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Taylor Swift

 Taylor Swift is activated by the idea of triangles. Several of her best songs feature threeway battles. I'm thinking of "Daddy, I Love Him," "Love Story," "Fifteen," "You Belong With Me," "Betty," "Illicit Affairs." "Babe." "Getaway Car."


Someone cheats, or someone has an overbearing parent. Someone uses the promise of a bad relationship as an excuse to get out of an *extant* bad relationship.

So I can appreciate "Patient Zero." It's a way of rewriting "Fifteen." What I admire in "Patient Zero" is how the two women try to negotiate the terms of *their* connection. "It's not a bad time at all...." "It's not for me to say...." These bits of throat-clearing are more interesting than the sexual drama in the song.

By contrast, Taylor Swift has not figured out a way to write about bliss. It's not within her range. But she keeps trying. As others have noted, the Travis Kelce songs are really weak. I think what Swift needs to realize is that, even when a person is happily in love, a person is still a person. A person is still complicated and foolish. This is something that Paul Simon understands:

When something goes wrong--
I'm the first to admit it.
The first to admit it--
But the last one to know.
When something goes right--
It's likely to lose me.
It's apt to confuse me--
Because it's such an unusual sight.
I can't get used to something so right--
Something so right.

I'd really like for Taylor Swift to put aside the theme of romantic bliss until she figures out whether or not she has something to say. If she *doesn't* have something to say, it would be OK for her to avoid this topic.
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