sound.'"

Taylor read the Hunger Games before she wrote the songs so she really delved into Katniss's character. In the Hunger Games 24 kids are chosen from each district, some are chosen by lottery, some train for it their whole lives. They all head to the Capital for the annual Hunger Games. The competitors are placed in an arena with cameras filming their every move.  Everybody is really "watching to see the fallout". Their main goal is to kill all the other competitors. If they do this they get to live the rest of their life within their district. She's never safe in the arena, she's got to

"Keep [her] feet ready
Heartbeat steady
Keep [her] eyes open
Keep your aim locked
The night goes dark
Keep [her] eyes open"

She has got to be on her guard all the time. Katniss's survival skill both back at home and in the arena is her bow and arrow, hence keeping her "aim locked". Not only are the other competitors trying to kill them, but the capital is always sending hardships to bear and to make their battle harder. From each "lesson" or experience Katniss "forms a new scar", she gets hurt. But even though "they've surrounded" her with trials and competitors she's "got something they don't" and survives. She is smart, "two steps ahead staying on guard" even though "they never thought [she'd] make it this far. But she does and even though she has no one to "come to save" her she has the heart and the ingenuity to get through and inspire everyone. She ends up not only saving herself, but Peeta, a fellow competitor, district member, and her best friend by outsmarting the capital.

This song really shows how Katniss makes it through the games by keeping her "Eyes Open". 

Read more

Privacy Policy

-Third party vendors, including Google and StatCounter, use cookies to track visitors and/or serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this website.
-Google's uses the DoubleClick cookie. It enables it and its partners to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and/or other sites on the Internet.
You may opt out of the use of the DoubleClick cookie for interest-based advertising by visiting Ads Settings. (You can also opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for interest based advertising by visiting aboutads.info.)

Read more

Crazier

Today's Taylor Swift song is the song, "Crazier" from the Hannah Montana movie soundtrack.  When this movie came out I loved all of the songs in the movie including, "The Climb."  I even went to Miley's concert because of it.  Alas I was sorely disappointed with her concert, I couldn't hear her very well, her voice was horrible and she had already started to rebel from her Disney ways.  Taylor had come into town around the same time and I wish I'd chosen to go to her concert instead.

This song is a prominent song in the movie.  Taylor tells GAC, "I wrote this in song in hopes that possibly it would be in the movie, but I never thought it would be such a big prominent song.  It's absolutely one of the most exciting things. This song is playing when the main characters of the movie, Miley and Billy Ray are both falling in love with that song as a background.  It's really cool to have that kind of a part in the movie."

But Taylor didn't just write it for the movie, she wrote it a lot earlier.  Who was this song about originally?

Okay that was a trick question, it isn't about anyone per se, but Taylor's idea of love.  Taylor tells GAC in the Behind the Scene's Hannah Montana Movie (Taylor Swift), "I wrote the song crazier when I was thirteen so this song is really a reflection of what I thought love was supposed to be, and you know sometimes you write a love song about what you hope will find you and what you hope you'll find someday, not about what you're actually going through."

I couldn't believe it.  She wrote this song when she was thirteen?  And just pulled it out of her pocket and hadn't released it yet?  I wonder how many songs Taylor has hiding out.  I would love to hear them all, as I am sure many of you would love to too.  The song is very in touch with being in love,

"There's so much more/I've never seen it before/I was trying to fly/But I couldn't find wings/But you came along and you changed everything"

"You showed me something that I couldn't see/You opened my eyes/And you made me believe"

"Baby you showed me what living is for"

"Feels like I'm fallin' and I am lost in your eyes/You make me crazier, crazier, crazier"

I love this song even though I don't love Hannah Montana anymore. It just makes me want to dance around being, "Crazier".  I really hope you find that person that makes you "crazier" Taylor.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Crazier".

Read more

Mine

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Mine" from her "Speak Now" album.

