When people say music can change the world, they're usually not talking about songs that capture how women feel with bright, sharp intimacy.
They were protest songs, political songs, anthems against the Vietnam War; Not soundtracks like teenage summers or eight-year-olds dancing on the playground. In short, they don't refer to Taylor Swift songs. But that's what Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist for girls' right to education, used to sing along with her friends while growing up in Pakistan. The music he posted on Instagram, This summer's London shows “made me and my friends feel free and safe” after attending one of Swift's. That is why, in Afghanistan, the Taliban prohibits it.
This weekend, Swift was in Miami, kicking off the final leg of an Eras tour that coincided with the final leg of the most important US election in decades. It's already an economic giant and has unleashed enough fan spending to have a measurable impact on local GDP wherever it goes in the city. Tours are also increasingly a political vehicle.
On Friday night, Swift posted a video on Instagram captioned “Back to the Office” of her exploring the stadium before the show, dressed in jeans and holding her beloved cat — a wise move, considering the Republican candidate for The vice presidency, JD Vance, unseated Kamala Harris. , a childless cat as a woman.
Democrats are furious about Swift's endorsement of the Harris/Walls ticket. For younger voters who desperately need a boost, signs around the stadium announce “I'm of voting age” and activists hand out Kamala-themed friendship bracelets (exchanging bracelets is a Swifty ritual).
No undecided voter cries out for a brutal summer, but that doesn't matter: it's an exercise in getting out the vote. Their fan base is young, mostly female, sizable gay, and therefore liberally inclined. It could encourage more of them to vote in the general election, a shame for Donald Trump. Swift has become a powerful rallying cry for liberal resistance to the misogyny of the “alt-right,” which has the free world holding its breath.
Taylor Swift is no longer just a pop star. It's an amalgamation of celebrity with a kind of soft power: who else could bring Yusufzai, two future monarchs and what appears to be half the British cabinet to their London shows? – This summer has rough edges.
Power has similar effects. He has long angered the Maga movement by formally endorsing Harris/Wallace and praising her stance on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. For months, she's been the focus of increasingly depressing deep state conspiracy theories that, like all conspiracy theories, suggest she's a front for some kind of diabolically complex plot to rig an election that's only fun until Some lunatic believes it.
The office hasn't always been a comfortable place for Swift lately. In mid-July, an American was arrested in the German city of Gelsenkirchen after threatening him on social media. On the way to his show, he had a ticket for it.
Within a fortnight, three girls were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in the English city of Southport, although the motive is still unknown. (Swift met privately with some of the survivors in London this summer.) In August, the singer canceled three concerts in Vienna after Austrian police thwarted an alleged Islamist terrorist plot to kill “a large number of people.” It was a stark echo of the 2017 bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that killed 22 people.
Obviously, I don't blame her mother-turned-manager for being bullied in London and reportedly insisting on the kind of blue-light police escort between hotel and stadium normally reserved for heads of state. I don't think it was the craze for free concert tickets that motivated Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. The interest in Swift's defense and the credibility of the event are worth around £300 million to the capital.
However, as a result of the deeply stupid sequence, editors allowed large images of Swift in Swift panties to run for days, when she finally jumped the shark. Boris Johnson (Of all people) he used to accuse Keir Starmer of being corrupt.
Does the Prime Minister secretly believe that Swift was photographed at the show with her stardust falling on her? Maybe. Will you try again now? Almost certainly not. I'll let you know if Taylor Swift gets a peer agreement or PPE. Sometimes we seem like a very small island. Meanwhile, Swift is back in office, temporarily boosting Florida's GDP and attempting to elect a black woman as president.
When Time magazine chose the 34-year-old singer-songwriter as its 2023 Person of the Year, her profile suggested that she gives women and girls “conditions to accept the firing, gaslighting and mistreatment of a society that considers its Emotions are not important” for I really believe in those feelings through their songs. A year later, she asks them to make their feelings matter through their votes. A gentle reminder that if music is going to change the world, it will never change on its own.
