On the Saturday before the Super Bowl I clicked a link at YouTube and jumped through a biography of Taylor Swift. I then got the idea to look into her music, and especially her lyrics. I listened to several lyric vids on Taylor's YouTube page. I was impressed. She writes clever lyrics. Then I found a playlist from her tour. I've now gone through the entire playlist. I remain impressed. I had no idea what an accomplished lyricist she was. I did not know she had gone into pop music. I did not know about her record setting musical tours. I did not know about the size of her fan base.
I looked into all of this because of the political hoopla surrounding her attendance at the super bowl - basically, the right wing paranoid loons were claiming that Taylor was going to steal the election at the Super Bowl by endorsing Joe Biden in front of a camera.
I'm glad I learned about Taylor. I am now quite fond of her and her music.
It turns out I was familiar with eight of her songs. Before my recent studies, I would have told you that I only knew one song of hers, "Mean", which I have always liked. Two songs, "You Belong to Me" and "We are Never, Ever Getting Back Together," I've heard a lot, but I always thought they were Avril Lavigne songs. I stand corrected . Another two I have heard many, many times in bars and restaurants, and would have carried no theories as to who did them, "Fearless" and "Long Live." These two country hits are quite nice and not very twangy. I think I have probably heard a few more of her country songs that are not on this playlist. I had also heard "Don't Blame Me", "Look What You Made Me Do" and "Shake It Off" more than once. I also think "Blank Space" seems familiar, like there was a period when I used to hear the start of that song in assorted restaurants, stores etc.
I was never familiar with the lyrics of Fearless and Long Live. I am now, and they are really nice songs.
I was impressed by a few other songs on the playlist, including some of the newest ones, like "Midnight Rain" and "Anti-Hero".
I was pleased with her lyrical abilities on songs that do not interest me much. I am a 62 year old male with a PhD. I like and appreciate poetry. I like Taylor's poetry, even when the songs are not my cup of tea. A really sad song is called "Tolerate It" -- musically, this is not for me but the lyrics are really well done. I can say the same for several other songs. "Love Story" is an old song that I have heard before. It has a Romeo and Juliette theme. It's more musically appealing than "Tolerate It". The lyrics are very well done. Not my kind of song, but I can see why it has been so popular for so long.
I think the song called Mastermind is brilliant. Also the song called Blank Space. Also a song called The Archer. These for me are three jaw droppers.
Taylor is now the biggest pop star on the planet. She has ten albums, around two hundred songs, a billion dollar tour, a growing fan base and a growing ability to write amazingly satisfying music. She started writing professionally at age 14. So, she has been a professional writer of songs for 20 years. Her lyrical abilities will only improve with time, I think.
I don't know that I would ever buy one of her disks. But with all that she means to the rotten righties in the USA, I wanted to know something about her. She is no longer the blonde kid with a guitar playing country songs on SNL that I recall her as. She is an icon. She might already be the most powerful entertainer there ever was. Move over, Orpheus.
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Below are links to Lyric Video streams of the three jaw droppingly good songs from the tour setlist. These are lyrically very fine songs and they are very different from one another musically.
BONUS:
I explored songs that were not on the Eras Tour setlist. I found the following especially nice. The song "Mirrorball", from the Grammy winning album called Folklore, compares being an entertainer during a pandemic to being a disco ball in a room where no one is around.
"Only the Young" responds to school shootings.
"This is Me Trying" is about recovery from addiction, toxicity, etc.
Below is an old favorite, "Mean," which is about bullying and won a Grammy for country music song of the year. I learned this song years ago when I frequented a bar whose owner had it on a loop she played frequently. That was in 2011-12. I think this was on Taylor's third album, which appeared in or around 2010.
Other socially aware songs from Taylor Swift include Anti-Hero, which is about not fitting in. Also "You Need to Calm Down", which has become a pride month anthem. But lots of her songs include social commentary. Even "Shake it Off" says, "the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, and the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, ...but I'm just gonna shake, shake, ...shake it off".
Below is a fan vid of Taylor performing "Don't Blame Me". There are lots of fan vids from her concerts. This is a pretty cool film shot close to the stage during her 2018 tour, known as the Reputation Stadium Tour.
