It is a controversy actually worthy of an exclamation point. When was the last time the internet lost its collective stuff over a single song the way it did this past week with Taylor Swift‘s “Cleveland!”? And they say there’s no such thing as a monoculture anymore.
It might have felt like everyone you knew had not only heard “Cleveland!” (unlike the millions of people coming onto X to proudly proclaim their unfamiliarity with “Choosin’ Texas” as ot busted chart records) but had a Very Hot Take on it. In the realm of her fandom, much of that discourse was defense of the track. But inherent in all that was the idea that the song needed defending.
Because at the tip of this social tsunami was a strong supposition that swiftly powered a gazillion Instagram memes: Love and marriage have made Taylor Swift lose her dang mind… maybe even turned her into the mayor of Simpleton. But as the internet increasingly went into pile-on mode about the new song — almost ignoring that she’d simultaneously released three other new tracks, including the new single “Patient Zero,” all of them bringing the old, more morose Swift back to the phone — I began to feel a sense of deja vu. Where had I, and maybe the world, experienced a panic like this before, about an artist whose turn toward silly love longs had been seen as some sort of cultural betrayal, or basic job failure?
The answer, of course, was in the question. It was Paul McCartney, in the early and mid-’70s, who got besotted with the romantic sillies and asked, “What’s wrong with that?” And further demanded: “I’d like to know!” Because, you know, here he goes… again… giving John Lennon unending nightmares there on Central Park West. It wasn’t just “Silly Love Songs,” which came a few years later on; it was “The Lovely Linda,” the first song on his solo album, announcing that he had traded in the Beatles for matrimony and domestic bliss.
His dream had come true, but in the eyes of those who had a different picture of what he ought to be doing, it was more like the dream was over, to quote his ex-partner. Obviously the author of “Helter Skelter” came through that bout of disapproval over getting ditzy with love pretty unscathed, and so will the author of “Folklore” survive whatever blasts she takes for “Cleveland!” But the accelerant qualities of social media can make the scorn feel much more immediate and wide than the days when the worst McCartney had to face for a while was from Rolling Stone subscribers. The other theme is the one where her asslessness doesn’t matter, because Travis loves her anyway.
It kind of recalls the songs on “Reputation” where Taylor exulted that her new guy adored her in spite of Kim and Kanye dragging her name through the mud, but this is undoubtedly the bubblegum version of that, between the hyper-cheery arrangement and no real recent scandal to react to; it pivots on the admittedly questional idea that her new husband is noble for cherishing her even though she’s only a better dancer than 99.9999% of the planet. Throw in a spoken-word section — which gave some people PTSD, bringing up the repressed memory of the spoken bit from “Me!” that she actually eventually excised from that recording — and it was a recipe for much of the public to start piling on. Now, I was on record within a couple hours of the tune coming out last Thursday night as not minding the song, saying anyone who’s truly and madly in love deserves an outlier goofball moment in the course of their honeymoon phase.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
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