When You Think Taylor Swift

31 SONGS??? We are wealthy. Today we're diving into our overall thoughts on the album — where it fits into Taylor's larger body of work, the side effects of her prolific output over the past few years, living inside of an imperial phase, musical and lyrical redundancies, Taylor's partnerships with Jack and Aaron — and doing a track-by-track vibe check of the (first) album. Come for the hot takes, stay for the alien abduction commentary. We'll be back soon to discuss The Anthology, because there is simply TOO MUCH GROUND TO COVER.

What a week! We’re talking Grammys, TS11 announcement, and the Super Bowl. Complicated feelings about conspiracy theories and Taylor’s public image and capitalism abound. Come for the discourse, stay for our imagined versions of every track on TTPD.  

Sidebars this week: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the self-fulfilling monster on the hill prophecy, Fox News plugging Taylor Swift as a psyop for the Pentagon and Joe Biden, whether the Super Bowl is rigged, wake up sheeple but also stay asleep sheeple, and no longer trusting Taylor’s use of punctuation.

SUMMER OF TAYLOR. Recorded on the eve of Speak Now TV, we have a little recap of our tour experience. And soon we’ll be back with our full album (and music video) review — what a time to be alive! We are rich in content!!!

Just a little update epi! We eat some Goldfish and talk Spotify stats, tour, Amsterdam (the film, not the city), Taylor’s directorial turn, rerecording predictions, (among other things). Until our Midnights deep dive — thanks for spending your year with us! We love you! To 2023!

The first of many Midnights deep dives! We’re talking this week about our complicated feelings about this album: its public reception, the necessary role of criticism in ingesting culture, what it means to engage with an artist’s internality, how to carry both our expectations and our appreciation, and the many, many, many layers of being a Taylor Swift fan. The vibe is rigorous classroom discussion, so grab your pencils and check the syllabus and settle into a comfy chair to chew on this album with us.

GOOD MORNING AND HAPPY MIDNIGHTS DAY TO ONE AND ALL! A mini-ep from immediately before and immediately after listening to the album. WE ARE EXCITED !!!

We’re back, babies. It’s the Midnights era and we’re GETTING INTO IT. Let’s talk theories, Easter eggs, inspirations, expectations, explanations, reputations. 39 days left… which is 13 times 3… INTERESTING TIMING.

Sidebars this week: talking about Taylor Swift in class, therapy, and first dates, Las Culturistas, Peloton instructors, Joni Mitchell references, Tik Tok lesbians, journalism politics, cages, burning this house to the ground, Harry Styles and the celebrity-coming-out pipeline, the Lorde effect, and tour predictions,

Today we are transitioning from Taylor-as-poet to Taylor’s literal poetry, circa 1999 and 2017. We’re reading Taylor’s three published poems — A Monster In My Closet!, Why She Disappeared, and If You’re Anything Like Me — and talking about why they feel like a new kind of peek into her psyche and her Enneagram type, Taylor’s deep need for being understood (even when There Will Be No Further Explanation There Will Just Be Reputation), and as usual, our plea for Taylor to get a therapist.

Sidebars this week: Taylor’s connection to Al Gore, the Cadbury commercial where kids wiggle their eyebrows, Madeline’s career as a public speaking tutor, the sentient Empire State Building, is Martha Stewart deuxmoi, and Colton Underwood’s connection to Scooter Braun.

It’s time for the much-anticipated Ivy episode. IT’S TIME. We’re talking Emily Dickinson (the poet), Dickinson (the show), and how it all exists in a beautiful time-warp synchronistic loop with Taylor. Settle in for a biography of Emily and how her poetry and persona came into public perception, an overview of the work of ART that is Alena Smith’s show, Dickinson, the epic love story of Emily and Sue Gilbert, what differentiates a romantic friendship from a romantic relationship, and a line-by-line breakdown of Ivy.

Sidebars this week: candids of Taylor wearing loafers with socks, Madeline attending church*, Joe Rogan vs. Ezra Klein, Cynthia Nixon’s bizarre accent and the CGI buildings on The Gilded Age, wishing for Taylor to have a gardening phase, confusing the brothers Kushner, and Shawn Mendes.

*a Taylor Swift themed club night where the worship song was Stay Stay Stay

With the turning of the calendar, it’s time for us to reflect — and look ahead to consider what the absolute hell is going to fall in our laps from the one and only Miss Taylor. We’re staking our claims and making our predictions for what is to come this year: tour? Re-records? A fresh album? A NOVEL?? Who knows.

Also — we’re on Instagram! Follow us at @whenuthinktaylorswift and send us your wildest theories, your requests for new episodes, and/or your top ten songs. We want it all.

