The Lifecycle of a Taylor Swift Song

It is a fact - Taylor Swift is an unstoppable force. You can peg yourself as being above her, but in reality, there is no act of musical valor that can completely shut her out. The only thing you can do is learn to accept the inevitable lifecycle of a Taylor Swift song:

  1. Oh no, she’s at it again. What’s this? A pop number? Wasn’t she just in a denim gown, heading off to prom in a Chevy? How did yet another musical abomination slip through the cracks? C’mon Pharrell, P Diddy, Randy Jackson - do your job!
  2. You’re driving around flipping through radio stations and whoop! There it is. A catchy beat layered with that sweet, yet auto-tuned voice. Before changing the station you pause to listen for a moment, making absolutely sure that this is, in fact, Taylor Swift’s new song. Suddenly, the whiny bridge kicks in with lyrics about an ex-boyfriend. It’s like a haiku written by a 3rd grader - classic T.Swift.  
  3. You’re driving around flipping through radio stations and whoop! There it is, again. A catchy beat layered with that sweet, yet auto-tuned voice. Except this time, you listen to it. You listen to the whole thing. MAYBE you even switch to a different station where it happens to be playing again.
  4. It’s a Tuesday morning. You’re getting ready for work. As you brush your teeth with the electric toothbrush you got last Christmas, the vibrations begin to resemble a certain country-slash-pop ditty. You rinse. You spit.  And then you belt it out like it’s 1998 and you’re Shania Twain.
  5. Pretty soon this song becomes your motivational “screw you, human-with-a-penis” anthem. Because if nothing else, a Taylor Swift song gives you the confidence to face the world, despite the fact that you haven’t had reason to shave in the past month.
  6. A void emerges when you don’t have access to this song at any moment in time. You give in and buy Spotify Premium...
  7. ...BUT WAIT. You can’t listen to this horrendous three minutes and forty-seven seconds of garbage because little Miss I’m-Still-Human-Enough-To-Laugh-At-Myself took a bite out of a Georgia peach and crapped out a pile of entitlement atop her redundant love lyrics.
  8. In an act of defiance, you risk going over your monthly data plan by pulling up the song on YouTube, because your $1.29 is better spent on 5.15 gumballs than this Cowgirl Barbie. More importantly, who actually pays for music anymore?
  9. Just as you’re about to post a self-deprecating tweet about your T.Swift sorrows, you stumble upon the adorable advertisement of Taylor Swift drinking Diet Coke and magically producing a room full of kittens. Suddenly your half-baked anger escapes you, and your life resumes without constant thoughts of Taylor Swift.
  10. Six months later, Taylor Swift comes out with a new song (probably about a kitten that symbolically justifies her rights as a musician). REPEAT CYCLE

You can collect vinyl, you can worship Wu Tang, but this cycle plagues even the most musically eclectic folk. The only solution is to just Shake It Off.