Welcome back to The First 4 Eras: The Awards Ceremony. We are sorry to announce that due to the
unforeseen defection of a number of members of our staff to a different venue,
which isn’t actually hosting any awards evenings as we speak and won’t be used again
until at least December, we have been forced to scale things down
slightly. All future awards will now be
presented via a Yahoo livestream from a nuclear bunker in Birmingham, and we
have reluctantly sold our rights of control over the evening’s live performers
to Simon Cowell, who offered us a lifesaving sum of £5.42 if we would allow an
autotuned X Factor reject to perform Gangnam Style to the tune of Shake It Off.
Not really. Let’s
find out how the Academy has spoken about Speak Now, shall we?
SPEAK NOW: THE TOP
5
Summer 2010. Those
were the days. My GCSEs had just come to
an end, my Sixth Form days were about to begin, and I was moving further into
the Swiftie sphere all the time – encouraged, no doubt, by the appearance of a
new Taylor song that struck me, lyrically and sonically, as being Love Story
Mark 2. One listening later, I decided
that although the similarities between Love Story Mark 1 and Love Story Mark 2
were clear, Mark 2 remained a stunningly beautiful novella of a song, not to
mention a good progression from Mark 1 for lyrical maturity. Mark 2’s actual title, of course, was
Mine. Needless to say, after that, the
Swiftie sphere really was mine to explore.
Then along came my Sixth Form days. Within three months, I was making the
unprecedented decision to stand in our Student Presidential election, which
required me to make a rousing campaign speech, write a lot of campaign
literature and generally impress the student electorate. Considering that I was an absolute nobody
among my peers just a year earlier, this was progress, my decision having been
spurred on by the elements of fearlessness that I had discovered back in the
summer at that Prom where Love Story didn’t get played. However, the campaign trail was initially
rough, with two friends of mine (one of whom was also an opponent in the
election) effectively saying to me, “If you get even one vote, I’ll eat my
hat.” Talk about words like knives. Alas, things changed, the walls fell down and
I somehow managed to win the position of Vice President, and this defined the
next two years of my life, as I continued to grow and take leading roles. All of this, however, was under the looming
shadow of university applications, and the knowledge that everything I had, and
knew, in this school life would soon be gone…
Speak Now undoubtedly represented a huge turning point for
Taylor. This was the era of great
upheavals for her, with “moving out” and the realisation of her childhood dream
being documented in its lyrics. In her
own words, every song on this third album is a message for some significant
individual(s), telling them something deep and sincere that they really needed
to be told. And she went and did that by
moving away from what I referred to last time as “the teenage girl
stereotype”. Speak Now is a
feature-length message to the tune of “I’m two years older than I was when
album 2 was released, and hopefully a lot wiser. I’ve lived, hurt, regretted, but above all
else, learnt.” Thematically, it marks a
huge progression from previously, with meatier subject matters – apologies,
reconciliation and growing up – than were explored on Fearless. There’s a seismic growth in Taylor’s vocals
to match this, and let’s not forget they were exemplary on albums 1-2 as
well. But the quietest, and yet loudest,
victory of Speak Now is the little subtlety that amplifies the importance of
its subject matters, along with her artistic integrity and prowess: it’s 100%
Taylor-written.
On that note, here are the album’s greatest hits…
5) Mean
aka the song that I briefly sang on stage one day this summer, as part
of a joke about my Swiftieness and the intentionally bad efforts that my
friends and colleagues put into trying to recite a tongue-twister that I’d just
come up with. My vocals were rather
awful, just as they were when I sang along with it on the Red Tour… but at
least I had enormous fun with it both times!
Mean is a definite odd one out on Speak Now. While quite a few entries on this album (and
Fearless, too) dabble in unconventional country or transcend genres altogether,
this one is proud to be a pure country belter.
