It must’ve been some time in 2008 because we were living in CA and it was before the 2009 MTV VMAs.

I remember reading an Entertainment Weekly article about an upcoming country artist and I was going to skip it when I saw that there she was modeling in front of a bunch of In N Out Burgers.
I suddenly had a hankering for In N Out… so I figured, meh, what’s this article about… which led me down a rabbit hole.

Look.
I know I don’t have the “best” taste in music.
I rock what I rock — which is rarely rock.
I recently told my worship director after seeing a vinyl album of In Rainbows in a background of a picture he sent me.
I told him, I know Radiohead is supposed to be good… but man, I just don’t get them and I can’t get into it. He sent me a few casual-listener-friendly Radiohead songs.

I’m also ride or die with ‘Nsync. And Boyz II Men.
All-4-One also has a special place in my adolescence.

As does Tupac and Snoop and Death Row… and Cube and Warren G and Nate Dogg…

Anyway, all this to say when I heard Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won’t see, I was hooked.
Then I went and bought (yes, bought) the Fearless album and I distinctly remember telling my wife, “I think I was a teenage girl in a former life…. this just is… relatable… ”
Her eyes rolled so far back into her head, I was afraid I’d see what the other side of an eyeball would look like.
And there was no way I was going to admit that a nearly 30 year old man was singing “why can’t you seeeeeee you belong with meeeeee” at the top of his lungs in his car.
OH. Once, I believe this was in Santa Barbara, I was at a coffee shop working and didn’t have earphones on. A Taylor Swift song came on and I didn’t realize I was singing along… out loud.. until the table of students next to me busted out laughing, complimenting me on my harmonizing with Taylor.

I asked my wife if she wanted to go to a Taylor concert in LA. She said, “Absolutely not, but I wouldn’t mind if you went alone.”
I told her that there was no way that I was going to go to a Taylor Swift concert alone as a 30 year old man.

I’ve always been a huge fan of hers. But I usually kept it to myself.
I’d bring it up here and there like this article I wrote about Taylor Swift and U2. Do you remember when U2’s new album came automatically uploaded to the new iPhone and how everyone just about lost their shit? Ah. Simpler days.

It’s been fun listening to her sound change as she gets older.

There are few consistent things in my life, pop culture wise:
If Christopher Nolan drops a movie, I’m gonna go see it (except maybe not Tenet in the theaters…)
If Angie Thomas drops a book, I’m going to read it.
If Dave Chapelle drops a feature, I’m going to watch it.
If Taylor drops an album, I’m going to listen to it. (…of course, there are other artist whose album I’ll listen when it’s dropped, Bey; Em; Radiohead… just kidding… life’s too short to try to force that to happen in my life).

I still think 1989 is my favorite.
One rainy Houston morning, I woke up to see Nathanael at my desk staring out the window into the rain while Clean played.
I wish I had taken a picture.
Here’s this 7 year old, looking pensively out the window while Taylor sings, Rain came pouring down…
I had no idea how he found 1989 on Spotify.
I didn’t know how he settled on Clean.
I didn’t even know he knew how to operate Spotify. When the song ended, he hit the back button to replay it. I must’ve heard Clean over a thousand times that month.

He’s a Swiftie. He says that she’s his friend.
If the opportunity ever comes, maybe he and I can check out a show.

What’s the point of this post, you may ask, if you gotten this far?
Well you see, (at the time of writing this) this week I have a sermon to write; I have to submit goals/plans/vision for 2021; I have a letter to write; and I have a short video to make for a workshop.
So… instead of tackling any of those things to get a head start, I decided to write about Taylor Swift because I’m finally listening to the entire Folklore album and this pandemic has only made my procrastination worse.

Though you may not like her or her music, I don’t think there’s denying that she is talented and a force to be reckon with. Or maybe you can deny it.

Anyway, I have things to do…. so I’m going to go watch Schitt’s Creek.

May you be oh so more productive than I this week.

This is part of the “WRITE ON” series that I’ve been doing. Most of these “WRITE ON” posts won’t have any depth– it’s just writing for the sake of writing, so I don’t forget how to write. I tell you this mainly because I’m more focused on writing rather than editing so you’ll find more grammmmatical errors errors than normal. As always, thank you for reading!