Taylor Swift’s first album described the beauty of young love and the pain of first heartbreaks. She continued to explore romance on later records, but her view of relationships changed with age. Swift said her 2014 album 1989 showed a more mature side to her. She said one song gave particularly strong insight into the way she approached new romances.
Taylor Swift said a song from ‘1989’ shows how she approaches relationships
With 1989, Swift fully crossed over from country to pop. The sound showed a new side of her, and the lyrics did as well.
“In the past, I’ve written mostly about heartbreak or pain that was caused by someone else and felt by me,” she told NPR. “On this album, I’m writing about more complex relationships, where the blame is kind of split 50-50. I’m writing about looking back on a relationship and feeling a sense of pride even though it didn’t work out, reminiscing on something that ended but you still feel good about it, falling in love with a city, falling in love with a feeling rather than a person.”
She said she started to walk into romances thinking about the end of them. She believed the song “Wildest Dreams” demonstrated this attitude.
“That’s actually a really good example of the way I go into relationships now,” she said. “If I meet someone who I feel I have a connection with, the first thought I have is: ‘When this ends, I hope it ends well. I hope you remember me well.’ Which is not anything close to the way I used to think about relationships. It’s that realization that it’s the anomaly if something works out; it’s not a given.”
She admitted fame altered the way she approached relationships
Swift said that before 1989, she had a far sunnier view of romance.
“I think the way I used to approach relationships was very idealistic,” she told Rolling Stone (per Bustle). “I used to go into them thinking, ‘Maybe this is the one — we’ll get married and have a family, this could be forever.’”
As she aged and dated more, she began to see an ending as practically inevitable.
“Whereas now I go in thinking, ‘How long do we have on the clock — before something comes along and puts a wrench in it, or your publicist calls and says this isn’t a good idea?’”
Swift dated One Direction’s Harry Styles before the release of 1989.
Taylor Swift said ‘1989’ showed a more mature side of herself
In general, Swift said 1989 showed a more grown-up side to her. She dealt with themes that hadn’t been previously present in her work.
“I used to think that, you know, you find ‘the one.’ And it’s happily ever after, and it’s never a struggle after that,” she said. “You have a few experiences with love and relationships, and you learn that that’s not the case at all. Lots of things are gray areas and complicated situations, and even if you find the right situation relationship-wise, it’s always going to be a daily struggle to make it work. So those are different themes that I don’t think people have really seen in my lyrics before.”
Swift’s lyrics have continued to show her maturity. It seems her view of relationships is a little brighter these days, though, as she is reportedly looking to a future with boyfriend Travis Kelce.
