I sit in my bed, in my own apartment, at 31 years old and watch Taylor Swift sing ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’ in Melbourne, Australia as one of the surprise songs during her acoustic set for The Eras Tour…and suddenly, I’m 15 again, hearing the song for the first time on CMT.
All the memories come flooding back; the music video, ‘Our Song’, ‘Picture to Burn’, hearing Marys Song for the first time. I remember my own sparkly guitar that I begged my mom to buy me with the intention of teaching myself to play it, the way Taylor did. Turning the stories I wrote in my bedroom into songs, the poems that lived on my computer into lyrics.
I’m brought back to when Fearless was released, to being so happy that Taylor and Joe Jonas were dating (my two favorites), and then stunned silent when she revealed their breakup on Ellen.
The story of her quickly adding ‘Forever & Always’ to the tracklist because she needed to discuss her first public heartbreak.
I’m brought back to belting ‘The Way I Loved You’ as I slid down the bathroom door, tears strewn about my face, after my own first heartbreak.
I’m reminded why I couldn’t listen to ‘Last Kiss’ for a good 10 years, because the song just hit too close to home and made me too sad.
I’m reminded why Red and ‘All Too Well’ meant so much to me. I’m reminded why 1989 reminds me of my first love, my post-graduate era, and getting through really hard times at my lowest point.
I’m reminded why ‘Lover’ hurts so bad…because she was singing words that I should’ve felt about my current at the time boyfriend, but never really did. I’m reminded about the delight and saving I felt when folklore & evermore were released during the pandemic, and during a hairy time in my own love life… why illict affairs makes me sob uncontrollably.
With the first chords and lyrics, “Drew looks at me…” my entire life flashed before my eyes because Taylor Swift, why yes, she’s the most famous person in the world and will probably go down in history as the most successful artist of all time, means more to me than just that. She’s a few years older than me, I’ve followed her career since the very beginning and each song has meaning, personal meaning to me and every other Swiftie because she got us through difficult times.
Her songs, her words are the soundtrack of our lives, of my life, and to have spent the last 16 years with her in my ears, by my side, having just the right notes, the right words, the right melodies to calm me, to heal me, to let me know that it’s ok, it’s everything to me.
I never thought that when I listened to Teardrops on My Guitar for the first time that I would be here, decades later, in my own home, watching a 34 year old Taylor Swift sing it again (for the first time in a long time) to an audience of thousands halfway across the world.
Who would have thought that we’d still be here, all these years later, with her voice flowing through the headphones, and the lyrics of our childhood meaning more than ever.