On Love, Nostalgia and Taylor Swift

I first discovered Taylor Swift’s back catalogue when I was about twelve years old. By that time, 1989 had already been released, but I was only just stumbling across Fearless and Speak Now. I preferred these earlier albums – Taylor’s slightly nasal country twang and lyrics about “redneck heartbreak” and pick-up trucks were the perfect backdrop to pre-teen summers in Montana ranching country. And of course, the fairy-tale love songs struck a chord with me as I began to notice boys for the first time. The Fearless album was the soundtrack to my first crushes; including one on a boy improbably named Stephen (Taylor fans will know…). When I heard the re-recorded album (released this week as part of Taylor’s bid to reclaim ownership of her music), my first feeling was one of nostalgia. Hearing these songs again – modulated by a slightly more mature voice, but still very much recognisable – brought back all the feelings they once evoked: the hopeful excitement of adolescent crushes, and a wistful longing for my own Romeo.

I have written before about the feeling that my trauma has made me grow up too fast. My biggest fear is that my past will make me hard and bitter; that I might one day be too world-weary ever to experience hope and joy again. Hearing this album after so many years transported me back to a feeling I thought was lost to me forever. The grey clouds of adulthood parted for a moment, and the hopefulness of a naïve young girl shone through. All at once, I forgot the pain of heartbreak and loss. I remembered a time when love was an exciting certainty rather than a terrifying possibility; when I sought intimacy rather than avoiding it at all costs. In short, I remembered a time before I was afraid.

And of course, this distrust of love is not purely a sign of my own trauma. For those of us who were raised on Prince Charming, the reality of modern relationships can be pretty disillusioning. Fearless recalls a time in my life when I thought that love would be clean and straightforward: a chaste kiss at the end of the third date; a sparkling ring after three months. “Dating” would mean drive-through movies and doors held open; not anonymous one-night stands and arguments over who pays for condoms. I’d like to think that I’m not so naïve anymore; but listening to Fearless again made me realise that I am – or at least, that I can be. In re-recording Fearless, Taylor could have chosen to make it sound older and more sophisticated, drawing on the indie acoustics and jaded lyrics that characterise her more recent albums. But she didn’t. Instead, she opted for a return to her earliest material: the agony of heartache, the dizzying vertigo of first love, and, most importantly, the hope for something more – for a magical courtly love story to blow the Medieval troubadors out of the water. Something, in other words, to make the rest of it worthwhile.

I am not the same person I was when I first came across Fearless. I’ve been through the heartbreaks and bad dates; I’ve said hello and goodbye to “Mr Perfectly Fine”. And yet, a little part of me is still holding out cautious hope for “someone, someday, who might actually treat me well”. Real life isn’t a fairy tale and adult love is much messier than the cleaned-up country pop of my childhood might have led me to believe. But maybe the Fearless aesthetic of Romeo on bended knee is a much-needed antidote to the cold cynicism of modern dating. The re-release of Fearless has reminded me to listen to the part of myself that is still hopeful – and, yes, a little naïve. Because at the end of the day, Taylor’s album reminds us of something we already know. From Shakespeare to Wordsworth, from Goethe to Brontë, the consensus among great artists has always been the same: once you give up on the collective daydream of true love, there really is nothing else worth believing in.

Yours in love and hope,

Rachel x