I first heard this song before I became a Taylor Swift fan.  Yeah I remember hearing "Teardrops On My Guitar" on the radio and could sing along with it on the radio, but I wasn't a true fan.  I heard about this song because it was leaked, yes leaked.  So what did Taylor do?  She decided to release it early.  Genius.  And of course her plan worked.  Her third album "Speak Now" was hugely successful.

Who was this song about?

Taylor told Yahoo music in 2010, "This is a situation where a guy that I just barely knew put his arm around me by the water, and I saw the entire relationship flash before my eyes."

Who was this person?

It may be a little confusing because the hidden word in "Mine" is TOBY, but it is really about Cory Monteith.  (Toby Hemingway was in the music video for "Mine".  She couldn't have wrote it about him because she didn't know him until after she wrote the song when she was filming the music video.  She may have included his name because he was in the music video and/or she was interested in him)  Taylor and Cory hung out from January 2010 to about April 2010.  They even went bowling together with Selena Gomez.  They became good friends.  Unfortunately it didn't work out.

Taylor told Yahoo music, "After I wrote the song, things sort of fell apart, as things so often do. And I hadn't talked to him in a couple months. And the song came out, and that day, I got an e-mail from him. And I was like, 'Yes!' Because that one was sort of half-confession and half-prediction or projection of what I saw."

She was scared of him, scared of what could have been.

"It's a song that's about my tendency to run from love. Every really direct example of love I've had in front of me has ended in goodbye and in breakups and things like that, so I've developed this pattern of running away when it comes time to fall in love and stay in a relationship and this song is about finding an exception to that and finding the person that makes you believe in love and realize that it can work out."

This is what she imagined if she hadn't been scared. The song tells the story of a couple meeting. The boy  was in college, th girl. a waitress.  They fall in love, "You put your arm around me for the first time." They fight, "And I remember that fight, 2:30 a.m." They make up and he says, "I'll never leave you alone."  The music video further elaborates on this theme showing them moving in together, getting married, and having children.  One day Taylor I hope you find the person that doesn't make you afraid and you can have a great life with them.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Mine".

Click here to see the music video for the song, "Mine". 

*I couldn't write this post without addressing Cory's death.  It was a sad day especially for Taylor.  I know how she feels.  When friends of mine have passed away it is very hard, very hard.  I hope that all his family and friends and Taylor have experienced comfort with his passing and remember all the good times they had with him.

Read more

"The Last Time" Music Video

Here is the music video for "The Last Time" by Taylor Swift from her "Red" album.

Click here for the meaning to the song, "The Last Time".

    

Read more

Sweeter Than Fiction Lyrics

"Sweeter Than Fiction" Lyrics

Hit the ground, hit the ground, hit the ground (oh, oh)

Only sound, only sound that you hear is "no"
You never saw it coming
Except when you started runnning
And now you come undone (I, I, I)

Seen you fall, seen you crawl on you knees (eh, eh)
Seen you lost in a crowd, seen you colors fade
Wish I could make it better
Someday you won't remember,
This pain you thought would last forever and ever

[Chorus]
There you stand, ten feet tall
I will say, "I knew it all along"
Your eyes are wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction

Just a shot, just a shot in the dark (oh, oh)
All you got, all you got are your shattered hopes
They never saw it coming
You hit the ground running
And now you're on to something
I, I, I say

What a sight, what a sight when the light came on
Put me right, threw me right when you put them front
And in this perfect weather
It's like we don't remember
The rain we thought would last forever and ever

[Chorus]
There you stand, ten feet tall
I will say, "I knew it all along"
Your eyes are wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction

There you stand, next to me
All at once, the rest is history
Your eyes are wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction, fiction

[Bridge]
I’ll be one of the many saying
Look at you now, look at you now, now
I’ll be one of the many saying
You've made us proud, you’ve made us proud

I’ll be one of the many saying
Look at you now, look at you now, now
I’ll be one of the many saying
You've made us proud, you've made us proud, proud

And when they call your name
And they put your picture in a frame
You know that I’ll be there time and again
'Cause I loved you when

When you hit the ground, hit the ground, hit the ground, oh oh
Only sound, only sound that you heard was "no"
Now in this perfect weather
It's like we don't remember
The rain we thought would last forever and ever

[Chorus]
There you stand, ten feet tall
I will say, "I knew it all along"
Your eyes are wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction

There you stand, next to me
All at once, the rest is history
Your eyes are wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction, fiction

Read more

Sad Beautiful Tragic

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Sad Beautiful Tragic" from her Red album.

At first I thought this song might have been about Jake Gyllenhaal, the hint in the song was WHILE YOU WERE ON A TRAIN.  Over the last few weeks I've gained some more insight to this song, specifically from Taylor.

She didn't perform this song until September 8th, the last month of her Red USA tour.  And then she performed it the very last night of her Red tour.  The reason she didn't perform it before and performed it the last night is it is a song that is REALLY special to her.  She even tweeted about performing it live, and she doesn't normally do that.  If it was a song about Jake, she wouldn't have had so much reservation about performing it and she wouldn't have saved it til the last night of her tour when her fans were begging her to perform, "Tied Together With A Smile".

"What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair..." Live in St. Paul, MN: http://t.co/6UR6OezRga
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) September 9, 2013

Taylor said in her stories behind the red songs, "Sad Beautiful Tragic is a song that wrote while I was on tour. It was just reflecting on something that was lost, and you can't get it back."

What was lost?

Taylor and Austin Swift

Her parents love, her parents have separated and/or divorced.  I don't really know all the details, and don't need to know, but this song is about their love..

That's why it means so much to her, why she had hesitations about performing it, and why she performed it at her finale concert.

On September 8th in St. Paul Minnesota she said, "This is a song that I wrote about how just because something is over doesn't mean it wasn't incredibly beautiful.  Cause another lesson I've learned is that not all stories have a happy ending and you have to learn how to deal with that. This is a song about a story that didn't end so happily, but it was still supposed to happen.  This is called, Sad Beautiful Tragic."

She has had to learn how to deal with her parents not being together.

On September 21, 2013 Taylor said in her introduction to this song, "It's [Red] an album I'm really proud of and I'm so glad you welcomed it into your life. On the last night of the Red tour I kind of want to play a song from Red that I never really play, but it's a song that really means a lot to me because a lot of the time when you think about love you think about how it has to have a happy ending for it to count but this is a song that I wrote about a love that didn't have a happy ending, but it was still worth writing about, and it's worth singing about. This is called Sad Beautiful Tragic."

Like Taylor said, her parents marriage was supposed to happen.  Taylor and Austin would not have been born, and Taylor still loves both her parents.  This song means alot to me too.  My parents are divorced and things were not always amicable between them, but I love them both dearly.  My dad passed away and there is a giant hole in my heart.  I don't regret that they got together, but rather celebrate it like Taylor does. I am both of them, both of them are part of me.

"distance, timIng, breakdowN, fighting
silence, the train runs off its tracks
kiss me, try to fix it
could you just try to listen?
hang up, give up and for the life of us
we can't get back..."

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Sad Beautiful Tragic."

Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting, silence.  They were the driving factors in her parents split.  They couldn't make up.  But in spite of that they had "a beautiful magic love". You can't always get happily ever after back, but the journey of love and what it brings is worth it.

Austin, Scott, Andrea and Taylor

Read more

"Highway Don't Care" Music Video

"Highway Don't Care" Music Video

Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, Keith Urban

A touching music video about love and the dangers of being a distracted driver.

 

Read more

Sweeter Than Fiction

Today's Taylor Swift song is "Sweeter Than Fiction", a song that she wrote for the movie "One Chance" about Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts.  It debuted at the Toronto Film Festival September 9th, 2013.

I just heard a snippet of this song. Love it! Here's hoping it will be released tomorrow.  If not we have to wait til October.

Why did she write this song?

                                               

                                                                   

Taylor told City News, "I'm very inspired by the concept of love, and this movie is in a lot of ways a love story. You're expecting to go in and see a story of someone who makes his dreams come true, but what you don't realize is you're actually being told a story of this unconditional love that his wife has for him, his girlfriend has for him. That was the story that hit me and really affected me, so I wanted to tell a story musically from that perspective."

Here are some of the lyrics, “There you stand, take me down, I will say I knew it all along Your eyes are wider than distance, this love is sweeter than fiction."

Can't wait to hear the whole song Taylor!!

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Sweeter Than Fiction". 

Read more

Stay Beautiful

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Stay Beautiful" from her Taylor Swift album.

Who is this song about?

Taylor says his name in the song, CORY.  The song begins by saying "Cory's eyes are like a jungle", his "smiles are like the radio".  "There's pretty girls on every corner/That watch him as he's walking home/Saying, does he know/Will you ever know/You're beautiful". This guy is amazing.  What I really love about this song is Taylor's faith in him, "You're really gonna be someone".  She hopes that "your life leads you back to my door".  What an amazing song for her to write about a boy she knew when she was so young.  She knew him in the 4th grade.  I don't know if I had that kind of insight or faith about people in the 4th grade.

In her 2011 target commercial for her Speak Now album Taylor says,  "So I suppose it all started with my first crush in 4th grade. Cory Robertson. Yeah, he liked the cool girl. She had straight hair. Little did he know, I was writing songs about him after school. Dreaming of one day becoming a country singer. Or, maybe a poet. Or, a professional basketball player. Well, eventually I found my way. For me, 'Speak Now' is the next chapter in my story, and I'm naming names."

Cory Robertson, one of Taylor Swift's first crushes

Cory was one of Taylor's first crushes, but he didn't know and didn't like her back.  Too bad for him. This story reminds me of the time when I was in 4th grade and a boy name Cory Jackson had the hugest crush on me.  He was crazy, he followed me home one day just to see where I lived, and I lived a mile from the school in the opposite direction of him. Then one time he threw a pencil at my neck.  He tortured me relentlessly, but alas that is how 10 year old boys show their affection.

Even though nothing happened because of this crush a wonderful song came out of it. On her website Taylor says "After hearing my songs, a lot of people ask me, `How many boyfriends have you HAD?' And I always tell them that more of my songs come from observation than actual experience. In other words, you don't have to date someone to write a song about them. This is a song I wrote about a guy I never dated! Wow, right? Haha. This song is about a guy I thought was cute, and never really talked to him much. But something about him inspired this song, just watching him."

What a fun song about an elementary school crush!

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Stay Beautiful".

Read more

Stay Stay Stay

Today's Taylor Swift song is "Stay Stay Stay" from her "Red" album.

Who is this song about?

It's not about a specific person, from her liner notes Taylor was "DAYDREAMING ABOUT REAL LOVE."

Taylor says in her stories behind the songs interview, "The song 'Stay Stay Stay' is a song that I wrote based on what I've seen of real relationships, where it's not perfect, there are moments where you're just so sick of that person, you get into a stupid fight. It's still worth it to stay in it. There's something about it that you can't live without. In the bridge it says, 'I'd like to hang out with you for my whole life' and I think that's what probably the key to finding the one, you just want to hang out with them forever."

In the song she gets mad at her boyfriend, throws her "phone against the room" at him, but even with all this anger he decides to stay.  He stays and keeps doing the things that she likes about him, "carry my groceries", taking "the time to memorize me" and she just likes "hanging out" with him.

I really hope that Taylor finds this true love.  I have found this love, and have been married to him for 7 years.  It is hard sometimes and things don't always go as planned, but when you have something special, it is so worth it to "stay stay stay".

Click here for the lyrics to the song, "Stay Stay Stay".

Read more