Sending out an age-old anti-bullying message in a format that it’s never
been sent out in before or since, and having lots of fun over it, speaks
volumes. It’s witty, upbeat, bold and
poetic, and crucially, there’s no explicit anger/vengeance on display. The moral of this story: Taylor’s been on the
receiving end of pathetic liars who are “alone in life”, and because she’s your
secret friend, she wants to let you know that said pathetic liars are who they
are, and not worth getting angry over.
This is Taylor shaking them off in the good old way.
Also, as several observers have brilliantly noticed, Mean
sees Taylor singing about “someday… livin’ in a big old city”, while new
delight Welcome to New York is all about Taylor coming to live in a big old
city. Mean suddenly takes on a whole new
significance. We are incredibly proud of
you, Taylor.
4) Sparks Fly
What’s the greatest three-word Taylor lyric of all time? I don’t know, but “drop everything now” is
surely a serious contender. It’s a
Swiftie icon in its own right, and the epitome of this age of electric guitar
dominance. I inexplicably didn’t take
much notice of Sparks Fly until its music video came out in mid-2011 (it was
August 13 that year on which I first
saw it), but my jaw dropped at once, and there was no looking back after
that. I’ll admit, I initially agreed
with the widespread view that the song deserved a music video that didn’t just
consist of archive footage of the Speak Now World Tour, but I’ve completely
taken that back now. Sparks Fly is an
arena blockbuster, at its best when performed in the company of 15,000 Swifties. Whether it’s opening the SNWT from a cloud of
stage smoke or electrifying the Red Tour with the help of Taylor flying around
the arena in an open pod, it has to be heard live to be fully appreciated. And yes, sparks flew on the main stage when I
was there watching her singing it.
(Sadly, though, it was during Sparks Fly that she flew away from where I
was standing!)
Sparks Fly is also one of a handful of Taylor songs that I
can legitimately claim to be able to sing in my sleep, if only that were a
thing. You know what I mean by that.
3) Ours
There’s something about soft songs.
Ours is certainly one of the pillars of the genre. It, like so many others in the same mould, is
musically simple, but that certainly doesn’t mean simplistic. In more ways than one, it’s a pretty
definitive offering from Brand Swift – the Shake It Off-style message is as
beautiful here as it’s ever been, but this is the story of exactly two people
in their own micro-universe. Basically,
if Come Back… Be Here and Love Story were to be crossed with Shake It Off, the
result would sound like Ours. In other
words, Swiftian positivity and adoration, personified.
The first time I watched Ours’ music video (which I could
probably write another complimentary essay about) was December 13, 2011; aside
from being someone’s 22nd birthday, it was the cold, wet day on
which I returned home from the University of Oxford after a series of
application interviews. It was the best,
most relaxing thing to come home to.*
Sometimes, we just need a calming tune, and that’s Ours’ greatest
triumph.
2) Enchanted
While my friend and I were on the train heading up to London for our
Red Tour concert, we discussed our very favourite Taylor songs. I won’t say what I said was my number one,
but she went with Enchanted. It’s not
hard to see why. This is the ultimate
personification of the “dreamy/romantic” genre at which Taylor has always
excelled. It’s a gorgeous musical
progression from Fearless (the song, that is), and I could even go as far as to
say that if the story of Fearless – with its tale of the most incredible first
page of a love story – were a dream from which one were to abruptly wake up,
the result would be Enchanted. It’s the
tale of the most incredible first page that was also, by implication, where a
storyline ended. We’ve all had those
moments of beautiful storylines ending suddenly because of waking up from them,
and then wishing they could have gone further; that’s Enchanted in a
nutshell. (The number of dreams like
that I’ve had featuring me meeting Taylor… I can relate. In one such dream, I found myself standing a
few feet away from her at a supermarket checkout, and forced myself to speak up
very timidly; it all ended in the middle of a shy conversation! One week later, though, my friend and I got
our Red Tour tickets, so maybe she was trying to tell us something…!)
And so the baseball cap is traded for a crown for Speak
Now’s finest. I’m afraid I have to admit
to telling a slight fib a paragraph ago.
