Speaker 1: Now really.
Speaker 2: Really now really hello, and welcome to really know really
Speaker 2: with Jason, Alexander and Peters Hilden, who ask you to
Speaker 2: please subscribe as swiftly as possible. And swift really is
Speaker 2: the word of the day, because on this episode we'll
Speaker 2: be talking about Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3: Within hours of its release.
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift's new album just broke multiple streaming records, her
Speaker 2: era's tour has earned over one billion dollars, and Harvard
Speaker 2: University is teaching a course on Taylor Swift. Yes, Harvard,
Speaker 2: that bastion of higher education, has a new course about
Speaker 2: the art and craft of tea swizzle really no really.
Speaker 2: In this episode, Jason and Peter engage with Professor Stephanie Burt,
Speaker 2: who teaches the Swift course at Harvard, to discuss her
Speaker 2: class and to help take a closer look at the woman,
Speaker 2: her music, the music industry she has upended, and her
Speaker 2: rabbit fan the Swifties. Plus you'll hear how your hosts
Speaker 2: were a tiny little part of the meteoric.
Speaker 3: Rise of Taylor Swift and as a result, how she
Speaker 3: owes it all to them. Here's season and Peter, now.
Speaker 4: Are you ready to all right? The really you know really.
Speaker 1: The topic today started that Harvard is teaching a course
Speaker 1: on Taylor Swift. Really it is.
Speaker 5: It's called Taylor Swift and Her World. Now at first
Speaker 5: and find out why we that course? And at first
Speaker 5: you go, really, I think it's I think? Second, we
Speaker 5: went really and I'll tell you why? Yeah?
Speaker 4: How much am I paying Belly for your courses?
Speaker 1: Thank you? How much is Harvard this year? It's sixty eight?
Speaker 1: And what's on your curriculum this year? The Taylor Swift course?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Right? And what are you gonna up in a
Speaker 4: little Taylor Swift shop of pooh pooh?
Speaker 5: You sit there and you go, what could this be?
Speaker 5: But that's why we want to walk class. This is
Speaker 5: an easy a listen to this description. This is not
Speaker 5: an easya. This is the course description. The first song
Speaker 5: on Taylor Swift's first record, released when she was sixteen,
Speaker 5: pay homage by name to a more established country artist. Today,
Speaker 5: she's the most recognizable country or formerly country or pop
Speaker 5: artist in North America, if not the world. Her songwriting
Speaker 5: takes in a half a dozen genres, and her economic
Speaker 5: impact changes cities. We will move through Swift's own catalog,
Speaker 5: including hits, deep cuts, outtakes, re recordings, considering songwriting as
Speaker 5: its own art, distinct from poems recited or silently read.
Speaker 5: We will learn how to study fan culture, celebrity culture, adolescence,
Speaker 5: adulthood and appropriation. How to think about white text Southern texts,
Speaker 5: Transatlantic texts, and queer subtexts.
Speaker 3: We will learn.
Speaker 4: I'm not done, und We're gonna have to teach you on.
Speaker 5: But I mean, this is, this is, this is.
Speaker 3: I couldn't pass this course.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm doing. I couldn't pass this cool
Speaker 4: I'm doing. I'm transferring to the minute work course across
Speaker 4: the whole.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you something. I took a course when
Speaker 5: I was in college because I was I was a
Speaker 5: theater major, so I was studying walking and talking and
Speaker 5: I know, I know my course. He's ridiculous Boston University, Yes,
Speaker 5: But I decided in my junior year, I'm going to
Speaker 5: take one course where I can take a course.
Speaker 4: You know where I'm gonna learn.
Speaker 5: But I also wanted it to be something that I
Speaker 5: knew was gonna be sewing my wheelhouse and I was
Speaker 5: gonna nail this thing. So I took a course called
Speaker 5: Arthurian Myth and Legend, never seeing it was a graduate
Speaker 5: level course. Didn't note that, and I thought, I've seen Camelot.
Speaker 5: This is gonna be.
Speaker 4: Cake probably cool life.
Speaker 5: Ever day one he hands us the Morte de Arthur
Speaker 5: in Middle English. That's the first book we're going to read.
Speaker 5: There were five papers and three books, none of them
Speaker 5: in standard English. And the man gave me a D
Speaker 5: for the course. And he said, because he just showed
Speaker 5: up and I didn't think you would, He said, I
Speaker 5: should give you a knaugh.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: He said, you have not had not one original thought.
Speaker 5: You have actually now, I.
Speaker 1: Said, Jason Nina, by the way, let me let me
Speaker 1: give for people who don't understand Taylor Swift, whether you
Speaker 1: like her or not or even know much about her,
Speaker 1: has had such impact on our culture.
Speaker 4: She's won.
