Open letter to Taylor Swift

Dear Taylor Swift,

Since the age of 15, I have been listening to your music. We’ve cried together, laughed together and I’ve been in denial about the way your songs seem to mirror how I feel about my life.

“Our Song” was pure perfection. A boy I “loved” at the time used to request that I belt out the lyrics to him. This made me feel like it was “our song.” I held on with a fierce grip to every verse in the lyrics. Over half a dozen girls probably felt the same way, but to me you were singing that song just for us.

I’ll never forget “Love Song.” At the time, I liked a particular boy, and I can still remember how we locked eyes listening to those lyrics. We were jumping up and down in a room full of people and then locked eyes so tight; it seemed like a piercing blaze of fire.

Remember “Mine?” It felt like you were speaking to me yet again and I was the misunderstood teenager who had met the boy who made “a rebel out of a careless man’s careful daughter.”

Then there was “Mean” and “The Best Day.” Those were some of the best because they reminded me that the best days are with my mom and that it is possible to overcome the cruelness in the world.

“Red”… Thank God for the entire album “Red!” It has been in the CD player of my car for so long, I think it is literally stuck there. That’s okay though; it keeps me awake when I am driving on I-95 late at night.

While all of your albums have spoken to different stages of my life, I can’t help but be partial to your newest album, “1989.” “Out of the Woods” reminded me that something good can come from every relationship and that each person I have met along the way has shown me a way to get “outta the woods” and enriched my life.

Still, while every relationship can teach us a lesson, sometimes it’s hard to watch someone you truly care about just walk away. To the boy I gave all my firsts…”all you had to do was stay.”

“Shake It Off” – this was the best of all. This song makes me get up and dance because we all deserve to be unapologetically ourselves. Shaking off what people may think of us is hard, but for the most part,we should and never forget who we really are.

Other reviews have called your new album “unoriginal” or “boring,” but “1989” is everything I needed in a soundtrack for my college senior year.

The entire album is filled with songs that we can all relate to and reminds us that there will be both good and bad times, but we will all always get through them.

You have broken away from your country roots yet still stayed true to yourself with an album that has already sold 1.3 million copies. You have found a way to be successful by being yourself. That’s rare and inspirational.

I don’t always admit I’m a fan, but hats off to you, Taylor, for bringing us yet another album we can all relate to in some unique kind of way.

Sincerely,

Amanda Motley