One of the favorite bogeymen of freedom-from-religion types is the dreaded Religious Reactionary. By day she locks her children away in the log cabin, at night she snuggles under a hand-knit blanket while the wood stove cheerily burns all those books she’s out to ban.
In counter-reaction, some Christians work hard to prove their pop-culture bonafides — thank God I’m not like that Pharisee over there. Which brings us to Taylor Swift.
I’ve never gone through the trouble of banning Taylor Swift or any other pop musician. My life already has a soundtrack, thank you, I’m not interviewing for replacements. The pitter-patter of little feet, in my experience, is best complemented by the odd thirty-seconds of silence, which I’m always grateful for on the weeks that I get it.
But some of my daughters’ friends are all enthusiastic about this song by Taylor Swift, and the parents are apparently good with this being the thing their girls sing about. The song is about this: We’re having sex, and then I hope that later when you leave me, you don’t completely forget me.
Unfaithful lovers are nothing new as fodder for poetry, but the modern twist is this: I don’t even expect or hope for fidelity.
It’s not a song about promises betrayed. It’s a song about making peace with a complete lack of promises whatsoever.
–> Thus my dreams as a young woman are reduced to gratifying your lust and then consoling myself that at least I sorta made an impression?
***
Music resonates because we identify with it. We want to sing songs about our deepest longings, and sorrows, and joys. Taylor Swift captures the actual longings of young women today, and hence the success of Wildest Dreams. She’s singing what girls are feeling.
So why “ban” — that is, choose not to listen to — a song that documents the lived experience of the bulk of young women today?
Because my daughter, and every other woman, deserves better dreams than this.
Artwork: Johannes Vermeer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In