Speaker 1: And what's weird is I had a really hard time
Speaker 1: finding stats because it's like when you're looking at McDonald's,
Speaker 1: it keeps.
Speaker 4: Changing, the worrying.
Speaker 1: So I think with an asterisk, I think these are
Speaker 1: the latest, right, Yeah. Fourteen Grammy Awards, including four per
Speaker 1: Album of the Year, the most one buy an artist,
Speaker 1: the most one by an artists, Emmy Award, forty American
Speaker 1: Music Awards, the most one buy an Artist, thirty nine
Speaker 1: Billboard Music Awards, one hundred and eighteen Guinness World Records,
Speaker 1: three MTV Music Awards, twelve Country Music Awards, and then
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones one hundred Great Songwriters, fifty million album sales,
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty million single sales as of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: one hundred and fourteen million million units globally, including six
Speaker 1: seventy eight billion streams as of twenty twenty one, highest
Speaker 1: grossing female touring act ever with cumulative ticket sale.
Speaker 4: Of one point nine six billion dollars.
Speaker 5: And I just saw and that's none of this is
Speaker 5: even the most important thing about her, which is the
Speaker 5: only person to come out of the motion the motion
Speaker 5: picture Cats unscathed.
Speaker 4: Unscathed, unscathed. That was story.
Speaker 1: We were a little bit because we not having a
Speaker 1: country act.
Speaker 5: I met her, you know, fortuntiously when when she was
Speaker 5: quite starting out, but you actually have sat you did.
Speaker 4: Country radio a lot of from the starting every year.
Speaker 1: She came in a lot when we were starting out,
Speaker 1: and then she went on Brad Paisley's door tour when
Speaker 1: I got you into direct and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So she got into a bit of a pickle in Singapore,
Speaker 1: because she went to Singapore and performed. The other Asian
Speaker 1: countries were pissed off because Singapore paid her to come,
Speaker 1: and there's a radius clause, you know, where you can't
Speaker 1: appear other places you're.
Speaker 4: Going to play.
Speaker 1: So they were so pissed because what she did for
Speaker 1: the economy there, they say she probably took it up
Speaker 1: by percentage points. The entire economy in Singapore gross domestic
Speaker 1: product will probably expand two point nine percent in the
Speaker 1: three months ending March thirty first, And economists here use
Speaker 1: her when they make an economic forecast if she's touring,
Speaker 1: if she's touring, because she's that impactful and employs that
Speaker 1: many people when she shares the time.
Speaker 5: I mean I haven't tucked to her obviously in many,
Speaker 5: many years, but anecdotally lovely only men.
Speaker 1: It seems to be really lovely. No one could have
Speaker 1: predicted that she would be what she is.
Speaker 5: Well, I no one could have predicted. I gotta tell you, well,
Speaker 5: you and I had the same experience of her. So
Speaker 5: when we were at when we were shooting Brad's video
Speaker 5: that she made an appearance in, we sat and watched
Speaker 5: the concert that night, and she was the opening act
Speaker 5: and she comes out to a crowd that wasn't there
Speaker 5: for her necessarily. She's seventeen. I think at the time
Speaker 5: she's out there with a guitar. I think she had
Speaker 5: a couple of band members. She's got the bracelets on
Speaker 5: the Friendship bracelet. It was like she was performing in
Speaker 5: her living room. She was so comfortable that people that
Speaker 5: really were you know, sometimes with an opening act, they
Speaker 5: don't even stop. If you're in the audience, they don't
Speaker 5: even stop talking. You just deal with what you're with.
Speaker 5: Within a song or two, the whole audience is looking
Speaker 5: at her, and by the end of this thing, they're like, no,
Speaker 5: do another number doing But.
Speaker 1: That said, but to transcend to become one of the
Speaker 1: biggest starts, if not the biggest star in country music,
Speaker 1: and then go, you know what, I'm going to transcend that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go and not alienate that on his keep them.
Speaker 5: And then somebody said, not like put a tone into
Speaker 5: epping out on your next album.
Speaker 4: Just the thing done.
Speaker 5: My next album is pop, all of it pop.
Speaker 1: And managed not to only neate the country on it,
Speaker 1: which is very special. So it's going to be fascinating
Speaker 1: for profess. Here's what we know before we even go in.
Speaker 1: She's smarter than us. Oh that was she was smarter
Speaker 1: than us at fourteen or sixteen or seventeen.
Speaker 5: So so let's say hello, this remarkable professor.
Speaker 4: Good to have you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: I really are already doing the name of our show.
Speaker 1: This is a professor remote, a professor Stephanie Birt from Harvard.
Speaker 4: Have a pleasure to have you on. Nice to see you.
Speaker 6: I'm not happy to be here.
Speaker 1: So the Taylor Swift course, how how did that happen?
Speaker 4: And if Jason jameson, how.
