to think Taylor Swift is our century's answer to William Shakespeare

[beastlyslumber]

She's such an incredible storyteller and lyricist (and her songs are ridiculously catchy. It's all about the hooks.) Listening to her album 'folkore' this afternoon - she wrote two whole albums in lockdown, you know. And they're both great, but 'folklore' is insanely good. As she moves away from autobiographical writing into character stories, her storytelling is getting even more emotionally direct, and even more fun. She's a total genius. Even on the rare occasions when her hooks and melodies don't grip you, her lyrics always get right to the heart of things.

If there's any justice in the world, Ms Swift will still be celebrated in 500 years for her original, moving, funny, perceptive and subversive writing.

YANBU = Obviously! She is the Bard of Pop
YABU = WTF? She's way better than Shakespeare

@Crunched

No, Eminem widely considered to be the modern day Shakespeare Seems like many of us feel this way.

No wonder the world is in such a shite state

I love her lyrics. In the interests of fairness for those sneering at the simpler choruses of her pop hits, some other favourites:

'You call me up again just to break me like a promise, so casually cruel in the name of being honest'

'Time won't fly it's like I'm paralysed by it. I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it. After plaid shirt days and night where you made me your own, now you mail back my things and i walk home alone'

'I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss, I knew you'd haunt all of my what ifs, the smell of smoke would hang around this long, cause I knew everything when I was young'

'They said all of my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential'

'Your moms ring in your pocket, my picture in your wallet, your heart was glass I dropped it, champagne problems'

@smoko

We eeee

Are never ever ever

Getting back together

Not seeing it OP

I’m not the biggest Taylor Swift fan, but I do think you could pull a couple of lines from the songs of anyone that gets called a great songwriter and find ones to sneer at. You could also probably find great lines written by generally rubbish songwriters. I just don’t think a couple of lines really makes any kind of point either way.

They say it's your birthday
Well, it's my birthday too, yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you

It’s hardly inspired, but it also isn’t a reasonable rebuttal to someone claiming Lennon and McCartney are great songwriters.

"The Man" is about 3 hours as an essay question.

I agree, it's a deep song and i'd love to read some answers to those essays.

I’m far too old to know of TS so I can’t judge. In my world John Cooper Clarke is The Bard.

@Sparklingbrook You could try reading (or even listening to) the lyrics to songs like tolerate it, champagne problems, happiness or time to go to get an idea of some of her most recent best work, rather than quoting a song that was designed to be catchy and garner a lot of radio play.

@Pedalpushers these are the exact lyrics I was going to post! Honestly tell me how 'you call me up again just to break me like a promise' isn't as good as poetry!

I had to dissect Eleanor Rigby for GCSE English. Sometimes it's best not to look into lyrics too deeply maybe.

I love TS. My tween dd is getting in to her now and it makes me so happy as so many of her lyrics are about female empowerment, not settling for nonsense, strong women. But delivered in a way that’s feminine and not too sweary. I think she’s fantastic.

[quote Fired]@Sparklingbrook You could try reading (or even listening to) the lyrics to songs like tolerate it, champagne problems, happiness or time to go to get an idea of some of her most recent best work, rather than quoting a song that was designed to be catchy and garner a lot of radio play.[/quote]
That's me told. I shall be away to Spotify immediately.

No.

@sparklingbrook sure, but TS has some lyrics which absolutely do stand up to scrutiny. I think Eleanor Rigby does too - and I'm pretty sure I had that as a past GCSE paper when I was doing mine. Great writing is everywhere - doesn't have to be old to be wonderful and important.

People are deliberately pulling out Taylor Swift lyrics which they think are vacuous, but (setting aside the fact that it’s pointless to consider lyrics in isolation from the accompanying music since the interplay between those things is virtually the point of pop music), I won’t sit here and be told that ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate’ is profound, genre-defining lyricism, worthy of a place on the poetic pantheon, but that ‘take the words for what they are: a dwindling mercurial high, a drug that only worked the first few hundred times’ is just an inane pop song, unworthy of the praise of a few mumnetters who have substituted bland and mindless hero-worship of Shakespeare for thinking critically about the cultural impact of contemporary artists working in the genres that today have the same kind of impact and public engagement as theatre had in Shakespeare’s time.

@littlegwyneth I had to stop myself just posting All Too Well in its entirety

Not all of her songs are good, but when she's good she's phenomenal.

Personally enjoying @Sparklingbrook and @Spoko's lyric posts. Makes me feel better for not being able to unclick the rigged vote. Neither is true for me and I'm not a fan of Shakespeare either.

Great writing is everywhere - doesn't have to be old to be wonderful and important

I would agree with that. There was a thread on here not long ago with people quoting their favourite lyrics from songs. Loads of different 'ages'.

Sorry, @Smoko not Spoko.

Apologies Spoko, whomever you are.

Yep, I'm totally with you OP. Each time I hear this lyric, my soul sheds a small tear and it forces me to contemplate my raison d'être:

"To the fella over there with the hella good hair, why don't you come on over baby and we can shake, shake, shake..."

The vote is very close with the OP being 53% unreasonable.

I've just had a read of the lyrics to Folklore - they're OK, better than many, but she's definitely no literary genius!

Spark, either way the vote goes, it works to the OP's favour. There's no "unreasonable" and I'm sure many haven't realised it.

@HereForThis

Spark, either way the vote goes, it works to the OP's favour. There's no "unreasonable" and I'm sure many haven't realised it.

I haven't even voted yet.

@User527294627

People are deliberately pulling out Taylor Swift lyrics which they think are vacuous, but (setting aside the fact that it’s pointless to consider lyrics in isolation from the accompanying music since the interplay between those things is virtually the point of pop music), I won’t sit here and be told that ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate’ is profound, genre-defining lyricism, worthy of a place on the poetic pantheon, but that ‘take the words for what they are: a dwindling mercurial high, a drug that only worked the first few hundred times’ is just an inane pop song, unworthy of the praise of a few mumnetters who have substituted bland and mindless hero-worship of Shakespeare for thinking critically about the cultural impact of contemporary artists working in the genres that today have the same kind of impact and public engagement as theatre had in Shakespeare’s time.

Well said.

I haven't even voted yet

Lucky you. I did just before I read the meanings.

@Sparklingbrook

I had to dissect Eleanor Rigby for GCSE English. Sometimes it's best not to look into lyrics too deeply maybe.

Oh I LOVE that!