Experiencing the New in Taylor Swift's 1989
Everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!
"Everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!" - 2 Cor. 5:17b
"Everybody here was someone else before…It's a new soundtrack, I can dance to this beat forevermore." - Taylor Swift, "Welcome to New York"
Whenever we encounter newness in life (a marriage or a new job, for instance), there's always someone who warns us about that dreaded time when the "honeymoon phase" wears off. For some reason, we find it necessary to share from experience that things are gonna get worse, that joy and excitement have their limits. If we wait around long enough to reach maturity, we'll surely be disappointed (at least that’s what people say, mm-mm). Of course, we've all experienced these disappointments. You're probably thinking about a project or a relationship right now that once sparked a delight that is now dimming or entirely snuffed out. So perhaps there is wisdom in warning others about what awaits them once the vibrancy of the new wears off.
Perhaps, however, we don’t think highly enough of such new joys. Perhaps wisdom would instead teach us to rejoice with those who rejoice, to embrace the sparkling light of newfound, childlike joy in others, and allow it to shine brightly on our own experience. Taylor Swift's album 1989 offers such a light, bristling with the excitement of dancing to new soundtracks down roads not yet taken and catching glimpses of forevermore.
Though much has been made of “eras” recently, 1989 truly marked a new era in Taylor Swift’s music. Gone was any trace of country twang. Gone were the acoustic accompaniments. While she flirted with synthesized pop on Red, here Swift committed to something wholly new in her career. Twinkling synth lines announce our arrival into metropolitan city life on “Welcome to New York” (Side note: If you get a chance to listen to this song as your plane comes to a landing in NYC, Annaleigh and I would highly recommend it). Blasts of brass punctuate the gigantic “Shake It Off” and “I Wish You Would.” The choruses and bridges are huge, and Taylor sounds positively delighted throughout. Layers and layers of carefully chosen textures and sounds fill every moment of the album, creating something familiar (loosely hearkening back to the styles of the eponymous year), yet contextually brand new and brimming with life.
In this new space, Taylor invites us to join her in experiencing something different and wonder-filled. On “Blank Space,” we share in the excitement of new romantic encounters, dying to see how they might end and hoping that love is “gonna be forever.” Similarly, on “You Are In Love,” we feel those brief, jittery sparks of connection that fan into lasting flames. Here are invitations to experience a love-filled eternity in the ephemeral. Again, we might say this is naive. This is just childish talk.
Well, sure.
But the kingdom belongs to such as these, who dare to meet the world with wonder, open hands, and blank spaces. This is the posture of childlike faith, where we expect to find goodness in the world (and perhaps even encounter the Spirit of God) and embrace it, no matter how many disappointments come our way.
Of course, those disappointments do come at times (maybe even often). Taylor isn’t ignorant of this, and 1989 isn’t just an album of puppy love and wide-eyed naivete. She tells the truth about what happens when mad love turns to bad blood. When she sings “The drought was the very worst / when the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst,” she expresses her heartbreak and sadness just as intimately as her joys, with wordless cries underscored by relentlessly pounding bass, devoid of frills to mask the pain. On “Wonderland,” Taylor even considers whether she should give in to the wisdom of the skeptics.
Didn't they tell us "Don't rush into things"?
Didn't you flash your green eyes at me?
Haven't you heard what becomes of curious minds?
Ooh, didn't it all seem new and exciting?
I felt your arms twistin' around me
I should have slept with one eye open at night
Ultimately, however, 1989 asks us to choose curiosity over skepticism. Instead of settling for the way things are, Taylor pushes forward to rediscover the newness—the good and wonderful thing that inspires childlike joy—no matter how long it takes. There’s something mysterious in this. We never know when that good and wonderful thing will be revealed to us, and we can’t manufacture it either. What we can do in the meantime, however, is keep looking…and keep dancing. And so instead of gettin’ down and out about the liars and the dirty, dirty cheats of the world, Taylor dances and asks us to join her.
I got to see the Eras Tour concert film this week, and what filled me with more joy than anything was seeing two elementary-age siblings out of their seats in one corner of a half-empty theater and a woman in her sixties in another corner, dancing with absolutely zero inhibitions to “Shake It Off.” It made me think, just how many dance parties or car seat karaokes (public or private) has this music afforded? How many people have been able to practice freedom amid their life circumstances through these songs? How many people have been reminded that if you’re “too busy dancing” through life’s brokenness, especially in the company of others, you won’t get knocked off your feet? My mind can’t fathom it. But I believe all of these circumstances participate in the mission of God’s Spirit of freedom, constantly at work renewing people, comforting them, sustaining them.
We may not know when we are gonna make it out of the woods, but we can’t just wait around to find out. 1989 offers us a necessary and life-giving reminder of the childlike joy we’ve previously experienced in the new. It offers us an opportunity to “keep cruisin’” rather than stagnate in life’s hardships. And finally, it ends (before the incredible bonus tracks) with an unforgettable expression of grace on “Clean.” Here, Taylor recounts what it feels like to realize that a relationship with an ex isn’t as painful as it once was. “It hit me that I’d been in the same city as him for two weeks and I hadn’t thought about it,” she told Elle in 2015. “When it did hit me, it was like, ‘Oh, I hope he’s doing well’. And nothing else.” This movement from hurt and sadness to genuine regard for another person is not a movement we can make if we just try hard enough. Because no matter how much we keep moving, opening ourselves up, and practicing freedom, the freedom itself to feel entirely new again comes unexpectedly as a gift.
So we embrace it, like rain pouring over our face and washing away what we can’t hold onto any longer. I absolutely love the way Imogen Heap’s voice comes in after the bridge like a cascading waterfall that crashes into the chorus. It’s a beautiful reminder that this offering of renewal comes from outside ourselves. We only experience the beauty and joy of newness when we are willing to receive from others, whether human or Divine. We are not made to be self-reliant individuals who simply grow in understanding about the way the world works and grow skeptical of childlikeness. Instead, we take each other by the hand, we dance, we extend grace to those who need it, and we receive that grace back. Perhaps if we can practice this, we’ll find that new things have been waiting to welcome us in all along.