Into the Taylor-Verse

Extracts and easter eggs from a new book about Taylor

Hi, and welcome to Swiftian Theory, a collaborative newsletter all about Taylor Swift. Today we have a fun piece of bonus content. One of your Swiftian Theorists, Satu, has written an entire book about Taylor! It has 13 chapters all about Taylor’s songwriting genius, with deep dives into key songs from her catalogue. There’s a loving history of the fandom. There’s an awed and respectful chapter about how Taylor has conquered the world and made us listen to a ten-minute-long song and also the evolution of her blondeness. And there’s a total and complete history of her live tours and why she is one of the world’s most amazing performers.

Read on for an extract from the book and some sneak peeks at what’s inside.

The book comes out this Thursday in the UK and in America in October. Thank you Taylor fans for providing the inspiration for this book: it is dedicated to you. You can order on Amazon here. Or from your local bookshop via Hive.

The book was illustrated by an artist called Maddalena Carrai, who elevated my ideas beyond what I imagined:

So, what did I have to say in this book? I summoned the combined knowledge of years of fandom, every Swiftie conversation I’ve ever had, every post and article I’ve ever read about Taylor, and the pure joy of dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light. It’s hard to pick a single section of the book to represent how heavenly it is to revisit every album and tour, from the swoony meadows of Taylor Swift to the quill pen era, but here is the “standout song” section on mirrorball. There’s something about mirrorball that is such a moment in Taylor’s career. She looked hard at herself and decided who she wanted to be. She communicated with Swifties through song. And somehow, among all her heartbreak songs, this song about being a pathological people-pleaser was one of the most vulnerable she’d ever written.

mirrorball

The quandary of how Taylor can appeal to all people, all the time, is explored on ‘mirrorball’. Its imagery of the show coming to an end is pulled from Taylor’s past tours, reflecting the disappointment of the cancelled Loverfest: the disco (1989), the rodeo (yee-haw, it’s the Fearless Tour) and the circus (Taylor dressed as a ringmaster on the Red Tour) are all closed down. Speaking about writing the song in the midst of the pandemic, Taylor said it was ‘the first time, and one of the only times, that the time that we’re living through is actually lyrically addressed . . . it’s an album that allows you to feel your feelings and it’s a product of isolation.’

When ‘mirrorball’ was released, it already cut to the heart of Taylor and her drive to work even when she had every reason to rest during lockdown: ‘I have an excuse to sit back and not do something but I’m not, and I can’t, and I don’t know why that is.’ The song has become more and more prescient as Taylor’s fame has grown and we all come to terms with what it means to have our words and faces travel round the world via social media. Like Taylor’s images of fame and the spotlight going all the way back to ‘Tim McGraw’, it can be read two ways: ‘it was a metaphor for celebrity but it was also a metaphor for so many people [who feel] like they have to be “on”.’

As a celebrity and the icon of one of the biggest music fandoms, Taylor is the ultimate people-pleaser, pathologically set on creating fun album rollouts, entertaining hits and, as she revealed in Miss Americana, maintaining a certain look in order to avoid criticism. Like all the tiny mirrors on the mirrorball, she’s constantly creating new images of herself across platforms to make sure that we keep paying attention. It’s a raw sentiment for a star who has cultivated such a close relationship with fans: fame can cut both ways. Talking about whether to even release ‘mirrorball’, Taylor wondered if it was too raw. For people who grew up with the internet, and especially for those who feel they have to be online for work or to find community, Taylor is also asking us to think about the toll that turning yourself into a brand takes: ‘Every one of us has the ability to become a shapeshifter, but what does that do to us?’

The mirrorball shows us multiple versions of ourselves, and sadly it’s not always our best selves. Over the past few years, fan culture has grown into a major cultural force. It’s called the ‘fan economy’ and it relies on our loyalty and devotion to particular people or brands. Taylor has proved herself to be one of our current age’s greatest marketing geniuses, although it helps that she has an excellent product to sell: you can guarantee she will put out a high-quality set of songs every single time. In between album releases, she keeps our attention with tours; short film releases, like the one for the ten-minute version of ‘All Too Well’; and what writer Anne Helen Petersen calls her ‘gossip art’, or the way she creates exciting moments out of something as simple as going out to dinner.

Taylor is an exceptionally charismatic person, truly a sparkling mirrorball who lights up the room. But although she is superb at capturing our attention, she can’t always control the results. Taylor’s onstage plea in 2023 for ‘kindness and gentleness in our internet activities’, so that fans would stop feeling aggressively protective over her, was largely ignored. Exes, ex-friends and music critics are all subjected to avalanches of nasty comments. It’s a reflection of the mob mentality that can fester in any community, but it’s frustrating to see in the fandom of a singer who values politeness so highly and whose most aggressive statement ever was ‘Better Than Revenge’. 

An increase in time spent on our phones in 2020 meant that more people than ever were on platforms like TikTok. Taylor’s huge back catalogue and intriguing personality made her ideal subject matter for everything from quizzes about how big a fan you are to true-crime-style deep dives from fans speaking straight to camera. The Easter eggs that Taylor had been planting all her career were the clues in the murder mystery, guessing at the next album release date was the solution and we were all Poirot. Taylor joined TikTok herself in August 2021, posting fun videos for us to scour for clues about the next album (a glitch in her video turned out to be a reference to the song ‘Glitch’, from the deluxe edition of Midnights) and the kind of behind-the-scenes content we hadn’t seen from her since before she vanished during her reputation era.

The powerful narrative behind re-recording ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)’ in November 2021 was a turning point. Variety reported that ‘in two days, views on TikTok content related to Taylor jumped from a previous high of 80M to over 260M as her fans discussed the new lyrics and tried to uncover the easter eggs in the short film she directed starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien.’

If Taylor was world-famous before, now she truly had her eyes set on the stars.

Thanks for reading! Other things I love from the folklore chapter of the book are when I wrote the imaginary phone conversations of Taylor’s gossipy neighbours in Folkloretown, argued that Taylor is an indie artist, and called Bon Iver a “male musician”. An extract from the index:

Prove to Penguin Books that their faith in me was not misplaced, and that Swifties can read, by ordering Into the Taylor-Verse now. If you’re interested in more detail about how I decided to write a book about Taylor and my journey to getting it published, I share more about the process on my personal substack Based on a True Story.