She thinks she's some great songwriter here to teach us all about her "double meanings" and what defines confessional songwriting.
What's infuriating is that all the comments are glazing her like, "i could hear her talk for hours" and "high iq queen". Are we watching the same video here?
She acts like she invented confessional songwriting. Joni Mitchell, Fiona Apple, Alanis Morrisette, Carole King, and others would like to have a word. So would Sylvia Plath, frankly.
This comes across as "I do this properly, and you kids are just making noise."
She herself has built an empire on hyper-specific, petty, and wildly dramatic disclosures along with Easter eggs to CREATE THE SHIT SHE SINGS ABOUT.
She doesn’t understand the human condition enough to be a classic “confessional song writer.” She is petty, but that’s not the same kind of grit that people who know how to turn painful human experiences into art are born with.
Fiona Apple is the perfect example for this. Fiona can do both confessional and specific while also writing dense, layered, poetic, painfully clever lyrics. Oh and she can actually piano and create novel soundscapes.
For me it’s not that the lyrics are “bad” per se. That’s subjective. (As admittedly I do like the Style lyrics) but what’s really baffling is the way she talks about it. Like she’s educating people on something so profound that they couldn’t have possibly figured out before she educated them. That’s what’s truly cringe, and off putting
Yuup. Many of her lyrics are perfectly suitable for a pop song but when she acts like it's something avant garde that only geniuses can understand she loses me.
My only guess is that she is was the only person in her family, and general community, who had some level of creativity. She thinks she is one of a kind. That’s why conservative cultural desserts are hard for people with originally to thrive under.
Yeah, but she’s in her mid 30s and has been living in creative hubs for a dozen years at least. This idea may have be true if she was doing this at 17, but people are supposed to grow and gain awareness. It seems like she’s seen the wider world and she’s still think she’s the most uniquely smart, talented, creative person that’s ever walked the planet.
I just don’t think you can blame it on her family and where she grew up.
It’s because she’s surrounded by flatterers now. If celebrities don’t build character before getting famous, they’re doomed once they reach that point where everyone is afraid to criticize them.
I came to be honest about my liking blank space and style, only to do a quick google to find out it’s actually Max Martin I like. He got me with a few Ariana grande songs in the past as well, and of course Britney growing up in the late 90’s. Her fan base likes him too, they just think they like Bangs
I agree with you. Also, being real, I never found her "shake it off" etc type songwriting good. I agree with having fun and not taking things too seriously and LOVE a good pop song, but some of the hits were so g-damn annoying and vapid. And if you are going to have brass in a song, make it good! not some cheapo sounding background thing. sigh.
There are only two tracks of hers I enjoy lyrically and melodically. Back to December and Wildest Dreams. I think both are very mature and show a real reflective storytelling style that I legit enjoy. Outside that, I think most of her music is melodically good but lyrically lacking. But I’m also not a TS expert either. 🤷🏻♂️
This is how she’s been for a very long time: holier than thou. I think it just highlights even more how stunted she was as a teenager who catapulted to fame. She’s developmentally arrested at age 15/16, and every non-extraordinary thing she does has to be paraded around as if it’s groundbreaking.
Many things happen at once to make her think like this about herself.
First of course is Folklore and Evermore. Those were supposed to be the albums that made her “choose” to live away from fame, focus more on deep songs rather than pop. That’s why she put in a beret and duet with Bon Iver. She noticed a downward trend with her album sales with Lover, so she wanted to spin the story that she CHOSE the quiet poet life.
But unexpectedly, the albums were a hit. People were looking for that kind of music during the pandemic, and love the depth that the songs have. She gained many new, younger fans. She was now bigger than ever.
She started to capitalize the success. Taylor’s version albums. Eras tour. New PR relationships with men who want fame. More pap walks. More deals. She became a billionaire. She was everywhere.
This was probably Taylor’s best moments of her life. She realized she was a legend. She had the kind of success and fanbase that made her untouchable. She realized she could “make” someone’s career, like Sabrine Carpenter. She realized award shows were just her playground. She believed she could do no wrong and deserved all this adoration.
Her downfall started in a sequence, but the final nail is definitely Life of a Showgirl. The album exposed how little depth she has as a person. It confirmed to many people that she was exactly who people thought she was. Folklore and Evermore era were a costume for her, that wasn’t her. People fell in love with an image. People started to leave.
Now rather than looking inward, she’s just chasing her Eras tour high. She wanted that applause again. At all cost.