I said I wouldn’t reveal my favourite Taylor song, but the poll has given
me no choice. It’s this one. I am absolutely overcome with delight in
revealing that the award for Best Song from Speak Now goes to…
1)
Long Live
I could probably write a short book about how much I relate to this
song! Alas, I haven’t got that much
space or time here, so I’d better try and condense my thoughts.
I came out of my social shell when I was 16. I was elected Student Vice-President two
weeks after I turned 17. I helped to
organise and execute a series of incredibly enjoyable charity events around
school over the following year, and loved having the opportunity to represent
my friends and deal with their concerns about things. I had to resign as VP just after turning 18
(in January 2012), but turned my efforts to playing a part in organising our
Year 13 Leavers’ Ball, the classy dining-and-dancing event that really would
signal the end of my school days. I
threw down the gauntlet right at the start of the Prom planning meetings and
asked for Long Live to be worked into the night. After all, this was to be a night marking the
end of seven years of great academic fun, huge personal development and
terrific togetherness with my schoolmates – there was no other song in the
world that would have summarised my emotions more appropriately!
On Prom Night itself, I was unexpectedly named “most likely
to rule the world”, having been voted the winner of this award by my Sixth Form
friends. Our charismatic Deputy Head of
Sixth Form publically thanked the student organisers of the night, including
me, and I briefly felt like a hero after all those years of hiding in the
shadows. I didn’t deserve to feel like
much of a hero, but I somehow just did, and that was the beauty of the night:
everyone was loving everyone else, right at the end of our years together,
before our long walks to the unknowns of university life (a life that I was
initially greatly apprehensive about… but I slowly settled in, and soon got the
chance to represent the University of Southampton on the notorious televised
quiz show University Challenge, which I’d dreamt of doing since I was 10 years
old).
The final “goodbye” song of Prom Night was Journey’s Don’t
Stop Believin’. It was a beautiful
choice, but it wasn’t Long Live, which I was disappointed about. The following day, my family and I drove down
to the New Forest for the day to celebrate my mum’s birthday, with images from
the night before always echoing through my head (they even played Don’t Stop
Believin’ on the radio while we were on the motorway!). As soon as I got home, I knew I had to listen
to Long Live myself, to make the school goodbyes complete. I cried.
A lot. I’m always trying to repay
the debt that I owe Taylor for this moment, but I’ll never be able to. (Many thanks also to YouTube user MyWinterFirefly
for producing the lovely Long Live lyric video that went with this listening!)
Long Live also made me cry (buckets) after I’d filmed my
last University Challenge match, bringing an end to my longest-held dream.
In the grand scheme that is Taylor’s musical progression,
Long Live is a gigantic milestone for so many reasons. Coming as the closing song on an
ultra-confessional, 100%-Taylor-written album, with a secret message “FOR YOU”,
it brings her friends, supporters, mentors and (of course) Swifties** into the
picture. She’d been searching for a
place in this world for so many years, and dreamt of the day when things would
change for her, and then she found both.
As such, Long Live feels like the very last chapter in her life story up
to that point, bringing the curtain down on the “finding her feet” years
documented in albums 1-3. After that,
the only way was up. This marks a final,
ultra-poignant side-note that puts Long Live right at the top of my list
(whether it’s at the top of your collective list as well remains to be
seen…!). I want it to be the song for my
last dance on my hypothetical future wedding day.
So, what do you think?
Next time, Red will be put under the microscope. Tune in soon for that!
*By the way, my application to the University of Oxford –
which I’d set my heart on – was ultimately shot down. I was a bit dejected after that. But as a direct result of not going to
Oxford, I got to go on University Challenge, visit Doctor Who’s 50th
anniversary celebration event in London, and pay a visit to the Red Tour! I can’t complain now!
**I have a joke these days that alleges that I am the
subject of a Taylor song. I’ve got a few
raised eyebrows from that, but I’m talking about Long Live, rather than
something like Forever and Always!