Speaker 5: Did I would love because you know, Peter and I
Speaker 5: have to pitch projects for a living. I would love
Speaker 5: to understand the pitch meeting. If there was such a
Speaker 5: thing where you went to the administration and went I
Speaker 5: got one. How about a course Taylor Swift? How did
Speaker 5: you sell that to the powers that be?
Speaker 6: So I didn't really have to This is just an
Speaker 6: English course. Oh and if you are an English professor
Speaker 6: and you just want to teach an English course, or
Speaker 6: a music professor's meaching a music course, I suppose a
Speaker 6: bio professor and you just want to teach an evolutionary
Speaker 6: biology course. You just go to your department chair and
Speaker 6: say can I teach this? And if your chair says yeah, sure,
Speaker 6: that sounds good, then you can list it and see
Speaker 6: who shows up.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 6: Wow, that amount of trust in us, which I hope
Speaker 6: I haven't betrayed you.
Speaker 5: On the showing up was not an issue once you
Speaker 5: posted this topic, I would have meagined.
Speaker 6: I did not expect this level of showing up. I've
Speaker 6: been wanting, you know, songwriting is a literary art form,
Speaker 6: and it's when I think about a lot, and I've
Speaker 6: been wanting to teach a course organized around a songwriter
Speaker 6: for quite some time, But until recently, the songwriters I
Speaker 6: thought about were people like Scott Miller from Game Theory,
Speaker 6: whose work I love, but who you're not going to
Speaker 6: fill room yet with the point is that with Taylor,
Speaker 6: you've got a great songwriter. You've got a songwriter of
Speaker 6: genius who I feel like I understand what she's doing
Speaker 6: well enough to teach it, partly just because I'm so
Speaker 6: deeply engaged with the words in the melody, and partly
Speaker 6: because the stuff that I'm not common to teach, which
Speaker 6: is complicated like jazz harmony, changes. She doesn't do right
Speaker 6: right like I would need a lot of help teaching
Speaker 6: a Joni Mitchell course because those courts are weird. Taylor's
Speaker 6: melodies and textures and words are amazing, and the chords
Speaker 6: are just they get the job done. They're great, but
Speaker 6: they're not complex. Someone like me understands them.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 6: And so here's this songwriter who I love where maybe
Speaker 6: some people would show up, and I did not expect
Speaker 6: this many people. I talked to my students about it
Speaker 6: last fall and said, hey, would your friends take a
Speaker 6: Taylor Swift course? They said, yeah, yeah, our friends would.
Speaker 6: But I really thought it was going to have like
Speaker 6: a twenty person who are a thirty person seminar until
Speaker 6: the media started showing up?
Speaker 5: And how many do you have? How many students are
Speaker 5: in the course.
Speaker 6: We've got two hundred.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What's interesting to me about your course because I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew Tailor a bit because they did country radio
Speaker 1: in La So I got the hanger at the beginning,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of her career, which is pretty fascinating.
Speaker 4: We've talked about that.
Speaker 1: But I got to tell you, I was a little
Speaker 1: daunted doing this because I'm out of the demo and
Speaker 1: I didn't think her songwriting was that superior because I
Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't dive into a songwriting. So I
Speaker 1: enlisted my son, who writes and does records and stuff,
Speaker 1: who's in his twenty.
Speaker 6: I love that.
Speaker 1: And I asked him a couple of questions before this,
Speaker 1: and I said to him, first of all, I said,
Speaker 1: so explain to me. It seems to me like every
Speaker 1: time she breaks up with a guy, she writes about it,
Speaker 1: and she's a victim. And my son looks at me
Speaker 1: and goes, she is. But here's the deal. Victimhood is
Speaker 1: not buying her. And what she does with the victimhood
Speaker 1: is she turns it into a win. So she's also
Speaker 1: like a Marvel superhero. And I looked up this term
Speaker 1: and if you used or not, and I'm probably mispronouncing
Speaker 1: it hermaneutic friend or hermanetic.
Speaker 6: Friend, hermitic friendship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, hermany which means she understands what you're going
Speaker 1: through and she's going to help you get through it.
Speaker 1: So my son said, you don't understand there's a power
Speaker 1: to overcoming stuff.
Speaker 6: That's right, So can.
Speaker 1: You talk to that a little bit about because I
Speaker 1: would have just said it seems like victim and he
Speaker 1: looked at me like, no, don't be that simplistic.
Speaker 6: That so well, first, your son is right, Hello, you're
Speaker 6: sign the second yeah. Hermitic friendship is a term coined
Speaker 6: by the poet and critic and thinker Alan Grossman, who
Speaker 6: we lost not that long ago, and his idea was
Speaker 6: that when you read a poem that really speaks to you,
Speaker 6: it's not exactly like you're making friends with the person
Speaker 6: in real life. If you can't, you know, go out
Speaker 6: for coffee with them, they don't, you can't interact with
Speaker 6: them in real time. But you have a work literature
Speaker 6: that speaks to you, that knows what you're going through,
Speaker 6: that sees you or hears you in some deep way.