5/10/24 Update: I tried out the new album. Amazing lyrics all over the place there. Here is one song that caught my eye. "I Hate it Here" addresses compensatory imaginings which arise from disappointment with reality.
I've enjoyed the naked truth that comes through in the following videos from Steve Shives' YouTube channel. Nothing is more important in 2024 than the electoral defeat of fascism in the USA. If we lose America, the whole world loses too. If Republicans said the quiet parts out loud, they would be ruined.
I am sure someone has thought this out before, but I just thought it out the other night. So, I am going to record my argument here.
There are a little more that 2 billion Christians in the world, but the current population of the earth is well over 7 billion. That means at least 5 billion reject Christianity and do not believe it is true.
There are around 1.9 billion Muslims. Thus, over 5 billion reject it and do not think it is true.
The rest of the world's religions are smaller than those two, so, do the math; it comes out the same every time.
In every case, the majority rejects any religion you choose.
My conclusion: the majority is right. Every time and in every case.
I entirely agree with the majority of mankind when I say that all religions are false.
We often insist nowadays on cultural
identity – for instance, national identity, linguistic identity, and so on.Sometimes the struggles under the banner of
identity, national identity, linguistic identity, are noble fights.But at the same time the people who fight for
their identity must pay attention to the fact that identity is not the
self-identity of a thing, this glass, for instance, this microphone, but implies
difference within identity.That is, the
identity of a culture is a way of being different from itself; a culture is different
from itself; language is different from itself; the person is different from
itself. Once you take into account this
inner and other difference, then you pay attention to the other and you understand
that fighting for your own identity is not exclusive of another identity, is
open to another identity.And this prevents
totalitarianism, nationalism, egocentrism, and so on.That is what I tried to demonstrate in the book
called The Other Heading: in the case of culture, person, nation, language,
identity is a self-differentiating identity, an identity different from itself,
having an opening or a gap within itself. That totality affects a structure, but it is a
duty, an ethical and political duty, to take into account this impossibility of
being one with oneself.It is because I am
not one with myself that I can speak with the other and address the other.That is not a way of avoiding responsibility.On the contrary, it is the only way for me to
take responsibility and to make decisions.(Caputo, 12f)
Having
just seen 258 words about the other from Derrida, consider 250 words on the other
from Nietzsche.
Too close. – If we live together with another person too closely,
what happens is similar to when we repeatedly handle a good engraving with our bare
hands: one day all we have left is a piece of dirty paper.The soul of a human being too can finally become
tattered by being handled continually; and that is how it finally appears
to us – we never see the beauty of its original design again. – One always
loses by too familiar association with friends and women; and sometimes what
one loses is the pearl of one’s life.(HH 428 complete)
In parting. – It is not in how one soul approaches another but
in how it distances itself from it that I recognize their affinity.(HH II 251 complete)
The first thought of the day. – The best way of
beginning each day well is to think on awakening whether one cannot this day give
pleasure to at any rate one person.If this could substitute for the religious practice of prayer, then this
substitution would be to the benefit of one’s fellows.(HH II 389 complete)
A testimony to love. – Someone said: “There are
two people upon whom I have never thoroughly reflected: it is a testimony of my
love for them.”(HH III 301 complete)
Rare abstemiousness. – It is often no small
sign of humanity not to wish to judge another and to refrain from thinking about
him.(D 528 complete)
To the solitary. – If we are not as considerate of the honour
of other people in our private soliloquies as we are in public, we are not
behaving decently. (D 569 complete)
From
which author would you like to read another 300 words about the other? Who is
clear? Who is obscure?
If I was on a debate stage against a republican running for congress, senate, governor, state house, sec of state, or any other office, I think I could win the debate. Hands down. Win. How? By working on the issues, driving the ball and having a few zingers at the ready.
There are a lot of angles from which to come up with a zinger. When you find one, record the zinger and add it to the list.