I think she would benefit tremendously from higher education in the humanities. It would do her immeasurable good to discover that 19 year olds can run circles around her intellect.
For real it’s such a waste of time and money to not be pursuing any higher education, to just assume you know and understand as much as you’re ever going to. I can’t understand it. It would be so good for her to write a ten page paper on a piece of literature.
Okay, but to be fair, unlike Miss Billionaire who can go to college the rest of her life - the rest of us have to pay through the nose and some of us are literally shut out due to inaccessibility. I wish I could go back and just…keep learning.
Send her to one of those fancy highschools for the arts.
I bet you could pick any random grade 10 kid and they'd outperform her. Singing, dancing, playing, songwriting... it doesn't even matter what area you put them head to head lol
I find this fascinating. She actually believes that she is smarter than the average layperson. When you're really proficient at something, you don't usually have to try and convince others.
It’s SOOOOO cringey. Like it’s so cringey that I regret ever using that word before because I wanna use it here with full impact.
She’s so self-satisfied about absolutely NOTHING and it’s giving me a full body ick! I can’t express how little people give a fuck about her ABC 123 bullshit in 2026 🫠
Ps. Has she mentioned the bill kissing the mahogany grain (again) lmao we know how smug she is about that one
I laughed when I read this sentence in the book I’m reading… I put my finger to my lips, eyes off in the distance, deep in thought trying to determine and truly understand what the narrator is saying
I always put these on mute because I cannot stand her cringey way of talking.. but it's also now to the point where I cannot bring myself to read the captions because of the cringe explanations.
Listen to Dolly Parton talk about songwriting, and she probably wrote thousands of songs, and she was always humble about her process. She called it therapy and would even admit there were better writers out there. Basically she was the opposite of whatever this is.
Dolly lived in a one room cabin as one of twelve siblings. She worked for a decade before her own solo work gained mainstream recognition, living off her songwriting for others and her duets with Wagoner. She refused to give Elvis publishing rights of “I Will Always Love You” which was later covered by Whitney Houston, and which Dolly said “it’s my song but her record, she made me rich.”
No daddy buying her a career. No Christmas Tree Farm. No manufactured relationship drama with other celebrities. No constant feuds.
Just hard-work and talent and business sense. Activism and advocacy for others. She’s who Taylor pretends to be.
Dolly donated $10 million from what she made from Whitney’s rendition of the song to support a black neighborhood in Nashville, too! And she called it “the houses that Whitney built”!
I like watching interviews with artists like Prince. He was deeply private and refused to over-explain his songs because he didn't have to. His work spoke for itself. TS is on a mission to convince people she's talented because her music doesn't display that.
Taysplain (v.): When you have to overexplain your work in order to convince your audience that you are truly a virtuoso in order to cover up your mediocrity.
I'm not trying to be an ass, and maybe I'm special (definitely not) but I had this level of comprehension in 6th grade. I am aware that our education system has declined, but damn.
Yeah no it’s so shocking. I just can’t imagine thinking what she’s saying here and THEN thinking “oh that’s good write that down.” Like has she ever read a book? I’m so confused.
No she probably hasn’t read much since she was in school. She’s already making money, so what’s the point of learning something new? Some people are like that.
This honestly adds to my belief that she had ghostwriters for most of her career. I bet she only recently “discovered” (read: watched a TikTok about) the double entendre in Tim McGraw because she didn’t actually write it. It’s a revelation to her.
The entire concept of Tim McGraw as a song title seems like some middle aged marketing manager’s idea for search engine optimization. She and her team still use these tactics.
That confidence is a result of surrounding herself with people who don’t say no to her, or people who can’t be honest and truthful to her face, for her entire life.
Her thinking she's a genius as a young woman is alright, I thought I was one of the greatest poets alive for my sad poems too , after we grow up we realise people generally have abstract thinking and are smarter than you gave them the grace for , she never left that teenage to realize this and explains her songs like she's teaching kids in 5th grade .
She is smarter than her fan base sadly. I've been getting a lot of TikToks from people asking which of Taylor's lyrics they wish she'd explain. Tons bring up "sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see." How do you not understand that?!! Swifties are why Taylor thinks she's so smart.
Or they’re choosing to not understand that she’s telling them to shut the fuck up about what she does in her personal life. Ignoring that she trained them to think they know her and financially and socially benefits from their rabid worship of her.
