But then I just couldn't stop listening to the song. It would come on the radio and I would ask whoever was driving to turn it up, and I would belt out all of the lyrics. I didn't want to admit it, but I kind of liked Pop Taylor. I was curious about the rest of the album.
My first memory of the impact of the "Red" album is a snapshot of me sitting in my living rom on a very sunny afternoon, late October. The day held the rare kind of weather where the sky is a brilliant memory of September-blue, and the leaves outside are still gold and crispy and everything in the air somehow smells of pine and maple, even in the city. Where it's still warm enough to leave your favorite winter coat unbuttoned, but there's enough chill in the air to warrant stuffing your hands in your pockets, a reminder of the winter to come.
I was cross-legged on the couch, editing an article that was going to be submitted for a local non-profit where I volunteered. This was the fall of 2012, and while I hadn't yet begun my very short-lived career as a freelance writer, I was still motivated in the dream that I would someday earn my living by the written word. I was offering to edit anything and everything I could get my hands on, in order to build my portfolio. And, to inspire my work, I decided to put on some Taylor Swift. I played the album from the beginning, energized by the kick of the drum beats and kaleidoscope lyrics in songs like "State of Grace" and "Red". I didn't pay much - if any - attention, to the lyrics in "Treacherous", but the lulling pattern of the music reminded me of what I dearly loved in Taylor's previous albums. It provided a steady, coffee-shop-calm to my work. I should have listened to those lyrics, because they may have prepared me for what was to come.
Guitar strings filtered through my speakers, the introduction of another song. It was familiar Swiftian strumming. "....And I left my scarf there, at your sister's house. And you've still got it in your drawer, even now."
Woah.
I had missed something. Those lyrics grabbed me and I immediately clicked away from my work and back to the song. I settled back in and listened to Taylor weave a story of perspective gained and innocence lost, and in that first listen, I knew that this track -- track 5, "All Too Well" -- would be the anchoring point for my experience of the entire album. From the hope-filled lyrics like, "It's been occurring to me, I'd like to hang out with you for my whole life" (from the lilting "Stay, Stay, Stay"), to the harmonized heartbreak in "You wear your best apology, but I was there to watch you leave" (as composed in the duet, "The Last Time"), every happy, free, confused and lonely moment on the album called forward to and pointed back at the devastating beauty of the relationship featured in the autumnal "All Too Well." Each song was it's own shade of vulnerability, and though I knew that most of these songs were about actor Jake Gyllenhaal (I just had to look up the spelling of his name), and the level of physical intimacy he and Taylor shared, I still deeply connected with the lyrics to every song, even in my own singleness.
There were 3 guys in my life during that first year of the "Red Era", (October 2012 - October 2013) and while none of them were ever lovers of mine, the prospect that each of them could potentially be "the one" caused enough hope and heartbreak for me to play "Red" quite a bit that year.
The first of these men was one whom I had dated very briefly in the summer before my senior year of college. He was different from me in every way that mattered, and in my immaturity and flair for the dramatic, I pulled him in and pushed him away one too many times. He eventually decided to date the girl who was waiting in the wings while I was flailing in my own insecurities, and by the time I decided that I wanted to be with him, they were a couple. I ran into him not once, not twice, but THREE times that year, and each time, I was a hysterical wreck of a person who couldn't figure out how to string two words together. And then, I'd run home as fast as I could, burying my flushed face into my coat as I walked, and I'd play the "Red" album while scrubbing my kitchen, sobbing my eyes out, and searching for my dignity.
The second and third guys were both people I had known since college. Both thoughtful. Both charming. Both bookish, and writerly and witty. Both were excellent friends of mine, and though I attempted to initiate cinematic beginnings of a longstanding relationship with each of them at various times between 2012 and 2013, I never got more than bourbon-tinged caresses. or first kisses laced with late night snow.
Musically, Taylor Swift has stated that "Red" was experimental and chaotic in its cohesion, deliberately cobbled together as a way to best express all of the extremes and contradictions that one experiences in the middle of heartbreak. And, I think that it makes sense that, at 22, she was trying on all sorts of different musical genres, and overall aesthetics. After all, what is your twenties, but a decade of trial and error - a time of excruciating self-awareness, unnerving contradiction and heightened - often misplaced - confidence? Of and triumph and tragedy and wanderlust in all its forms? Miserable and magical, oh yeah.
I learned a lot of who I was at the time when I listened to "Red". I also learned about the woman I wanted to be. In addition to the battle scars retained on the heart-on-my-sleeve, for me, the lasting legacy of Taylor's "Red Era" persona was the prominence of her (now-signature) red lip, and her mid-century fashion sense. For a brief, shining moment, in the summer of 2012, right before the release of "Red", Taylor Swift dated Connor Kennedy, a Camelot heir, and grandson of Robert and Ethel Kennedy. And she dressed the part marvelously for the rest of that era.
I was obsessed. Though my own fascination with America's tragic royalty had not yet reached the intensity it is today, it was Taylor's preference for pearls, mid-length dresses and bold red lipstick which convinced me that a modern gal could dress like a "Mad Men" beauty and make it work. I've been committed to that style ever since.
A lot has changed for the better in the last 9 years -- for Taylor and for me. Yet I still hold so dearly the lessons I learned when stumbling through that first-apartment, post-college year. I scraped my knees and bruised my ego with every new man I fell for, but I bandaged my wounds with plaid-shirt lyrics and the belief that someday, everything would change, and I might watch my life - and my love - begin again as a stronger, bolder version of myself.
Like burning red.
