The more I accidentally learn about Taylor Swift, the more I like her.
I know nothing about her music except that she writes it herself. I tried to listen to one of her concert songs. But I couldn’t hear it for the massive crowd screaming in ecstasy, getting its money’s worth of 44 Taylor Swift songs for the average $456 tickets on the most lucrative concert tour in history.
The Washington Post on Swift’s $4 billion estimated tour income:
Swift’s earnings would be the most from a single tour for any musical act to date — and more than the yearly economic output of 42 countries, including Liberia, which has more than five million people.
She has a perky, bouncy presence on stage that I found entertaining, without buying one of those tickets. Certainly a welcome contrast to the boring band of Washington schlumpfs who’ve crowded onto the news stage in recent weeks.
I first became aware of Taylor Swift a few years ago when a TV production friend said he had to hang around work an extra hour after Swift was on his talk show.
Instead of getting in her chauffeured car as soon as the TV director yelled “Clear!”, Swift ran into the audience. She wouldn’t leave until she’d met and posed with every single fan who wanted a chat, autograph, and cellphone selfie.
Her TV performances are pleasantly naïve and funny. And she employs self-deprecation like a master. She was a good sport when Jimmy Fallon showed a private video of a drugged Swift after eye surgery.
I openly admit I’m intrigued by pleasant these days, in stark contrast to most everything lobbed our way by pols and media. For sure, showbiz people are notorious for genuinely faking sincerity. Swift’s TV persona might be as phony as descriptions of the intellectual demands Joe Biden makes in staff meetings.
But I doubt it. I saw a fan video clip of a party Swift threw in her home for a hundred or so fans to hear her new album in advance. Feet up, she was obviously enjoying the evening. That’s not only nice – that’s smart.
Some RedState colleagues have grown tired of TV coverage of Taylor Swift at NFL Chiefs games. I get that -- if we missed any of Patrick Mahomes’ side-arm passes. But we don’t. TV producers aren’t that dumb.
Apparently, I’m not alone. When Swift was present, NFL games drew more viewers. So, advertisers pay more so TV can pay the league more so I can watch for free. My kind of plan.
Swift has political opinions. News Shocker: They’re liberal. So, listen to Country stations.
My long experience in both media and politics is that reporters, desperate for something new, often ask about extraneous things, and the accommodating celebrity or pol answers. But the actual report ends up looking like she held a news conference to stuff politics down our throats.
At NFL games, we got glimpses of a pretty blonde woman, happily cheering her next boyfriend on the field while wearing a team sweatshirt and standing by the suite window in full view. And shyly finger-waving to the adoring camera. What’s to dislike?
If any of those GOP House zombies smiled or waved in recent weeks, I missed it. Those dense pols only know how to lower reputations. They wouldn’t know how to market free gold bullion.
At this moment, Taylor Swift is the current gold standard of marketing. She planned her musical concerts that are making billions, boosting local economies wherever she appears, reaping many hundreds of millions for herself, assorted enterprises, stadiums, hotels, and cities.
She completed one three-hour concert appearance in a downpour, her hairdo ruined, laughing and suffering along with fans. But still singing. I’ve liked such spunky women since Greer Garson and Kathryn Hepburn.
The 33-year-old Swift writes her own songs. She’s re-recording her music library that was sold to someone she dislikes. She bypassed Hollywood studios that skim off 70 percent to release her concert movie through AMC. It opened to $100 million.
She gave $100,000 appreciation bonuses to each of the 40 semi-truck drivers who haul her stage complex around. Soon, she’ll relaunch her “Eras” concert tour in South America just as summer arrives there.
Taylor Swift writes songs about her ex-boyfriends but refuses to name them. So did Carly Simon. If Swift wants to research more lyrics by lavishing some excess publicity on an alleged new beau named Travis Kelce for a while, hey, have at it! The NFL and TV networks don’t mind Swifties tuning in.
“I want these songs to go out into the world and become whatever my fans want them to be.” Fans? Since when do they matter except as wallets?
Unlike most politicians, an unfazed Swift talks back to rude interviewers. Good for her.
She is such a blessed relief from the public crap that self-important media throw at us hourly, mainly from the D.C. Swamp as if they weren’t simply handed what they’re saying by self-serving PR aides.
We’ve all seen this ad nauseam in extremis recently. So many things in our national life are out of whack. The man currently trying to play president with scripts written by others. The JV team fighting over House leadership. The Squad supporting terrorists.
Institutions formerly known as higher education endorsing terrorism and Hamas murderers, while often silencing others. Enduring inflation. Interest rates that prohibit home-buying. Rising crime and looting. Continued mass shootings. Crippling Bidenomics. Two proxy wars.
Mayors who declared their big cities sanctuaries for illegal immigrants now whining over countless thousands of illegal immigrants who believed them. Crumbling Democrat cities. Illegal immigrants, illegal drugs, and who knows who else crossing Joe Biden’s open border, seeping into the country by the millions, undocumented.
We are unable to avoid this colossal mess. It’s in our face every day and night. Results are everywhere we look. Approval of our national legislature, among other institutions, has sunk to the lowest in years.
Currently, Congress holds the approval of only 13 percent, down four points in just the past month. Democrats were hardest hit; their approval plummeted from 22 percent to 10. Good luck finding coattails on a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket in 53 weeks.
Americans, who will be asked to vote for president and Congress at that time, are fleeing news about the folks they chose.
Joe Biden was elected president for who he wasn’t. He promised a return to normalcy and an activist government fixing things.
But now, faced with that $5+ trillion in new spending, the ensuing problems that creates, and a failing president on break 40 percent of the time, the country has decided the government is trying to do too much. I agree.
The credibility of media, once a widely-trusted independent institution where I labored long, has cratered because its facts are selected to fit biased narratives.
And despite decades of medical advances, communal stress over ongoing challenges is actually lowering life expectancy in the world’s largest economy.
You can disagree with me in the comments below. But I suspect I am not alone in savoring select morsels of good news wherever I find them. Like the account by my colleague Jennifer Oliver O’Connell of a little boy devoted to saving rescue dogs.
And then there’s Taylor Swift’s music. As a word guy, I’ve never been a big fan of music videos as fast-moving visual collages behind the music, like modern art of splattered paint. I’m still not. But this Swift video does reveal part of her appeal.
It tells a real story. Forget the video, which Swift wrote and directed herself. Click on the closed caption and read the story as it unfolds. A song that makes musical sense.
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