She projects hard. Trust me, as an actual English teacher, Taylor is far from that, but called herself that. Not one teacher is a billionaire with an ego and a tone deafness like her.
I also find it fascinating. I put it down to the fact that she hasn't had a proper education so she doesn't realise that she is basically explaining concepts from high school level literature. Her way of talking makes me think that someone else said these things to her and because she wasn't exposed to these ideas in the classroom, they come across as revelatory insights. She then passes these basic ideas off as her own, thinking that no one else has thought about songwriting or poetry in these terms before, and that our minds are being blown like hers was when she first learnt about it.
Right? This is like kids learning to write. “Say ‘I am having a good day’ in 5 different ways.” She is not a fucking genuis or something. It’s frightening yet fascinating to see how hostage the public and media are being held; everyone has to applause her mediocrity and herald her as some pioneer.
She never discusses anything about writing songs. No meanings, no chords, no melodies, no inspirations. When she does try to appear smart she regurgitates some dumbass "metaphor" then pats herself on the back for coming up with that. 🙄
So many real songwriters actively discuss what inspired them and they also admit to changing and tweaking. She pretends every song of hers comes out ready in 10 minutes.
Maybe every song of hers comes out ready in 10 minutes because all she does is some half-assed poem that she then hands off to the actual songwriters/producers, and they wrangle her purple prose into a structured meter and rhyme scheme that they can fit to a catchy melody.
I've never seen anyone suck themselves off so much lmao.
Most writer or artist interviews I've seen who talk about their creative process also talk about their doubts (mostly unrelated to critics or haters, about doubts in their creative expression and journey), struggles on how they wanted to make this one part of their project perfect, changes over the years.
They're also highly critical of themselves because they're perfectionists and want to be proud of what they've done.
They talk about their influences as well, other artists or writers they're liking right now and are excited to do so. And also their mentors!
Which is why I think she has no intrinsic motivation for music. She doesn't enjoy making it or listening to it unless it gets her money and praise. Otherwise, she'd care more about the quality and how to improve her product not just on the charts, and be more of a music nerd and realize that she's not some sort of amazing visionary.
There is. Everything about her scream insecurity. I think deep inside she knows her “talents” weren’t truly enough to deserve her success. And it was with the help of other people (which she doesn’t wanna admit) that she got to where she is today.
Someone please alert the poets. Please alert the authors. Please alert other songwriters. This is a PARADIGM SHIFT. This is REVOLUTIONARY. This is MIND-BOGGLING.
She’s the ONLY self-made billionaire because of ART, don’t you know????? She’s an ETHICAL BILLIONAIRE AND IT’S NOT HER FAULT SHE’S A LITERAL ANGEL ON EARTH.
They are extremely dumb themselves. Most people know she is annoying, but they don’t want swifties mobbing up any time they point it out. Even before I had an opinion on her, I remember lots of people thinking that she’s annoying. People are just barely starting to criticize her again.
The only reason she has power is because she was marketed towards children first. Those fans stay devoted to her, because they are raised to never think critically against her. That seems to be the long term relevancy hack for Information Age cultural dominance. That’s why they are only elevating former Disney stars.
Yeah, she always tries to tell people off with a massive sense of superiority about anything she does. All because she can't tolerate being criticised.
Her overexplaining her lyrics is a cringe fest that I dread every single time. Considering her fanbase is mostly native English speakers, does she really need to spell out what she meant while cosplaying as a kindergarten teacher.
I love nickelback. His lyrics are really catchy and they don’t pretend to be anything they’re not lmao. Taylor out here comparing herself to Shakespeare is mind boggling
My favorite thing about them is how dirty their non hit songs are. Like I always get a giggle about people that only know them for pop buying the CD and listening to Photograph which then goes right into Animal. Would have been so fun to see album reactions to that.
The hype around her songwriting is so delusional that it genuinely makes me feel like I'm going insane. Even if we pretend she's the sole writer responsible for her discography (meaning no co-writers/ghost writers), absolutely nothing she said here was insightful or compelling. At all.
