Taylor Swift is someone I’ve looked up to for a long time. I’ve been a fan of hers since I heard Teardrops on my Guitar on the radio when I was in middle school. More of my life has been lived with Taylor Swift in it than without. But recently I stopped listening to her pretty much completely.
Why? Well, it’s a little complicated.
And before you start to think I hate Taylor or something which is understandable based on a few of my previous posts, it has nothing to do with my feelings about her or her recent shenanigans.
Growing up, when I wrote songs, Taylor was my biggest influence. I loved her storytelling abilities, the way she used details, her lack of fear when it came to naming actual names of people in her songs, the little secret messages she’d leave in her album lyric booklets for her fans to find. I just loved every single part of it.
I ended up writing a few songs that accidentally had the same melodies of songs she’d written and released.
I wrote this one song called “Invisible” which will probably never see the light of day but the chorus was the same melody as Taylor’s “White Horse” which I didn’t realize until awhile after I had written it.
I wrote another song when I was like 14/15 that I have no clue what I even titled. To this day, I could still sing you the chorus from memory and tell you exactly where I was when I wrote it, but yeah, no clue on that title lol.
Regardless of it's name, it had the same melody as Taylor’s unreleased song, “I’d Lie” (which for all that is good and holy better be on Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) or I riot).
I didn’t notice this shared melody for awhile, either.
Taylor’s music was so engrained in my brain that I couldn’t find my own voice. I was caught in her web of storytelling and melodic genius. But I couldn’t step away, either.
This issue plagued me for years. I stopped writing songs and trying to learn guitar sometime between the release of Red and 1989. My inspiration was baby Taylor!! So much new stuff has come out since!
And it’s been messing with me again. But not for the same reasons.
When I started to dip my toe back into songwriting and guitar last winter, I genuinely never thought I’d have made as much progress as I have. And I’m still in baby stages of everything, but I’m so proud of all the great strides I’ve made!
And because of that progress. Because I’ve been seriously trying to learn guitar properly, how to sing properly, what the heck music theory is and what I need to know about it, I need to set Taylor and her music down for awhile because it’s been detrimental to my growth and progress.
Taylor Swift’s music isn’t helping me grow as a singer.
Now before anyone gets all “omg do you think Taylor can’t sing?!” on me, I want to clarify something: Taylor is a good vocalist.
Taylor’s gotten a lot of shit throughout her career that she can’t sing. And she’s not the most powerful singer. She doesn’t always have the highest high notes to amaze us with. But she’s good at what she does.
Have you heard Don’t Blame Me?? Her belts in that song are insane! They’re powerful, full of emotion, just stunning.
And Cruel Summer??? Do you understand how low and how high that song goes? I can’t sing the lowest or highest note in that song and neither can most amateur singers. Heck even some trained singers can’t!
Taylor. Can. Sing.
However, her style of singing is not what I’m after. Her tone is different than mine. She likes going for the breathy sounds in her high notes. And her voice is very suited for it!
When I sing her songs, my voice does not sound good and it’s because I try to innately match her tone. It doesn’t work for me at all.
The caveat to this is I’ve broken out of it a little bit in writing my parodies because with changing the words, I’ve gotten to adjust how some things are sung. But that’s the limit of it.
Singers whose tone I feel match better to mine include Michelle Branch, Anna Nalick, and Natalie Imbruglia. And we’re just talking tone, not skills, not range, not anything else, all these singers are a million times better than me but their tone is what I vibe more with and aspire to have.
To a lesser degree on full-tone-similarities and more of a I really love how these artists sing, my inspirations are Olivia Rodrigo and Christina Grimmie. Although I will probably never match their beautiful voices either.
And so I’ve been listening to more music from these artists because one of the ways to learn how to sing is studying what other singers do. Along with a ton of other stuff but this has helped me immensely.
Plus, when singing Taylor’s songs, I have years if not a literal decade of bad singing habits plaguing my voice. I’ve sang them too much. I’ve heard them over and over and over again. I know every detail and could pick out the minor differences between say, You Belong with Me and You Belong with Me (Taylor’s Version). It’s stale to my ears.
With these other artists though, I get to start fresh. I get to learn the details as I go. I get to discover new things and try them out.
Her music is also limiting me as a songwriter.
For the most part, Taylor’s songs are pretty linear and tell stories. She gives enough details to make it personal and for you to visualize what happened but not so much that it pigeonholes the song to her one personal experience.
Contrast this to a group like Glass Animals who has very weird lyrics. I don’t know if I fully understand what’s going on in any of their songs. Although it doesn’t matter because I frequently have “Pineapples are in my head” stuck in my head.
And this just shows there’s so many ways to approach songwriting. This storytelling way that I’ve held so close isn’t the only way and it might not even be the right way for me.
I want to play with all sorts of styles and if I’m only listening to Taylor, my instincts are going to keep dragging me down the storytelling path. I need to open myself up to more.
Taylor’s songs are also pretty simple, for the most part, when it comes to chord progressions. There’s a lot more to a song than lyrics and chord progressions, but those are the main things I’m focused on right now.
I’ve been watching a lot of videos about how chords work together, why certain progressions sound the way they do, why certain ones are popular, etc. And I’ve learned so much.
Taylor quite frequently leans on the same chord progressions. She’s used the chord progression of I V vi IV in 21 of her songs. She’s used I V ii IV in 20 of her songs.
Granted, she has a lot of songs at this point in her career, but that’s still a lot of songs with the same or similar chord progressions.
Girl has a method to her madness and it’s working for her, so no shame.
But I want to explore. I want to hear other sounds. I want to see how artists not only create within the rules, but break them and why it works.
One caveat to the repeated chord progressions is that they have made learning guitar a lot easier. You don’t have to learn as many chords to be able to play a bunch of songs! So her music is helping me in 1/3 of the skills I’m trying to find my own way in.
But overall…
Taylor’s songs are catchy and deep and emotional and I truly do love almost every single one. And while it’s really hard to not reach for Taylor every time I open Spotify or Pandora, not listening to Taylor has helped me grow a lot.
I’ve discovered new artists I love. I have new favorite songs and albums. I have more more freedom in what I’m creating.
One day I’ll get back to Taylor because I always do. But right now I’m really enjoying exploring anything else that’s out there.
So if you have any artists or albums you’re digging lately, I’d love to hear what they are!! Drop ‘em below and I’ll give them a listen!
Thank you so much for reading In the Clouds! This is a personal outlet I created to nurture my own creativity and to connect with other artsy people out in the world.
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Sounds like Taylor has taken you so far, but there are new paths. I play along with music with guitar sometimes, not chords but individual notes, picking. Enjoy Phil Keaggy's guitar work and voice alot, but I follow along at a great distance! Whatever is resonating with you artist-wise, voice or message- you gotta check that out!
https://youtu.be/tq_jZ-aGvnM?feature=shared