I think it's safe to say this campus has a thing for Taylor Swift. I won't say her adoration has reached Lou Holtz proportions, but the girl is pretty much beloved by most members of the student body.
Boys love her because she's beautiful. Girls love her because she's beautiful and a talented songwriter. Professors love her because she's one of the few celebrity names they recognize when students talk about her.
However, while everyone on campus is generally Team Tay-Tay, there is also a significant faction of people who have a very different love/hate relationship with her music.
You know who you are. You (mostly female) listeners love Ms. Swift's songs because they are written from the heart, are sweet in nature and tend to be accompanied by amazing music videos, no matter what Kanye West says.
However, there is also a part, that very bitter and emotional, part that gets incredibly angry when the final stanzas of a Taylor Swift song blare from the iPod. Why? Because of the unrealistic never-going-to-happen-to-me happy ending.
And the thing is, thanks to Perez Hilton and "People" magazine, we all know Taylor's had her fair share of boy drama (do the words "Joe Jonas" and "text message" ring a bell) but she still sings about the bad times eventually giving way to fabulous love.
False.
If anyone's life has ever followed the plot of a Swifty song please let me know who you are so I can commit you to a psychiatric ward for being delusional.
Like in her hit song "Love Story." If your father hated the guy from the beginning, why the hell is he all the sudden gung-ho about you being engaged to Romeo? That doesn't happen. A more likely ending would feature poor Romeo in the hospital after taking a blow to the head courtesy of Papa Juliet.
And the fabulous "You Belong With Me." I do not know of a single instance where the idiot boy finally wakes up and realizes that the not as cute, kind of dorky best friend is really a better romantic option than the humongous brat he is currently dating. Life tends not to follow the plot of a bad Jennifer Aniston film.
Oddly enough, anytime someone complains about the deceptiveness of a good Taylor Swift song, they always tend to finish the rant with a declaration of how much they still love her and the song they just picked apart. And we do. If it weren't for Taylor's music we would be stuck trying to somehow make our lives follow the plot of Vanessa Carlton's "White Houses," which probably isn't a good idea if you know the lyrics.
So Taylor, keep on writing so that we can keep on hoping that one day our lives will follow the plot of one of your amazing songs. And please excuse while I put my headphones in and sing along to "Mine."
The views expressed in the Inside Column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
Contact Molly Madden at mmadden3@nd.edu.