Speaker 6: Hermonuic just means having to do with interpretation. So this
Speaker 6: is a friend you can interpret, who can interpret you,
Speaker 6: who's there for you as a work of art. And
Speaker 6: a lot of Taylor's songs do that. She does write
Speaker 6: breakup songs. She does write hey, this relationship ended and
Speaker 6: it ended, perhaps on bad terms, songs about many of
Speaker 6: her romances. She's also got a couple of songs about
Speaker 6: relationships that ended on good terms. Taylor Lautner, who's one
Speaker 6: of her first serious relationships. She writes back to December
Speaker 6: about what a good boyfriend he was, and she kind
Speaker 6: of wishes the things it ended differently, and he's great,
Speaker 6: So it's not like she's always going after her exes.
Speaker 6: She's also got a ton of songs, some of my
Speaker 6: favorite songs which are not about dating or erotic relationships
Speaker 6: at all. One of her great early triumphs is a
Speaker 6: song called the Best Day, which is mostly about how
Speaker 6: good a mom her mom is My favorite from the
Speaker 6: vault tracks on Red is a song called Nothing New,
Speaker 6: which she it's a duet with Phoebe Bridges, and it's
Speaker 6: about her fear of losing her relevance, of ceasing to
Speaker 6: be interesting to the public once she's no longer the
Speaker 6: next big young thing. Everybody loves an agen, she says
Speaker 6: in that song. So she has a considerably wider range
Speaker 6: of topics than just break up her romance and one
Speaker 6: of the messages that a lot of her songs are sending.
Speaker 6: Not every great work of art has a message, but
Speaker 6: she often does. One of her repeated messages is give
Speaker 6: your heart to a guy. If you want ball for
Speaker 6: a guy, if you want smooch a guy, if you
Speaker 6: want sleep with the guy if you want, and you
Speaker 6: could stay with him or you could not stay with him.
Speaker 6: But do not make what he thinks of you the
Speaker 6: measure of your worth. Know that you can survive and
Speaker 6: you can thrive, and you can be yourself without depending
Speaker 6: on those men.
Speaker 1: So I also saw that a thing that she uses
Speaker 1: lex with, I wasn't ware of l a cts, which
Speaker 1: which is like families have lex And I said to Jason,
Speaker 1: we've been thirty years, we known each other, so we
Speaker 1: have shorthand and words that we use that only we know,
Speaker 1: and that if you come into the family, then you
Speaker 1: pick them up. And she uses those selectively in her songs,
Speaker 1: which helps build community. Is that is that do other
Speaker 1: artists not do? That? Is that unique to her? So
Speaker 1: so I also saw that a thing that she uses
Speaker 1: lex with, I wasn't where of l a cts. Is
Speaker 1: that unique to her?
Speaker 6: So l E I know what an l e K is.
Speaker 6: It is a term from animal behavior in anthropology, and
Speaker 6: I know what l e X is. At the dating site,
Speaker 6: strangely they over she just lesbian animal behavior.
Speaker 1: But I use the term of family act like families
Speaker 1: have a different dialect.
Speaker 6: Okay, so using the suffets as if it were word,
Speaker 6: which it is now it is now we're at descriptive
Speaker 6: linguists here L E c t s is now officially
Speaker 6: a word. So she has I don't know that she
Speaker 6: has words that only appear in Taylor songs. She does
Speaker 6: have a series of references and words and images that
Speaker 6: have meanings that develop over the course of her career
Speaker 6: and over the course of an album the way and
Speaker 6: or even over the course of an individual song, just
Speaker 6: the way that words and images do in novels and
Speaker 6: page based poems and movies and so on. You know,
Speaker 6: an obvious one would be that scarf that is that,
Speaker 6: you know, the scarf that I left at your sister's
Speaker 6: house in the song All too Well, where you can
Speaker 6: kind of track that scarf. And she has what fans
Speaker 6: call easter eggs, which is to say, both within the
Speaker 6: songs and in the other things that she does social
Speaker 6: media posts and interviews and even outfits, where she is
Speaker 6: is giving hints that fans can interpret about what a
Speaker 6: song is about, or what's coming next, or what's what's happening.
Speaker 6: On the one hand, of course, it's a good commercial strategy.
Speaker 6: It keeps people paying attention in between albums, and why
Speaker 6: would you not do that if you want to sell
Speaker 6: albums and you want to keep people going to your concerts.
