This week’s poll is pretty straightforward. What’s your favorite use of a “five dollar word” in a TS song?

By “five dollar word” I mean a multi-syllabic, relatively rare word of the sort you don’t hear often in pop songs. I think we know that Taylor is fond of finding ways to work these unusual and fun vocabulary words into her lyrics.

NOMINATE your favorite five-dollar usage below.

UPVOTE the ones you like!

Discussion, as ever, encouraged. What makes you like these words and/or their lyrics especially?

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The previous poll was won by “Guilty as Sin?”. Congratulations to that bop and a half!

What does *nuanced* mean in this thread?

For this thread a *nuanced* opinion is a thoughtful opinion, BUT specifically one which is not a widely-held and often repeated opinion of fans, haters or others who pontificate about TS.

A few examples (that I personally believe):

•	people often say they want Taylor to be more experimental with her production but pretty much all the songs where she does experiment, even slightly, are widely hated and mocked by the fans

•	The often-expressed desire for Taylor to work with a new producer bc they will “challenge” her gets it backwards. New producers will be \*less likely\* to challenge her bc they will not have formed the trust that she has with her frequent collaborators (and see next point)…

•	People give both too much credit and too much blame to producers when they like or dislike a song or a choice. Taylor is also a producer of her music and she is the decider and has been for a very long time

•	Her best-produced album is Midnights 💙 

NB. I know people have super-strong feelings about this but let’s stay away as much as possible from “her best producer is X” without further elaboration. Be specific, please 😊** **

BONUS Eldest Daughter opinion 😉: (h/t to u/Expensive-Fennel-163) if this song was produced in a more Midnights-esque synth-pop fashion it would be much more appreciated (including by me)

We can only ask but please DO NOT DOWNVOTE an opinion just because you disagree. However, discussion that includes disagreement is welcome.

First of all, as a person who earned a PhD, I have no issue with the concept of honorary doctorates or Taylor receiving one. Everyone understands the difference between a “normal” PhD and an honorary one.

Secondly, I love her speech and particularly her embrace of cringe. Anyone who is a TS fan but worries about cringe needs to listen to it!

Anyway it’s puzzling to me that people can’t understand on the one hand that an honorary doctorate is given as an *honor* to recognize her contributions to music (and music education thru her philanthropy) and isn’t “stolen valor” from us *proper* nerds, and on the other hand people who hold up Taylor as some kind of “intellectual”. It’s fine to joke about her five-dollar words and admire her clever lyrics, but it’s creating bizarre expectations to treat her as a Thinker instead of an Entertainer primarily.

The fact that people could not relate sensibly to her engagement-post “English teacher” JOKE was also very frustrating. There’s **nuance** here but as ever people had to find thjngs to be offended about.

In the pinned comment below I link a news op-Ed which makes a sensible view of the doctorate situation.

What do you think?

* Did you like her commencement speech?

* Do you think people over-intellectualise Taylor?

* why do you think this topic bothers people so much?

Wrong (and weird) answers only!

We know Taylor has filmed a lot of her process and in particular was seen filming some important moments in the re-recordings journey (such as the ATW film premiere). If she has a lot of archive footage… perhaps with some reflective conversations/interviews from the perspective of having bought the masters back…

Would you be interested in a film (not necessarily a traditional documentary) about that process? What do you think the reception from the general public or the industry would be? Is this something you think Taylor would be interested in doing?

Instead of a poll today, it’s just a Question…(?)

How do you listen to TS?

* albums only? whole discog shuffle? playlists (by mood? by “muse”? by season?)?

* Do you listen to TS to bolster/change your mood? when sad do you listen to sad songs or happy ones? do you avoid sad songs when feeling happy?

* do you have rage playlists or exercise playlists?

* What if any physical media do you actually listen on?

* Are your most-played songs your favorite songs?

What does *nuanced* mean in this thread?

For this thread a *nuanced* opinion is a thoughtful opinion, BUT specifically one which is not a widely-held and often repeated opinion of fans, haters or others who pontificate about TS.

A few examples (that I do believe in personally):

•	For such an iconic album, the tour concept was weak. The concert movie is unwatchable (not a “nuancedTM” opinion, I know) and I wonder if we could ever get a better cut. 

•	The “girl squad” didn’t get hate bc it was “inauthentic” but bc it was the first time Taylor had gone away from her relatable image. She is still friends with more “squad” members than people realize.