We’ve spent a few weeks deep in Red TV and it’s time to discuss. Come for the song-by-song analysis, stay for the heartbreak. We’re In Our Feelings. (Also, Hannah sounds slightly underwater in this episode for reasons unknown to us. Sorry!!!)

Sidebars this week: the beauty of the universe, emotional wreckage, finding divinity in the ephemerality of love, longing as praxis, desperation, delicacy, destruction, and Wisconsin Dells.

SO MANY BRAND-NEW SONGS can you even believe it. In another recorded-IRL episode, we’re discussing vault tracks — everything besides I Bet You Think About Me, which will be covered in a future video so we can dedicate time to discussing Blake Lively's directorial debut. We’re not eating Nerds in this episode, but we are still gabbing.

SPOILERS ABOUND

WE LISTENED TO THE LEAKED VERSION

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

unedited insanity for you all

Have you ever wondered about Taylor Swift’s family tree? We’re ready to share. After a brief recap of the Wildest Dreams re-release, we’re spending this episode going through Scott (not Borchetta), Andrea, and Austin, her grandparents who are the inspiration for two songs on Folklore and Evermore, and the role of her family in her music and public persona. We also spend a fair amount of time going through Austin’s filmography on Wikipedia. If you are one of the twelve people who’s seen any of the movies we mentioned, please let us know. Sidebars this week: our showering habits, our respective food projects, Taylor’s southern accent phase, planning a visit to the prodigal Christmas tree farm, Alexandra Daddario, Dunkirk, celebrity moms, Taylor’s cousin who is also named Taylor Swift, and celebrities attending Harvard Divinity School this year.

This is also our first-ever episode featuring a SONG so stay tuned for a taste of Taylor at the end of the episode :***

We’re back and in honor of August sipping away like a bottle of wine, it’s time to reflect on Folklore. We’re doing a track-by-track analysis, theorizing on the line between fiction and reality in the Taylorverse, discussing Taylor’s ability to draw a universal feeling from a wildly niche vignette, and generally deep diving left & right. Buckle in, babies.

Sidebars this week: Facebook Marketplace finds, “you’ll never get away from the sound of the woman who loves you,” Madeline’s pre-Folklore connection to Holiday House, Taylor Swift’s real estate investments, Hannah turning into a snob about vinyl, Nicole Kidman’s accents and wigs, is Jack Antonoff weird??, Strawberry Wine by Deanna Carter, Sally Rooney and Brandy Jensen in conversation with Illicit Affairs, Jill Gutowitz predicting Taylor’s bear suit Instagram, and Taylor’s cheugiest lyrics.

We’re sticking in the Evelyn Hugo universe for one last episode to talk about the brilliant, tortured, kindhearted Harry Cameron — and also the brilliant, tortured, kindhearted Harry Styles. We cover a lot of ground in this episode: the history of celebrity bearding, Evelyn and Harry’s relationship, Taylor and Harry’s relationship, literary and lyrical analysis, the utility of identity politics, chosen families, the snowmobile (??) accident (??), whether we’ll ever get a sit-down deep dive debrief from Taylor herself, and prioritizing platonic love. Without further ado, LET’S GET INTO IT.

Sidebars this week: the giant birdcage in Taylor’s Nashville house, Hannah mixing up Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne (SORRY), the “I want to be famous” Vine, Chely Wright, Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield, the 2016 election’s ripple effect into Taylor’s personal life, the L Word, and Karlie Kloss’s Instagram. Please let us know if you have insight on the etymology of the term bearding!!!

Our most chaotic and juiciest episode yet — we’re going into the wild world of personality assessments. We use our years of deep dives on astrology & the Enneagram and offer some hot psychoanalytic takes on Taylor’s internality, then close the episode with the question of the hour: what is going to happen on April 30th??? Sidebars this week: the time Taylor got into a car crash during an interview, Tumblr HTML, working at Target, sneaking Go-Gurt into a Disney on Ice show, and Al Gore.

We’re getting into the six vault songs from Fearless (Taylor’s Version). More track-by-track deep dives, more superlatives, more Gaylor — plus a walkthrough of what we think is coming next. Sidebars this week: getting high on Jesus, the graphic t-shirt wall at Delia’s, white wine-core, and Lizzo’s fanfiction.

The first rerelease has dropped, and so have literally hundreds of our takes. We’re breaking down the first 20 tracks, covering all of the previously released songs through the lens of our own history with each song and the new meaning imbued by Taylor re-recording. Sidebars this week: Chewbacca costumes, hawk sounds, God as camp, fruit gummies from Costco, and ASMR. And, obviously, Gaylor. 

Join us, Madeline and Hannah, as we elevate our friendship in its 13th year to a Taylor Swift podcast. We'll discuss each rerecord as it's released this year, including track-by-track analysis and topics from every era of the Taylor Swift extended universe.