The Manuscript

Oh, hi!

So, I’m excited to officially introduce The Manuscript, a new blog dedicated to the amazing songbook of one Taylor Alison Swift! 

Over the course of the next several years, I intend to make weekly (to start out) entries on here, each of which will provide an in-depth analysis of a single Taylor Swift song. Considering she has 274 songs, not including many of her covers/collaborations, I will be doing this for a good long while, visiting different eras every week.

Now, a little bit about myself and my motivation for starting this blog: I first became a die-hard Swiftie when I was 14 years old (during the Speak Now era in 2011) after hearing a classmate of mine sing “White Horse” in a talent show. I quickly became obsessed, listening to Speak Now and Fearless and Debut on repeat and going through her lyric sheets and liner notes. As someone who grew up a die-hard Bruce Springsteen fan, which I very much still am today, I saw Taylor as someone whose precocious genius in songwriting and artistry made her the Springsteen of her generation, and thankfully, it seems like people have finally come to recognize this.

Particularly since the releases of Folklore and Evermore in 2020, which showcase some of Taylor’s most beautiful, poetic, Springsteen-esque songwriting, I have felt increasingly compelled to do in-depth analyses of each of her songs. More recently, upon discovering the E Street Shuffle blog, where the great Ken Rosen has built up a phenomenal database of articles that provide in-depth analysis of much of Bruce Springsteen’s songbook, I really felt the desire to provide a similar online database for analysis of Taylor Swift’s songbook. As a PhD-level scholar in the humanities (albeit in film studies), I have a deep passion for analyzing the way in which stories are told. And given that Taylor Swift has consistently proven herself to be the greatest and most impactful storyteller of her generation, I began feeling like I could use my scholarly research skills, combined with my love for Taylor’s music, to dive deeper than a lot of other articles that have been written on her songs.

As such, this is not a blog where I intend to gossip about her previous relationships and who certain songs may/may not be about. Of course, I will talk about these things if they are relevant to her art or the broader cultural narrative around a song/album/era, but what I intend to spend more time exploring are ideas such as (a) how each individual song came into being, (b) the stories she communicates through her lyrics, (c) how the combination of her lyrics and melodies work to paint pictures for her listeners, and (d) how each individual song is ultimately received by the Swifties and beyond.

And, of course, I am completely open to any requests, suggestions, or feedback that any Swifties have for me as I embark on this journey. For now though, feel free to check out my first official Manuscript entry which is live right now, and is an in-depth analysis of “August,” one of my favorite Taylor songs and appropriate for the last Monday in August. 😉

(Also, and this should go without saying, but unless I feel like it is relevant to the discussion of the song, I will only be linking Taylor’s Versions of the songs I analyze when applicable).

Thank you so much, and I’m very excited to get going with this! 🙂

Nick