Though millions of words have been committed to the web concerning the massive pop cultural clout of Taylor Swift, it's important to stress that a major pillar of her fame is founded on her abilities as a songwriter. A skillset that is an increasingly rare attribute in modern pop.
For some cynical observers, the level of global attention that Swift receives feels suspicious - surely, it must somehow be the result of some kind of calculated, manufactured trajectory, mapped out in some nefarious boardroom. But, the underpinning truth is that Swift - who started songwriting at age 12 - is really the architect of her own success.
Despite the plaudits (Swift has accumulated over 300 awards, including 14 Grammys and 40 AMAs), the triumph of her recent Eras tour, high profile relationships, and jaw-dropping bank balance, the root of Swift’s mass appeal to a generation of fans lay in the emotional transparency of her songs.
Key to that is just how she approaches the songwriting process.
Rather than overly stylise or represent herself as some kind of hyper-confident pop titan, Swift often reveals vulnerability (“I’ve been the archer, I’ve been the prey”) and insecurity (“This is me, trying”).
Unlike many chart-angled acts, there's an emotional complexity that runs throughout her work. Swift’s own, nuanced presence acts as the constant protagonist of her songbook.
A brilliant result of Taylor Swift’s success is that a huge swathe of young people - increasingly saturated in disposable, attention-baiting content - engage deeply with the artistry and thematic potency of her songwriting.
With that in mind, it's no over-exaggeration to state that Taylor is one of the biggest bastions for the importance of humanity in the arts right now.
The Swift universe is founded on her raw authenticity - break-ups, anxieties, self-affirmation, hopes and dreams - the universally relatable complexities of life resonate through her strongest tracks.
But Swift, ever honest, embraces the realisation that she is made up of numerous facets, all of which she allows to take the wheel of her songs.
During her acceptance speech at the Nashville Songwriter Awards back in 2019, Taylor explained that she consciously divided her songwriting between three distinct personas.
“I’ve never talked about this publicly before, because, well, it’s dorky. But I also have, in my mind, secretly, established genre categories for lyrics I write. Three of them, to be exact. They are affectionately titled Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics, and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics.”
These three voices have clear lines of separation. Let's focus on them in more detail and spotlight some key examples for each from her songbook.
Quill Pen Style
This uber-romantic and antiquated approach is the voice she adopts if she was inspired to write the song by reading classic literature or wallowing in the romantic poetry of some of her oldest inspirations. “If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre,” Swift said.
Examples include:
Anti-Hero
Ivy (“My house of stone, your ivy grows, and now I’m covered in you”)
The Last Great American Dynasty (“Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train”)
Snow On the Beach
Evermore (“I was catching my breath, staring out an open window”)
Fountain Pen Style
The lyrical attitude under which the biggest proportion of Swift’s lyrics sit. Within this more contemporary grouping of Taylor’s songs are the finest examples of her most honest and emotionally complex lyrics.
These types of songs tend to finely detail the exact situation in which she finds herself. She then uses the mentions of her environment (objects, items, mementos) to reflect a larger narrative or emotional subtext.
The sense of place is vital, too. In these songs, there's an effort to bottle a moment, and a place, in time.
As Swift explained; “Placing yourself and whoever is listening right there in the room where it all happened. The love, the loss, everything. The songs I categorize in this style sound like confessions scribbled and sealed in an envelope, but too brutally honest to ever send.”
Examples include:
Cruel Summer (“Hang your head low in the glow of the vending machine”)
Exile
Champagne Problems (“Your Midas touch on the Chevy door, November flush and your flannel cure”)
Labyrinth
All Too Well (“You call me up again just to break me like a promise”)
Glitter Gel Pen Style
Taylor’s most frivolous lyrical category houses those more uptempo, vibrant bangers.
Think of the party-angled Shake it Off and You Need to Calm Down. Taylor’s own definition of this less adult songwriting style sums it up best; “Glitter Gel Pen lyrics don’t care if you don’t take them seriously because they don’t take themselves seriously. Glitter Gel Pen lyrics are the drunk girl at the party who tells you that you look like an Angel in the bathroom. It’s what we need every once in a while in these fraught times in which we live.”
Examples include:
Shake it Off (“All the haters gonna hate, Baby I’m just gonna shake it off”)
Blank Space
London Boy (“You know I love a London Boy, Boy I fancy you”)
You Need to Calm Down
Bejeweled (“I can still make the whole place shimmer”)
To emphasise this further, Taylor created three playlists on Apple Music which contained some of the strongest examples of each type.
Taylor's Quill Pen Playlist
Taylor's Fountain Pen Playlist
Taylor's Glitter Gel Pen Playlist
Though markedly different stylistically, it's undeniable that all three represent absolutely true facets of Taylor Swift’s actual personality. There's a consistency of honesty that unifies the three 'pens'.
By being open about how these three bold personas inform her songwriting, Swift’s young audience have been shown that emotional articulation and self-determination are strong, positive attributes.
Crucially though, right now, Taylor's work is consistently communicating the magic and importance of the art of songwriting itself to a new generation. That can only be a good thing.
Writing authentically has also allowed Taylor to reflect and interrogate her own experiences, almost akin to therapy; “A good song transports you to your truest feelings and translates those feelings for you. A good song stays with you even when people or feelings don’t,” Swift also said during her Nashville Awards acceptance speech.
The lyrics are a key element that makes Swift’s work resonate so well. But, they're not the only one. Swift's hook-craft is top tier, and while she’s collaborated with the likes of Max Martin, Bon Iver and Jack Antonoff on some of her most successful cuts, that ear for a good melody been a notable staple of her songbook since the early days (Tim McGraw, Teardrops on My Guitar).
In an article for the Greenwich Sentinel, CEO of Girls With Impact, Jennifer Openshaw was fascinated by the feverish devotion that her own daughter and other young female 'Swifties' had towards her.
Jennifer spoke to a few of them to get to the heart of just why her work resonates so well with her young, female fans; “Ms. Swift is not just a pop star, but a personal and professional role model, and as one girl stated, ‘a confidant,’” Openshaw writes.
“Through Ms. Swift’s songs and her on and off-stage presence, young women find someone who understands them - ‘someone who’s fighting the fight for them,’ as they put it.”
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