There is a joke about Rene Descartes, the French philosopher and scientist who coined the term ‘I think, therefore I am’. One day, Descartes walks into a bar and orders a drink. When he finishes, the bartender asks him if he would like another. He replies, “I think not” and disappears in a puff of logic. Legend goes that Descartes formulated the phrase on a cold winter day in Germany in 1619. He was staying in a small village and in the silence of his stove-heated room, he began thinking. Or rather, doubting. What if everything he believed was false and existence itself was an illusion? But then he reasoned that his train of thought—even just the act of thinking—confirmed the existence of a thinker. He thought, therefore he was.
Today, we are back to the Descartian age of radical doubt and anxiety, especially among the younger generation. When the English rock band Led Zeppelin sang about being dazed and confused, they might have been expressing the existential angst of a disgruntled generation. A 2022 McKinsey survey, for example, found the Gen Z-ers reported higher rates of anxiety, depression and distress than any other age group. They reported the least positive outlook on parameters like income, employment, education, food, housing and transportation. Of course, this is not to say that all is doom and gloom. According to a UNICEF study this year, despite the Gen Z feeling “overwhelmed, disempowered and adrift”, more than half remain hopeful and want to contribute to shaping a better future. Many youth icons, like American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, are tapping into this combination of radical doubt and desperate hope. According to research by The O2 Arena, Swift had the highest impact among musicians on the mood and wellbeing of the youth (32 per cent), followed by British singer Ed Sheeran (28 per cent).
In an admirable sleight of hand, Swift has turned around Descartes’ philosophy. She thinks, therefore we are. Swift has the amazing skill of shining a light on hidden corners of your mind. She expresses herself in a way that reflects your self-expression. When you look in a mirror, she stares back. Her songs are a bulwark against your doubts, validating your existence. You are, because she is.
But how can this be? How can we relate so deeply with one of the most famous, glamorous, powerful and richest women in the world? Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index estimates her wealth at $2.1 billion (approximately Rs18,600 crore). There is an entire discipline called Swiftonomics, to study her impact on local and large-scale economies. Her Eras Tour—the highest grossing concert tour of all time—has bolstered the economies of countries like the UK, Japan and Singapore, and generated a consumer spending of $5 billion in the US over six months. Her latest album released on October 3—The Life of a Showgirl—sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales in its first day in the US. It has already broken the record for the most copies of a vinyl album sold in a week in the US (1.2 million copies). The accompanying film—The Official Release Party of a Showgirl—that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the making of her album, debuted at no. 1 in the domestic box office, with a collection of $33 million in North America over the weekend.
There is a famous movie quote from the 1999 film Notting Hill, in which Hugh Grant, a humble book store owner, tells Julia Roberts, who plays a famous actress: “I live in Notting Hill. You live in Beverly Hills. Everyone in the world knows who you are, my mother has trouble remembering my name.” To which Roberts’s character replies: “I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” Could the same be true of Swift? Could it be that underneath the bling of her bodysuits, she has a bleeding heart?
Her songs certainly seem to imply it. Very few people possess her skills as a songwriter. She has an ear for what works, a skill for telling stories with emotional authenticity, and an ability to create an illusion of intimacy; she is not just confiding, she is almost confessing. When she sings in ‘Anti-Hero’ about feeling depressed and ‘pierced through the heart, but never killed’, she is not only letting you in on her pain, she is also authenticating yours. When she sings about being the queen of sand castles that her ex destroys in ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys’, she reels in everyone who has ever been in a self-destructive relationship. When she sings about the end of a long-term relationship in ‘So Long, London’ and being ‘pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free’, she dredges deep into your sense of regret at investing so much in a doomed relationship. Swift’s perfection might inspire admiration, but it is her imperfection that arouses adoration. She does not camouflage her flaws; she capitalises on them.
Of course, it is not that fans have not previously felt this deep connect with their idols. Music has always validated our lived experience. Once, when Johnny Cash performed at the Folsom State Prison in California in 1968, a prisoner walked up to him and said, “You made us feel like we were people again.” Some songs have also captured the cultural zeitgeist and inspired social change. Like Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, which set in motion the grunge movement of the 1990s. Its pounding beats and emotionally-charged lyrics soundtracked Gen X’s growing disillusionment with status quo. Or Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, which became a major anthem of the civil rights movement and was played at the Lincoln Memorial before Martin Luther King Jr. gave his iconic ‘I have a dream’ speech. The difference, however, is that none of them lived in the digital age. Very few artists have leveraged the power of Easter eggs (where she strews song lyrics and music videos with hidden messages), interactive story-telling or self marketing quite like Swift. As a result, sometimes it feels like we are all living inside a Taylor Swift song. It is not just our political stance or emotional state she has influenced. It is our preferences, personalities and patterns of behaviour.
But in this spectacle that she has created, does the substance actually matter? Her latest album has been getting mixed reviews from music critics. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called it “dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled”. Pitchfork called it her “least compelling” music. Now that the heartbreak queen has found her Prince Charming (she announced her engagement to NFL player Travis Kelce on August 26) what is she going to sing about? Happiness, after all, is injurious to success.