Speaker 6: But it's beyond that. It is about giving people a
Speaker 6: sense of community and a sense that she cares what
Speaker 6: we think, and a way to meet one another. There are,
Speaker 6: you know, many many lifelong friendships and probably some romances
Speaker 6: that form with Swifty communities. The more so because it's
Speaker 6: such a large fandom and she's also and this is
Speaker 6: something that she writes songs about. It's something that the
Speaker 6: great podcaster is Danny and Olivia from the Tay Learning podcast,
Speaker 6: which I love. It's my favorite Swifty podcast of several.
Speaker 6: It's something that Danny and Olivia noticed a couple of
Speaker 6: weeks ago on their show. It's not just that fans
Speaker 6: have a parasocial relationship with Taylor. We sort of feel
Speaker 6: like we know her even though we don't. It's that
Speaker 6: she seems sometimes to have a parasocial relationship with us.
Speaker 6: She cares what we think. She feels as if she
Speaker 6: could get to know us, she is reaching out to us,
Speaker 6: and she has a record of really saying that she
Speaker 6: cares about how her fans see her, not her peers,
Speaker 6: not the media, not the celebrity industry, but her fans.
Speaker 6: And she writes songs about that caring. And you can't
Speaker 6: prove it sincere You can't prove anything since here unless
Speaker 6: you're a telepath. But it is an aspect of her
Speaker 6: as an artist that she cares what we think, and
Speaker 6: a lot of those Easter eggs and those kind of pieces.
Speaker 4: Of fans as.
Speaker 6: Part of that shown that she.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, this relationship extends to the point where
Speaker 5: she has invited hundreds of fans to it said, her home,
Speaker 5: it might have been somewhere else to do listening parties
Speaker 5: for music that she's thinking of releasing or working on,
Speaker 5: and that she really does hold the It seems like,
Speaker 5: and I mean this in a complimentary way, that she
Speaker 5: has an understanding that part of her life is the
Speaker 5: music business, but part of her life is just public
Speaker 5: relations and engagement, and that she is equally good at
Speaker 5: that part as she is at the music industry, which
Speaker 5: is a formidable thing to say.
Speaker 6: Well, that's right, there's a couple of things going on here.
Speaker 6: She has said that if for some reason she were
Speaker 6: denied a music business career, she would probably be in
Speaker 6: public relations, in marketing, something that allowed her to extrovert
Speaker 6: and to use her talent for words, But it also
Speaker 6: says something that shows up in the actual songs that
Speaker 6: she writes. She cares how people see her. She cares
Speaker 6: how strangers see her. She cares how twelve year olds
Speaker 6: see her, she cares how grown adults see her. She
Speaker 6: cares how she is perceived in a way that is
Speaker 6: not necessarily healthy. And if you see if you watch
Speaker 6: the movie Miss Americana, which of course she had a
Speaker 6: lot of control over, but one of the things that
Speaker 6: really comes across on that movie in other interviews is
Speaker 6: how vulnerable she is to how people see her. That
Speaker 6: she's sort of one one flop away or one failure
Speaker 6: to connect away from going back to being the unpopular
Speaker 6: kid who just needed a lot of parental support when
Speaker 6: she was thirteen. But Taylor really does seem to need
Speaker 6: us in order to think well of herself and to
Speaker 6: have taken what could have been a very dangerous character flaw,
Speaker 6: and again maybe I'm projecting here, but taking a very
Speaker 6: dangerous character flaw about caring so much what other people
Speaker 6: think and how other people react to her and just
Speaker 6: turned it into not only a songwriting topic, but a
Speaker 6: strain both as a pr person when she's not making
Speaker 6: music and as a songwriter and a musician.
Speaker 5: Well, here's a quest. Do you know Stephanie whe whether
Speaker 5: or not, I don't know why you would know they
Speaker 5: answer to this, But you know so much about her?
Speaker 5: Does her business acumen is it really? Is she the
Speaker 5: source of it? Or she just surrounded by really smart
Speaker 5: people and she goes, oh, good, idea, let's do that,
Speaker 5: and then knows how to implement it.
Speaker 6: So I'm going to give you a three part answer. Okay,
Speaker 6: you ready. First, she does seem to be the first
Speaker 6: star at this level who's pulled off this kind of thing.
Speaker 6: But if you look at because I'm I'm I call
Speaker 6: myself like a recovering indie rocker, like I have a
Speaker 6: indy girl background. If you look at people coming from
Speaker 6: sort of the punk world or from the purest folk world,
Speaker 6: you can find quite a lot of people who become
Speaker 6: reasonably famous, like kind of make a living and pay
Speaker 6: the rent, but you can't buy a house with it.
Speaker 6: Famous owning their career. People like Fugazi owned so stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: they own I mean they own their stuff and they
Speaker 6: own their record label, Discord Records that are Washington DC.