One of the most powerful angles that Dems have and that I have not seen exploited much turns on the fact that lots of Republican leaders, including Trump, are not reliable, and unfit for office. People who lie a lot are unfit for office, also those who repeat lies. People who are afraid are unfit, including those who are afraid of their party's leader. Political poltroons must be called out for the cowards they are, and doing so must be continually turned to the advantage of our party. Ask your opponent which of Trump's lies they have stood up to, and which they plan to stand up to. Have a list in mind, let them choose, "which of these 5 lies do you denounce?" If they do not answer, answer for them, they accept all 5 lies. "You accept lies, you stand for lies, you and your party stand for nothing but the lies of Donald Trump, unless it is covering up the crimes of Donald Trump" -- I dare a dem to say that kind of thing on a debate stage.
The GOP harbors a lot of arrogant, self-important ideas and people. But the left never calls them arrogant. They call us know-it-all, but we never call out their grotesque pretenses to knowledge. They call us gun-grabbers, we don't seem to be calling them rights-snatchers. They are religious extremists, but we never say so. They are church-going bigots, but we don't mention it. They insist that libs are moralistic but they are narrow mindedly moralistic and high handed about almost everything starting with abortion rights, and women's role in society. They are prudes too, but we never say so. They are nosy neighbors trying to run their neighbors' lives with the power of government. They want police in the bedroom. They want police in the bathroom. They want women's periods tracked. They want silencers for guns to be freely available, so the next mass shooter will have one. They want to arrest women who leave their home state seeking abortion services. They want rapists to have a say in raising any child their crimes generate. That is the brave new world these societal contrarians are pushing at us.
And they are not conservative, because they do not want to conserve the status quo. They want drastic and sudden change. That makes them sound like radicals, not conservatives. They are extremists who distrust moderation, that is, the status quo. Calling them conservative is a misnomer.
Of course all zingers are effective only if they are delivered in the right moment and with the right emphasis. When a KY candidate said of McConnell that if his doctor told him he had a kidney stone, he would refuse to pass it. she might have had the right timing, but a poor emphasis wrecked her delivery.
All of the zingers below require one to imagine a moment arising that could make it or something like it a valuable element of a debate performance.
ZINGERS
Whether I win or lose I will never stop fighting against the GOP. You and your party will not be hijacking my religion and using it to take my rights away, nor my daughter's rights, nor any one else's. We will never stop fighting you and we will win in the long run, and the party of using religion to reverse women's progress, the party of making women dependent on men again, will lose. You will lose big time and forever and ever.
We will not allow your party to hijack religion to take people's rights away.
I have known a lot of Christians in my day, and I strongly prefer the kind of Christian who does not lie all the time, sir.
I have known a lot of Christians in my day, and I strongly prefer the kind of Christian who does not repeat Trump's lies, ma'am.
There are all kinds of Christians, there are nice ones and mean ones. and you and Trump are mean ones. And your party is run by mean ones too. The Christians who attacked our capitol are mean ones too. And so are Nazis and KKK folks, those are mean Christians too. Your party attracts mean, repressive Christians, and shuns the nice ones.
Every lie Trump tells, you tell. And that makes you unfit for office.
Lying is disrespectful. You disrespect every voter in America when you lie like that.
People who will not or cannot distinguish a rumor from a fact are unfit for office.
A party that cannot or will not distinguish fact from rumor is unfit to lead.
A party whose platform consists of fealty to Donald is unfit to lead.
People who repeat lies and rumors are unfit for office, and all you do is repeat Trump's lies, and therefore you are unfit for office, sir.
Christians are not supposed to gossip and spread rumors, but that is all you and your party run on any more. You stand for a bunch of unfounded statements and mere rumors about elections, vaccines, history, climate, library books, gay people, evolution and just about everything else.
Conspiracy theories are rumors and passing along rumors is a sin. Check you bible, sir. It's called gossip.
My opponent is a nice guy, but I wouldn't follow him to a men's room. People who credit or spread rumors should not be listened to or trusted. We cannot let them lead.
Donald Trump is a pathological liar, and people who believe him are unfit to lead.
Your fealty to Trump has one of two causes. Either you actually believe Trump's lies, or you do not believe his lies and don't care about the fact that Trump lies. In either case, you are unfit for office, sir.
All of your conspiracy theories are rumors, and Christians are not supposed to spread rumors, so you should stop, if you care about your mortal soul, you should stop with the conspiracy theories and rumors about the 2020 election. I beg you, Jesus begs you, just stop!
Which lie will you tell next? The one about the 2020 election? The vaccines? Climate change? The border wall that was never built? Evolution? The emotional lives of children who read library books? The emotional reactions of whites who learn about the history of racism in America? The stories about litter boxes in high schools? Which path of lies and unfounded rumors will you run down next, you republican weasel?
FOX News relies on gossip and rumors, which are things Christians are supposed to avoid.
Your party keeps losing, is that because Jesus hates you for your lies? Or what? Why is Jesus letting your party lose like this?
All you do is lie. All your party does is lie. When will it stop?
Your party lies about other people in order to create fear and hatred.
You seem obsessed with other people's health care decisions.
Other people's abortions are none of your business, sir.
You nosy neighbor types are obsessed with what others do in their bedrooms.
The GOP is obsessed with what people are doing in their bedrooms.
The GOP is obsessed with what your kids think about sex.
Stop obsessing about gay kids.
Stop obsessing about other people's abortions.
Stop obsessing about what other people's kids are reading.
Stop obsessing about other people's bedrooms.
You and your version of religion are twins, you are both obsessive control freaks.
Your party lives in the past, you all are still afraid of gays.
I think you are afraid of gay kids and their parents.
You and your party constantly try to punish your enemies and keep voters from the polls.
Your party is trying to force a narrow version of religion on everyone. Voters who believe in real religious freedom must vote against all republicans.
You snatch people's rights away, you MAGA folks are freedom snatchers, not freedom makers.
Your party is afraid of science, sex and women -- the best things on earth, you cowards can't hate 'em enough.
Your party hates the US federal government, but all the constitution does is create that government. To hate the federal government is to hate the constitution.
You and your party misunderstand the Declaration of Independence. It is not a part of the laws of the land. It does not grant you the right to overthrow the government. That is a crime. A party that cannot or will not distinguish between a newspaper article and a body of law is unfit to lead.
Your version of Christianity is the ugliest thing on this earth. It's all about hating gays, women, foreigners and poor people. It justifies lying to gain power. It is authoritarian and contrary to the American spirit of freedom, equality and self-determination. No I do not like the version of religion that republicans want to force on us all.
I strongly prefer a version of Christianity that denounces Nazis and I strongly oppose the kind of Christian who panders to them. That is a major difference between me and you, sir, a major difference. You pander to them, I fight them.
I fear you worship the worst Jesus imaginable, a cowardly, mean bigot like yourself.
The GOP does not fight crime, it perpetuates crime. It does not fight gun violence, it perpetuates gun violence. The republican party is responsible for mass shootings because they let the assault weapons ban expire. They shield gun manufacturers from law suits. They oppose closing loopholes that allow felons to get guns. They are working feverishly to get silencers legalized so that future mass shooters will have silencers, and higher kill rates.
Mass shooters with silencers, that is the future the GOP wants to see.
The crime rate in red states is out of control. Oklahoma has a higher murder rate than NYC. You cannot trust the party of giving guns to crooks, you cannot trust the party of legalizing silencers, you cannot trust the party that stifles and kills all gun safety legislation. They are corrupt, they are paid for by the NRA. They will never do a thing to improve the situation, and they will do everything they can to make it worse.
Too many of your so-called conservative activists now are small minded people who hate everyone and laugh at mass shootings.
Your party attracts people who laugh at mass shootings.
There is something seriously wrong with the party you represent, and I do not think you have the spine to fix it, nor the spine to stand alone against it. In fact, if you do that, your party will destroy you, and you know it. Therefore, I believe that you stand here representing the worst of parties, with the worst of intentions, the intention to serve the party rather than the people.
You will help legalize silencers for mass shooters, you will not have the spine to vote no on that. You are the problem, not the solution.
You will cover up for Trump and his crimes.
You will deny climate change and do everything you can to increase rather than decrease emissions.
You are the problem, you are a republican, therefore, you are the problem.
Anti-LGBTQ marches, anti-LGBTQ? Imagine if you replace LGBTQ with black or Asian or Hispanic or Jewish. Imagine that. You and your party accept that. I can't.
You are too scared to say what you believe because you might lose a vote. People who are afraid to lose a vote are unfit to lead. You are no leader.
People who are afraid of Donald Trump are unfit to lead and unfit for office. You deserve no votes, sir.
My opponent does not know his position on that issue because Donald Trump has not told him what it is.
My opponent has no position on this issue on his website because Donald Trump has not told him what it is.
You and your party constantly denigrate the US government. All evaluations are comparative. What national government is better? Canada? England? France? Russia? Who? What national government do you admire more than the US government? Which one should ours be more like?
The greatest experiment in self-government ever instituted by men, and all you righties can do is hate it. Why? Why must you and your party denigrate science, sex, women, and the US Government? Because whatever is great you hate. Whatever is good you demean. Whatever the majority prefers you revile. Whatever has dignity you denigrate. Meanwhile, the worst institution in America, the GO stinky P, that you love. And the worst groups in America, insurrectionists, antisemites, racists, misogynists, gay bashers, online trolls, vaccine haters, those are the folks you court and protect.
Church going bigots are not better bigots, they are just bigots.
It's the preachers who are out of control, not the teachers.
Bad preachers are far more common than bad teachers.
Pedophiles are far more likely to work the churches than the night clubs. Everyone knows that except the people at church, which is exactly why the pedos are working the churches!
The government of Texas is corrupt. It has been in the hands of a single party for far too long, it is ingrown, inbred and insane now, and the voters need to change the situation.
I have already argued that inalienable rights do not come from gods. I am going to argue that gods cannot make inalienable rights, no god can, including the ultimate god believed in by western and middle eastern theologies.
An inalienable right is one that cannot be taken away. Theists like to say that rights granted by governments are not inalienable because they can be taken away by government. But the same can be said about rights created or granted by a god, or flowing from a god. Those rights can be uncreated, ungranted, or cease to flow. Those rights cannot be inalienable. And therefore inalienable rights cannot come from gods.
That is my earlier argument and it is quite strong. If the theist's point holds, mine does. But I have a further argument.
Consider what it would take for a god to make an inalienable right. It would require that he make something that he cannot unmake.
But asking a god to make something that he cannot unmake is like asking him to make a burrito so hot that he cannot eat it, or an ocean so deep that he cannot reach the bottom of it. One is asking god to exceed his powers, and that cannot be done. So, the problem of gods and inalienable rights touches on one of the most widely familiar paradoxes of omnipotence.
I can easily make a weight that I cannot lift. God cannot do that due to his omnipotence.
I can make a burrito so hot that I cannot eat it. Omnipotence cannot be exceeded, so it cannot do that.
I can give a gift that I cannot take back due to its being eaten or spent or perhaps it flies away as soon as the box is opened. Because he is omnipotent, God cannot do that. He can reconstitute what is eaten, un-spend what is spent or catch what has flown away.
He appears to lack some of the powers I possess. But this is an illusion. It is his omnipotence which makes it so that his powers cannot be exceeded.
My powers can be exceeded but his cannot. Therefore, God cannot make an inalienable right.
It would be the simplest religion ever, devoted to as few statements as possible, namely, just one.
It would be the only religion whose name and central tenet are the same.
It would be the only religion based on a statement that is useful.
It would be the only religion based on a true statement.*
*(Of course, that statement would not be true if applied to my religion, that is, to the religion known as Your Religion is False. To say that about the religion of Your Religion is False is to say something false because the denial of a true statement is always false. So, the statement on which our religion is based is true as long as it is applied to any religion except our own, Applied to our own religion it is false. Ours is the only true religion.)
Perhaps it should be renamed, If You Are Not of My Faith, then Your Religion is False, because that statement is not only true, it is universally true without being necessarily true. In addition, this longer formula mocks pretty much all religion, because religion is essentially the psychological capture of an audience by a priesthood, and the usual means of capture and retention of souls involves downgrading all sources of satisfaction outside the cult.
If I go around saying "if you are not of my faith, then your religion is false", I sound like a Christian, I mock the Christian, I humiliate the Christian. That sort of thing might motivate some to adopt the longer name. But I like the shorter name.
I'm not inclined to join or lead groups, but if there was a need, I would work as the pope of Your Religion is False.
I truly want to spout it in court (especially in Amarillo) and claim full protection for my religion under the constitution. I want to say it in Florida. I want to say it to every lying Christofascist in the country. I want to say it on Fox News. Your Religion is False.