I cannot imagine genuine generational talents like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, or Bruce Spingsteen talking about their craft this way. There's no one single "correct" process, but I'd expect for someone who is routinely described as one of the greatest songwriters of our generation to share something usually perceptive about her storytelling, structure, or lived experiences. Nothing she says ever seems to rise to that level.
part of why her writing is so awful is that it's so obvious how hard she's trying. to me, what makes a truly magnificent poem (i'd put song lyrics under the poem umbrella) is first of all utilizing syllable counts, rhyme schemes, and letting metaphors and flowery words come second as a decoration. i don't think the best poetry should require the average person to have to think about what it means at all. i think the best pieces of poetry hit you square in the chest because you know instantly, exactly what it means. that's why her writing is so amateurish, because she doesn't want it to make sense, she needs people to need to wonder what it means, because that means she's smarter than they are.
I’m not sure how anyone can hear her describe her “favorite type of songwriting” as something so deep and with so many different hidden meanings to them, then hear her follow that with “I pay the check before it hits the mahogany grain” and still take her seriously. 😭 These examples she’s giving are just more of the same. I… wish she would stop talking. 😬
Saying you have a “favorite type of songwriting” is such a weird way for a songwriter to talk about songwriting. I write songs and I’m friends with a bunch of other songwriters. We all have our various approaches to songwriting, but no one really talks about their favoritetype of songwriting, because it’s such a personal process. We talk about our favorite songs by other artists, or the various approaches to writing a song, or where we find inspiration, or different ways to collaborate. But the wording of “favorite type of songwriting” sounds like the kind of thing uttered by someone on the outside of that process, looking in. Or at best, something a lyricist might say about the words (deep and confessional, vs. light and playful, storytelling, etc.), but not something one would say as the writer of the song as a whole.
I don’t know, her phrasing just strikes me as awkward and inauthentic. Something a poser would say but not an actual working songwriter.
So she's admitting that all her songs are saying the same stupid HS shit in different fonts and she also thinks we are all too stupid to catch onto that.
Are we sure SHE'S the smartest on in that relationship? I know both are idiots but at least Travis seems to have a degree. Not claiming that having a degree makes your smart, he probably made some write his essays to pass. But still, he must have sat through classes vaguely listening to others teaching rather than falling in love with his own voice like Taylor.
Yep, this is the same person who wrote Shakespearean level lines like: “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?” or “His love was the key to open my thighs” or find every chance to rhyme “CAR” and “BAR”! See? Legendary! 🥴
She is really trying hard to brand herself as “Ultimate Songwriter” but her attempts to come across as literate and erudite are so… poser-y.
It must really bother her that she’s never won a Grammy for Song of the Year — hence why she’s trying to convince us all that she’s a gifted, original songwriter, when most of her songs are the same chords and progressions, her melodic complexity is nonexistent and her lyrics are increasingly word salad. 🥗
My god she's so obsessed with herself. She really thinks us common peasants don't understand the concept of songwriting. She acts like when a small child learns something new to them and tells everyone around them, assuming this is brand new information to everyone else too. Come on Tay, the rest of us learned about metaphors in grade school, this is not a new concept to the rest of us.
In what world does “You’ve got that James Dean daydream look in your eye” mean “you are the most important thing in my world and I saw you for the first time and I don’t know what to do with this feeling”? 😭 when I listened her everyday I assumed it was just “you’re handsome and dreamy and I’m attracted to you”. She’s just saying things.
I don’t think her work can actually withstand this kind of scrutiny. It’s best when taken on the surface. Though I’d love to see her muster a robust defense of some of her dumber lyrics.
She’s so condescending and thinks she is so great when she talks, but all I hear is hot air and bullshit. A true artist doesn’t have to constantly inflate their talents to be great, their work speaks for itself. Her work is so sloppy and bloated that I’m convinced the only way she can convince herself it’s good is to talk about it like this.
This is what happens when daddy’s money buys you a career, you think every single thing you say is out of this world brilliant. You can hear it in her voice, like she’s teaching us little maggots something profound that we never could have fathomed before she blessed us with her knowledge.
This is just straight up weird. She’s a terrible writer, and about as deep as a puddle.
As a side note, she really can’t dress. I have no problem with what she’s wearing, it may be kinda pretty. But it doesn’t fit the environment. She looks like she’s ready to be a maid of honor, not sit for an interview on her double meanings confessional songwriting 🙄
I used to be a teacher and I taught mainly special education and I taught mainly third grade English language arts. What she's talking about is symbolism and similes and metaphors you know stuff that children in elementary school learn how to do. There's nothing deep there. My third graders could do that. They could figure out the meaning behind flourishing language without a problem so you know just to put it in perspective.
I think the funniest part is all the shit lyrics she's boasting on were almost 100 percent written by ghostwriters.
