In the late 1980s, Thomas Pynchon warned readers about ingrained prejudice against romance stories. As we grow up, he claimed, “we may begin to regard love songs, romance novels, soap operas and any live teenage pronouncements at all on the subject of love with an increasingly impatient, not to mention intolerant, ear.”
These words of caution explain the criticism of Taylor Swift’s songs perfectly. For over a decade, Swift has been ridiculed for her focus on romance. Her popular love songs and heart wrenching breakup ballads elicit the scorn of jaded, supposedly “serious” critics who prefer that real art focus on topics more tragic and esoteric. For example, feminist critics mocked Fearless, claiming that “According to her lyrics, [Swift] has spent her entire life waiting for phone calls and dreaming about horses and sunsets.” Others ignored Swift’s music altogether as insignificant-- despite the fact that her songs catapulted to the top of the charts and her albums quickly sold out.
As the Times recently noted, there is a “sort of marginalization of love stories-- that, for one thing, they don’t qualify as ‘legitimate novels.’” The same is true of love songs. Derided as unimportant-- especially when compared to great classic stories of war, and heroism, and suffering, and tragedy-- art that emphasizes romance seems trivial. That’s why, when Jane Austen first published her books, literary journals-- the gatekeepers of culture at the time-- barely even commented on the romance novels; Emma was reviewed seven times, Pride and Prejudice three times, and Sense and Sensibility two.
Despite the aspersions cast upon them, love stories are massively popular-- and not because those of us who like romance lack taste. Romance stories democratize art by mirroring the central struggles that characterize most of our lives. While virtually no one today goes off to slay enemies in battle the way the Greek heroes did, all of us are familiar with the day-to-day struggles and joys of romance and heartbreak, making those romantic works of art more relevant to our lives than “serious” works. Jane Austen’s romance novels or Taylor Swift’s love songs have popular appeal because they resonate with topics that are significant to the masses-- and provide us with a framework about romance that allows us to make sense of and negotiate love, romance, and heartbreak.
Taylor Swift’s “Hey Stephen” exemplifies the appeal and power of love songs. An upbeat bob about her crush (Stephen), Taylor Swift practically trills, “Hey Stephen, I’ve been holding back this feeling/ So I’ve got some things to say to you/ I’ve seen it all, so I thought/ But I’ve never seen nobody shine the way you do/ The way you walk, way you talk, way you say my name/ It’s beautiful, wonderful, don’t you ever change.” These are not deep, serious, significant lines, but for anyone who’s ever had a romantic crush that was both exciting and simplistic, it’s easy to understand the ethos and perspective of the song. Though the song is not “serious”-- it’s not innovative in its form and does not tackle massively significant topics of tragedy-- it reflects the fact that many of our realities aren’t a constant struggle with pain and suffering and heartbreak and innovation, but that sometimes our days are just characterized by a non-serious pursuit of puppy love.
There’s a popular phrase that “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Like all art, Swift’s song doesn’t just reflect our experiences of romance, but gives us a framework through which to think about romance and love. Love songs like “Hey Stephen” also help us articulate and make sense of the experience of love, shaping how we perceive and engage with our world.
More than asserting that love stories are key parts of our lives-- whether great art critics acknowledge that fact or not-- the song cultivates the experience of simple, joyful romance for its audience, and in turn offers a framework through which to understand romance. Swift tells Stephen, “I can’t help it if you look like an angel/ Can’t help it if I want to kiss you in the rain, so/ Come feel this magic I’ve been feeling since I met you,” and in doing so invites her listeners to feel that magic as well. Both the music and lyrics work to generate a magic, and the song thus creates a quasi-romantic experience for listeners. This offers a framework that signposts and scaffolds the experience of romance to help listeners make sense of their own experiences of love and romance.
T.S. Eliot captures just why we need love songs and romance novels to make sense of the experience of romance. Romance is a complicated, intense, challenging topic that has a deep and profound impact on our lives, but many of us lack the frameworks we need to understand and articulate our thoughts about romantic relationships as we experience them. In The Elder Statesman, Eliot describes the struggle for language about romance: “It’s strange that words are so inadequate/ Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath,/ So the lover must struggle for words.” His character lacks the frameworks to articulate romance, and thus gasps, struggling for a way to communicate his experience. But love songs and romance novels offer us those frameworks that provide the language to articulate, make sense of, and more fully experience romance.
As such, Eliot would have benefited from listening to Taylor Swift’s love songs. “Hey Stephen” may have provided him with signposts and frameworks about love that would have enabled Eliot to make sense of and articulate his own romantic experiences. But, trapped in a cultural era that derided the significance of love stories, Eliot was left with inadequate words and could not articulate or navigate his own romantic joys and struggles.