Speaker 6: That's a generation where you just want nothing to do
Speaker 6: with major labels. You understand people at college radio airplay,
Speaker 6: they don't Fugazi when they were touring, didn't even pay
Speaker 6: BMI or ASKAP because it never recovers.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 6: So there are models for how to be completely independent
Speaker 6: and own all of your stuff that come from the
Speaker 6: kind of post punk rock world and from certain parts
Speaker 6: of not the country world, but like the non commercial
Speaker 6: folk world. So what Taylor's doing is absolutely new at
Speaker 6: that level. Second, she does seem to be in charge.
Speaker 6: She seems to have come to be in charge, having
Speaker 6: learned it from her parents, especially her father. Of course,
Speaker 6: both of her parents have a background in financial services.
Speaker 6: And if you watch the movie Miss Americana, which again
Speaker 6: she I believe had final control over what went on screen,
Speaker 6: So who knows what they cut or what she wouldn't
Speaker 6: let them film. But you can see her speaking in
Speaker 6: a knowledgeable way with her father, Scott about what's going
Speaker 6: on on the business side of being Taylor Swift. So
Speaker 6: I don't know that it's ever been just her alone
Speaker 6: in the room with spreadsheets, but it does look like
Speaker 6: she knows enough to read the spreadsheets in the room
Speaker 6: and never be taken advantage of, and that she was
Speaker 6: brought up to understand that kind of thing by parents
Speaker 6: who are not one hundred percent aligned with what she
Speaker 6: wants to do as an adult, but who really did
Speaker 6: have her best interests at heart and knew the music business.
Speaker 1: So what do you hope your students come away from
Speaker 1: this course? Knowing you're a serious critic and reviewer. When
Speaker 1: I say serious, serious, but with humor and with real insight,
Speaker 1: and you've written and read and.
Speaker 4: Also produced poetry. What do you hope?
Speaker 1: So what do you hope when this course ends for
Speaker 1: your students, or what do they tell you they come
Speaker 1: away with?
Speaker 6: I can tell you what I hope they come away with,
Speaker 6: which is three things in no order, that all three
Speaker 6: are equally important. One is I would like them to
Speaker 6: just have a deeper and more nuanced and more conscious
Speaker 6: appreciation of what Taylor's doing and why people love it
Speaker 6: and why you know they love it, and how these
Speaker 6: works of art that have meant so much as so
Speaker 6: many people, how these works of art work, and why
Speaker 6: they work as they do, why they work so well.
Speaker 6: The second thing that I would like them to have
Speaker 6: is a toolkit, a bigger toolkit than they came in with,
Speaker 6: for talking about literature and culture and cultural change. The
Speaker 6: ability to describe, for example, whiteness as an attribute and
Speaker 6: to sort of see whiteness where they would just be
Speaker 6: seeing things as well racially unmarked if they're white. The
Speaker 6: ability to see, for example, how a costume change affects
Speaker 6: the way that a song is received. The ability to
Speaker 6: see what changes when you go from a country demographic
Speaker 6: to an international pop demographic. And the ability, for example,
Speaker 6: we read too Well cather novels to think about performance
Speaker 6: contexts for singers and the genderedness of performance, and to
Speaker 6: think about, you know, what it means to show your
Speaker 6: ambition versus to hide your ambition as a character in
Speaker 6: a novel or as a real person. Just the tools
Speaker 6: for talking about characters and real people and literature and culture.
Speaker 6: The third thing I want them to have it is
Speaker 6: a tailor course. But it's not just a tailor course.
Speaker 6: We're reading Willo Cathera, we're reading Laara Kashisky more into
Speaker 6: William Wordsworth, more into Alexander Pope, who we spent most
Speaker 6: of a class on last week. I love the guy,
Speaker 6: and one of his great poems has a lot in
Speaker 6: common with Shake it Off and with parts of Reputation,
Speaker 6: in that he too is reacting to the haters and
Speaker 6: defending himself against skeptical friends who are saying, why do
Speaker 6: you take risks with your reputation? People will think you're
Speaker 6: a snake. So I want to make some Alexander Pope fans.
Speaker 6: That's my god.
Speaker 5: I want to be in your course. I got two
Speaker 5: short questions for you as we wrap up. One is
Speaker 5: is Taylor aware of your course? And two for those
Speaker 5: that may not know her work as well, what are
Speaker 5: like the half dozen songs that people really should know
Speaker 5: of hers that would give them a sense, a true
Speaker 5: sense of the talent?
Speaker 6: Okay, I have no idea. If Taylor is aware of
Speaker 6: the course, obviously, I would love her to be. I
Speaker 6: hope she approves. I would love to have her come visit,
Speaker 6: but she's pretty busy. She's got a lot going on
Speaker 6: at the moment, and I'm not expecting attention from her.