•	The TVs being seen as drastically inferior is a product of the primacy effect and the mere exposure effect, which combine to make the familiar sound and/or the one you heard first be preferred. As a person who came into the fandom post-1989TV there are only a few tracks where I think the OG is obviously better.

•	The outrage over Taylor “changing the aesthetic” to a beach aesthetic for the TV is weird to me. The album artwork for OG and TV are very different but there’s nothing about the TV art that “betrays” the album. 

NB. Please do not mention eating disorders in this thread. This is not the place to discuss that serious issue.

We can only ask but please DO NOT DOWNVOTE an opinion just because you disagree. However, discussion that includes disagreement is welcome.

Today’s song was written for Taylor’s documentary Miss Americana. I feel like I am one of the few people who likes this song and finds it quite affecting but apparently it spikes in streams after elections so maybe I’m not totally alone.

I do feel like the lyrics are not really good but they get to the point. The tune isn’t bad!

I feel compelled, given the general attitude people have to this song, and Taylor’s other “political” songs, that people who wish for her to engage more in world issues are likely to be served more Only the Youngs and The Mans rather than idk… her more personal “issue” songs (where she generally excels, imo).

* How would you rank Taylor’s “political” songs?

For me:
MAATHP
Change
Only the Young
The Man
YNTCD

Rating: 5/10

There are so many way our favorite b-ll-ona-re could be raking in even more cash, but she chooses to deprive us of even more products to purchase!

Where is the Eras tour Live album (with a variant for each Eras featuring selected surprise songs/mashups from that Era?)

What would you buy if she deigned to sell it?

Today’s song is the most popular album track from TTPD and it’s a song about topics you don’t want to talk about with your in-laws at dinner: religion and sex.

This song was also the winner of our recent “songs about cheating” poll, which is interesting bc what cheating there is in the song is purely emotional. The song is a fan favorite for its tortured portrayal of yearning for the greener grass you think you see on the other side of the fence, or at least the grass someone is texting you about and telling you how green it is. It also has a good beat, a haunting melody and incisive lyrics.

The feelings of sexual longing and religious-adjacent guilt make a potent emotional stew, and even tho there was some backlash initially due to the presumed muse of the song not being deemed “worthy” of inspiring such a song, that subsided fairly quickly.

I will talk about the religious symbolism more elsewhere but I do have a vivid memory of arguing with several different people about how “sacrilegious” the song is to compare herself to Jesus (and yes she is doing that) and also that she was showing that “she didn’t understand the Bible” bc she “got the events of the crucifixion in the wrong order” (which should have been a warning about the bad faith critiques The Fate of Ophelia would get…). The “point” of the religious symbolism imo is pretty straightforward— to demonstrate the depth of feeling and extremity that the singer is being driven to.

Anyway, one of Taylor’s best songs imo and one of the songs where her vivid imagery, because it was about sex, flew over a lot of heads. Which is an interesting topic in its own right: why do people respond so weirdly to any TS song that is clearly sensual/sexual?

Some of the lyrics are a little wordy but they flow well and match the emotional world of the song.

Favorite lyrics: (very hard for me to choose)

I keep these longings locked
In lowercase inside a vault
Someone told me
There's no such thing as bad thoughts
Only your actions talk

Instrumental: 9/10 (I love the cut out before the last chorus)

Rating: 9.5/10

I have often thought that Taylor’s ability to write beautiful and/or catchy melodies doesn’t get nearly enough credit in discussion of her songwriting.

* What’s your favorite melody?

* What album overall is best for melody?

* Do you think her work with any particular producer brings out better melodies?

* Do you have a melody you dislike?

Taylor is the apex predator of the music industry. The orca if you will… people fear her so much they react pre-emptively and cluster defensively, and only move when she is nowhere to be seen.

I wonder if some of the “industry reaction” against Taylor isn’t from the direct remarks she’s made since Showgirl (and on the album) about how she’s not going gentle into that good night.

Like, maybe a lot of people in the industry quietly thought she was going to get married and have babies and they would “finally get a chance” without her taking up all the oxygen. But her saying “nah actually I’m sticking around” has them lashing out.

The whole recent hate train reeks of jealousy and desperation, but this one is interesting bc it seems to be “organic” in the sense that it is being led by low-level pop players. Sure, they are looking for PR but they are spewing lies and distortions bc of real feelings, or at least that’s what it looks like to me