For the past few days I’ve experienced pure joy...

Monday, September 24, 2012

For the past few days I’ve experienced pure joy every time I’ve blasted this song in my car. It’s pure joy that manifests itself in nearly every car journey, since the song’s in heavy rotation on two radio stations and will soon be on four. It will only get bigger. I came home and tried to recreate that feeling by playing the Long Blondes, but it wasn’t the same. So now I’m blogging about it. What is blogging for if you can’t blog about Taylor Swift?

This song feels marvellously subversive to me, even though I know songs like this have been sung before. Pink’s made a career from it, and there are strong hints of Clarkson throughout this one, as well as Carly and a bit of Courtney. But Taylor Swift is singing it like a prissy alpha bitch, and not like a tough girl, and not like a spurned girl, and not like a girl who carries a torch, but like someone who was dumb and duped by boyfriend expectations and realized that she didn’t have to take it anymore. It’s so absolutely joyous to say no, to walk out of some jerk’s bedroom and delete his number from your phone before you reach the front door. It’s thrilling to yell, “There’s no way I’m opening this door for you!” Saying no is a whole lot of fun.

I know this song was written by a couple of dudes as well, but I think of all the 14-year-old girls who will listen to it and walk away from their dumb boyfriends. All those prissy alpha bitches. Sure, you got yourself into the situation in the first place, but sometimes it’s ok to be a prissy alpha bitch who knows better.