Speaker 6: But you know, so what songs to start with depends
Speaker 6: on what you already like. Your entry point to any
Speaker 6: artist with a substantial body of varied work depends on
Speaker 6: what you already like. So if you are someone who
Speaker 6: appreciates acoustic guitar based songs that tell clear stories, start
Speaker 6: with the song Betty from Folklore, and then maybe go
Speaker 6: to the short version of All Too Well and then
Speaker 6: go to long version. If you are someone who wants
Speaker 6: to hear songs about growing up and songs about being
Speaker 6: an adult in the world and is tired of breakup songs,
Speaker 6: you might even be Ace or a Row or someone
Speaker 6: who just doesn't want to hear about heterosexual dating adventures.
Speaker 6: You should start with the song The Best Day from
Speaker 6: Fearless and then listen to the songs Anti Hero and
Speaker 6: You're on your Own Kid from Midnights, which are some
Speaker 6: of my favorite songs like I don't date guys, I
Speaker 6: mean never say never, but I haven't yet. If you
Speaker 6: were someone who is really into fast guitar music and
Speaker 6: things that descend from power pop and punk pop, you
Speaker 6: can't really do better than the paired songs love Story
Speaker 6: and Forever and Always, which are early pieces of guitar
Speaker 6: pop about a love affair that goes very right and
Speaker 6: a love affair that goes very wrong. And if you
Speaker 6: are someone who likes eighties dance music. If you're someone
Speaker 6: who really wants to be able to move to something,
Speaker 6: you honestly can't do much better than the hits from
Speaker 6: ninety nine, than blank Space and the song twenty two
Speaker 6: and maybe and I think this is a bit of
Speaker 6: a sleeper hit. It's something that swifties love, but it's
Speaker 6: really grown on me and it's got terrific lyrics Wonderland
Speaker 6: also from a Nat Newty nine.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, professor, thanks for coming on. As long
Speaker 1: as I'd love to take the qurt.
Speaker 6: You know you can come visit. Just let me know
Speaker 6: when you're.
Speaker 5: Coming again, you know, if my son's anywhere with no
Speaker 5: I'm I'm a Boston University guy, so I am in
Speaker 5: your neck of the woods every now and then. And
Speaker 5: don't be surprised if I come knocking on your door
Speaker 5: crossing the Charles River one day.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna love to see you.
Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Talking about authenticity, you know, listen, I don't know what
Speaker 5: her life was from birth to seventeen, but from seventeen
Speaker 5: on it's been a carnival. She is, she is so
Speaker 5: under a microscope. There is constant scrutiny and I know
Speaker 5: from the little bit of celebrity that I deal with,
Speaker 5: she has found a way to face and embrace all
Speaker 5: of it and retain some kind of authenticity itself. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's amazing, but I I just want to finish this
Speaker 5: up before we go to David by saying, you know,
Speaker 5: there's many a college course based on the Seinfeld trip.
Speaker 5: From what I understand is there's sociology or philosophy courses
Speaker 5: about how not to live life, about ethics and morality
Speaker 5: and consequence and all kinds of Today.
Speaker 1: We'll take we're we're very speech. I wish I had
Speaker 1: some of the joy. They're all so negative. They're also negative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't tell me, it's not you, it's me. I invented
Speaker 1: it's me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was another one.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I wish I had on my fingertips
Speaker 1: because they're they're all.
Speaker 4: Oh they were They're brilliant. They're brilliant.
Speaker 5: But yes, there's there's many come from a.
Speaker 1: Long history of failure. I'm a failure, my father. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go to mister David Gougenheim.
Speaker 5: First, David, shake it off, maybe shake it off. Wow,
Speaker 5: we're getting a lot of swifty boats. There yeaheah, yeah, Actually,
Speaker 5: you know I am.
Speaker 4: I am a little pathetic.
Speaker 5: I know a lot of her country stuff and a
Speaker 5: couple of the real breakthrough you know, hits. But I
Speaker 5: am way behind on all music. I I am way
Speaker 5: behind on all popular music. I just haven't been downloaded.
Speaker 5: I mean, you spend your time doing theater, you spend.
Speaker 4: Your you know what it is like.
Speaker 5: I'm not when I'm on the radio, when I'm listening
Speaker 5: to something I'm sad to say, and I should stop.
Speaker 5: It's news and information, so music consumption.
Speaker 4: That's just much happier in music. Let me yeah, breakup songs.
Speaker 7: To David do you're you're listening You're not listening to
Speaker 7: songs when you're on the wheel, when you're doing your
Speaker 7: your pottery and all that.
Speaker 5: I only have unchained melody on.
Speaker 4: We Gotta do.
Speaker 1: This is a promotional photo where I'm sitting behind Jason
Speaker 1: with my shirt off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the famous ghost.
Speaker 7: I would say, you know what everyone would be saying,
Speaker 7: put WHOOPI Goldberg in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Okay, Well I'm gonna you got a choice.