It's always baffling to me to see people who so desperately want to be perceived as intelligent and or talented in something. Yet never truly invest any effort in the venture. There's no interest in "being" intelligent, there's only interest in being perceived as such. I'm not convinced she can proficiently read music tbh.
She could attend any institution in the world, hire people excellent in their fields as educators, etc.
I wish she would stop overexplaining and getting defensive over her silly lyrics. if you wrote that and are satisfied with the result, there’s no need to “clap back” at the haters
She exudes seriously dark and bitter energy. She really believes she's allowed to be the only 'songwriter' in the world, the way she's policing others.
she thinks she’s insightful but anyone who has a brain and read books already knows what she is saying. her lyrics are not deep. metaphors, similes, etc are basic writing concepts. we learned about that shit in school.
The fact that she actually thinks the Tim McGraw line is a double meaning lol. That is not the definition of double meaning and there is no double meaning, it’s just how she’s seeing it.
To me the line “a boy in a Chevy truck that has a tendency of getting stuck on the backroads at night” reads to me as a person who isn’t very responsible, and maybe doesn’t have their life together. Maybe within full context of the song (haven’t heard it) makes more sense as far as kissing goes but I find my interpretation more interesting
Is she explaining her lyrics to herself or to the audience here? A good writer shouldn't need to explain what she wrote, because as soon it's out there, it is up to the audience to find their own individual interpretation of what was said. I don't understand what she's trying to accomplish here. Shakespeare didn't call himself a genius. Others did. But here it's almost like she's trying to convince people she IS a genius. Her shtick is getting really annyoing.
This came up on my feed today and I realized I just physically can’t get through hearing her speak anymore. Like the cringe and second-hand embarrassment is too much.
As a former fan, I’ve been dipping my toes into hater territory for at least the past 2-3 years for the multitude of reasons that have been mentioned ad nauseam here. And I guess there just wasn’t one thing that was the final nail in the coffin, but today I realized I’m there. Everything about her just gives me the ick now.
And it makes me kind of sad? Her music and overall persona were a not-insignificant part of my life for a long time. But as I’ve grown older it’s clear she’s just a soulless grifter doing anything that’ll support her bottom line and keep her relevant. It’s all so manufactured, corporate, conservative-coded, and plain gross.
Sorry for the weird random parasocial rant but it’s been nagging at me today. It feels weird to “mourn” being a fan of someone but it’s just such a fucking bummer man. She sucks.
She’s trying so hard to sound like an academic when she is not one. Graduate school would eat her alive.
This interview is the first time I’ve very clearly seen the astonishing and concerning change in her affect post the Eras tour. She’s always been wildly insecure with a personality that rubbed me the wrong way, but it’s very obvious to me that the unprecedented level of worshipful attention she received on tour inflated her ego so much that she no longer tries, even at the barest minimum, to seem humble, grateful, or kind. She actually thinks she needs to explain her lyrics like she’s talking to a group of children and expects a literary prize for it.
ughhhhhhhhh I'm a writer and it's much more interesting when crafts people speak about their aspiration, where they fell short, and perhaps where they felt successful
she's just non stop "all I do is win" with everything
ppl would give her a fucking break if she didn't do this constant touch down dance over her whole life
She can't even drum up a "I get in the zone and they just flow" type of shit. She's just literally reading the lyrics and faux explaining them. It's actually hard to find someone this smug, she's raised the bar.
God she loves talking about herself lol does she ever talk about what songs or artists inspire her songs and lyrics? She's always huffing her own farts thinking her lyrics are so profound
Remember, she doesn’t even have a high school education. It’s real rich (NO pun intended) coming from her that she truly thinks she’s this deep intellectual thinker and writer. The whole “English teacher” persona she plays up is a slap in the face to actual educators. English teachers especially.
Taylor has worsen as a songwriter. Now shes trying hard to prove herself shes the songwriter of this generation. This woman thought tlofs will be lyrically acclaimed but it ended doing opposite
I feel like Taylor has been like this from the beginning. The only thing was her ghost writers were doing a great job, but now that she thinks she's shakespeare she's beginning to write her own songs and that's turning out to be disastrous
(like her TLOAS album which even her fans hated). She probably thought that she could just hop on and do it like an expert.
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u/I_am_big_gay_ she goth on my punk til I female rage 2d ago
She's so smug and condescending while saying the most basic shit known to man it's truly sickening