“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can, Old Sport!” Jay Gatsby’s mantra may as well be Taylor Swift’s. For the last two years, in an effort to reclaim ownership of her music, Taylor has been re-recording her first six albums. So far, she’s re-released Fearless (2008) and Red (2012). This project has inevitably fostered nostalgia, bringing songs that dominated the airways 10-15 years ago back into the spotlight and reminding listeners of musical ages past. To add novelty to this re-recording project, Taylor has also released “From the Vault” tracks, or songs she drafted that had ultimately been nixed from the original albums. Like a time capsule, these songs preserved the persona and artistic perspective of an emerging country star. But, performed by a more mature pop sensation who has expanded her repertoire and developed as an artist over time, there’s a wistfulness about these new-to-us tunes that will never enjoy the naivete and simplicity of the moment in which they were written.
Take, for example, “We Were Happy,” a “From the Vault” track included on the re-released Fearless album. A classic country ballad, complete with banjo and all, that laments a breakup (supposedly with Joe Jonas) and layers in references to small town rural America, the song is quintessentially 2008 Taylor Swift. Not only does “We Were Happy” sound like a younger, simpler Swift of ages past, it also reminisces about her past and builds on the nostalgia for that time. The song begins, “We used to walk along the streets/ When the porch lights were shining bright/ Before I had somewhere to be/ Back when we had all night/ And we were happy.” The song creates longing, not just for a lost relationship, but for a slower era in life. As part of this nostalgia, it focuses on the simple moments of joy and excitement that are rooted in Swift’s rural perspective, remembering, “When it was good, baby, it was good, baby/ We showed 'em all up/ No one could touch the way we laughed in the dark/ Talkin' 'bout your daddy's farm we were gonna buy someday/ And we were happy.” The song clearly idolizes not just the relationship but the times and places of the past, before Swift became a busy (and citified) pop sensation.
Nostalgia for the good old days – when things were simpler, easier, less hectic and (in many cases) more agrarian – dominates the cultural and political imagination. Between the reactionary political promises – famously to make the country “great again” or else to “restore” its soul – combined with a resurgence of 90s/early 2000s pop media – not just Taylor Swift’s re-recordings, but also the release of updated versions of classic 90s/00s TV shows like Fuller House and Bel Aire, and the preponderance of live action renditions of 90s Disney movies (like Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin)-- demonstrate the backwards-looking impulse to relive and recreate the less chaotic days when we were younger, when we were happier, and when life and politics were easier to navigate.
In other words, both contemporary cultural and political sentiment has a Gatsby problem. Famous for his obsession with capturing and preserving a moment from his childhood when Daisy loved him, Jay Gatsby “talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.” As the novel notes, the desire to recover and relive the past– like we’re currently experiencing in our culture– stems from our desire to have the sense of self, clarity, and pace-of-life we had in previous times. For Gatsby and Swift, it’s hard not to long for the simplicity, and excitement that characterized life when they were younger.
This type of nostalgia for the times of one’s youth is not just personal; it can also be a political weapon. A tyrant’s favorite thought leader, Niccolo Machiavelli notes how, “Men always praise (but not always reasonably) the ancient times and find fault with the present; and they are such partisans of things past, that they celebrate not only that age which has been recalled to their memory by known writers, but those also (being now old) which they remember having seen in their youth.” Machiavelli notes that this prejudice towards the era of our youth can occur because of false narratives about that era that empower those writing the history. “When this opinion of theirs is false (as it is most of the times) I am persuaded the reasons by which they are led to such deception are various,” he explains. “The whole truth which would bring out the infamy of those times,” is not written in the narratives that shape our memories of our pasts because those in charge would rather “amplify and magnify those others that could bring forth their glory.” In other words, Machiavelli thinks that the stories that create nostalgia misrepresent the past in order to make some seem more talented and virtuous and to hide their flaws. He’d argue that the simple happiness that nostalgic artists like Swift remember likely clouded the realities of the time.
As Eliot notes in The Family Reunion,“The future can only be built/ Upon the real past.” The nostalgia for the past that pieces like The Great Gatsby and “We Were Happy” highlight, built of skewed narratives that glorify the moments they long to return to, prevent the construction of a future. That’s why, as much as I love Swift’s re-recordings, it would be amazing if she released a new album soon.
spoken like a true progressive!