Speaker 7: You got a choice. Here you could learn about the
Speaker 7: other Taylor Swift courses available around the country. Or you
Speaker 7: could see how much of a Swift do you really are?
Speaker 7: Is it a Taylor Swift song or a sex pistol?
Speaker 3: All right, all right? Number one The Man.
Speaker 5: That is a Taylor Swift song in which she plays
Speaker 5: a man, and she directed that video as well.
Speaker 4: Oh ver, yes they are.
Speaker 5: And by the way, she's almost she does one of
Speaker 5: her other attributes. I swear it sounds like I'm sucking
Speaker 5: up to Taylor Swift. She's a good actress. Man, she
Speaker 5: plays this man. And I didn't know the first time
Speaker 5: I saw it that.
Speaker 3: It was her.
Speaker 7: All right out the second song, second song, seventeen.
Speaker 1: It's got to be it's got to be sexrist.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would probably say sex bestals.
Speaker 3: That is correct. That is from the never Mind the Bollocks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, slut that is, Oh.
Speaker 4: No, that's got Swift. No Taylor Swift, sex bustiness.
Speaker 3: That is Taylor Swift. Nine Wow.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: I remember one thing though I may have, but not sure.
Speaker 1: The sexpressis put out ten songs. They weren't together, work
Speaker 1: together a minute, all right, but yess limited limited limited, All.
Speaker 7: Right, next one, next one, But I want you guys
Speaker 7: come to consent. Okay, we got to do it.
Speaker 6: Clean, all right.
Speaker 3: Next one is a liar liar.
Speaker 4: Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, you don't have to hit me?
Speaker 5: Incorrect, incorrect again from never Mind the bollocks, all right.
Speaker 3: Next one, No one is innocent.
Speaker 4: They Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: Sure, I don't think to sit that Sextus has strung
Speaker 1: that many words together.
Speaker 4: The title.
Speaker 3: The Great Rock and Roll Swindle by the Sex wrote
Speaker 3: songs you know to Wow, all right.
Speaker 7: You're gonna get it, You're gonna, You're gonna.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 7: Last one, this is the maker of Brain Get you
Speaker 7: belong with me?
Speaker 4: I'm kidding.
Speaker 5: That's Taylor Swift, Windows on my Mind, Sex Bests, Yeah,
Speaker 5: Brothers of Sure Bert, my Way.
Speaker 4: Love Revolution. Oh fantastic.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you, professor Stephanie Bert, Thank you, Peter Tilten,
Speaker 5: thank you, Producer Laurie, Thank you, producer David. You just
Speaker 5: banged your knee.
Speaker 4: It like so far, so har I'm going down.
Speaker 5: That's for us, every.
Speaker 4: Thank good.
Speaker 2: Care Now, really that's another episode of Really No really
Speaker 2: comes to a close. I know you're pining for some
Speaker 2: fun facts about Taylor Swift we haven't already covered.
Speaker 3: Well, that list is on its way.
Speaker 2: But first let's thank our guest Professor Stephanie Burt. You
Speaker 2: can hear Professor Burt on the podcast teamupmoves dot com
Speaker 2: and follow her on x where she is at accommodatingly and.
Speaker 3: As always, we long to hear from you at reallynoreally
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: If you ever really No Really some interesting or mind
Speaker 2: blowing fact, let us know and if we use.
Speaker 3: It, we will send you a little gift.
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Speaker 2: and we truly do thank you for listening, subscribing, and
Speaker 2: sharing our show. And now here's a bunch of swifty
Speaker 2: facts you may not know. Her full name is Taylor
Speaker 2: Allison Sweft. Her mom shows Taylor because she wanted a
Speaker 2: gender neutral name.
Speaker 3: For her daughter.
Speaker 2: The name also came from her parents' love for singer
Speaker 2: songwriter James Taylor. So it's a beautiful kismet that James
Speaker 2: and Taylor have dueted twice, on James Taylor's Fire in
Speaker 2: Rain and on Taylor Swift's Love Story. Taylor grew up
Speaker 2: on a Christmas tree farm, a fact that inspired one
Speaker 2: of her songs, Christmas Tree Farm.
Speaker 3: Young Taylor's job on the.
Speaker 2: Farm was to pluck praying mantises off the trees before
Speaker 2: they were sold. At age twelve, Taylor wrote a three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty page novel that has.
Speaker 3: Yet to be published and last.
Speaker 2: Lee Taylor is a voiceover actress who voiced the character
Speaker 2: of Audrey and the Lorax.
Speaker 3: So Taylor, if you're ever.
Speaker 2: Thinking of dropping this little music side gig you've got
Speaker 2: going and moving into voiceover full.
Speaker 3: Time, just give me a call.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to share some tips for a small thing
Speaker 2: Small to you.
Speaker 5: Now, Randy
Speaker 2: Really No Really is production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment.