Mee Siam Mai Hum

Thursday, March 17, 2011

For every teenagehood of about four to five years there's a defining artist who speaks what the generation's innermost but common angsts. There was Simple Plan, Avril Lavigne - artistes who live on but have now experimented beyond their initial signatures. The growth of an artiste sometimes corresponds directly with our personal growths. They become aspirational figures, role models of people three, four years older whom we wish we could date. Which corresponds with what the other half'd like to be like.

Taylor Swift is one such idol. In a world swept by commercialization, urbanization, and a constant loss of what it truly means to be human, her laid-back yet intensely emotional and sincere renditions of country music really speak tomes about an ideal way of life. For the country bumpkin it speaks directly, for us urbanites the music paints a world where our teenage fantasies can escape to. Nothing quite astounds or fulfills like fantasy does. And fantasy at its best is believable. Taylor is the closest to believable you get. Taylor astounds, and fulfills. She tugs at your heartstrings. And that's a very highly generic 'your'.

Of course we cannot begrudge her commercialization, how else would we have gotten to know her wonder. But this is more of an apologist speaking after we have decided to back her completely unconditionally. Justin Bieber can't compare you see - Taylor wins. Some find her pretentious, her thoughts and sounds repetitive. Are these not the exact concerns and anxieties which racket all of us every single waking moment? So many of us are in desperate scramble to find our true selves. Not for inner peace, but for others not to deem us pretentious. Repetitive thoughts and sounds? Pray tell me that a typical teenager constantly reinvents and diversifies his or her interests beyond his or her hormonal inclinations. We all lapse back into the things we enjoy and are familiar with - treading new ground is sometimes commercially unviable. For Taylor, unless it corresponds with a personal renaissance the commercial unviability comes from the new music no longer being her.

Lyrics needn't be complex, its the sincerity of the guitar and voice, that the words she sings are words she actually speaks. And the words she speaks are words on all our lips - except whispered into our pillows or blankets or shoulder hollows or anything else comfortably soft and private. They need articulation, and who better than a wholesome role model? And the teenagehood never leaves our blood. Your teenage years are when you first and most intensely experience these sensations, but the capacity to experience these never fades - it is part of the human condition. It's when you cuddle a bolster pretending its her, its when you sleep in his old T-shirt, its pining and loving and missing without the need for wild nights at the discotheque and all sorts of lewd reference to BDSM.

You belong with me, Taylor. Or rather, us.

(5th June 2011: i wrote this for a taylor fansite. just because i felt like writing something completely random.)

2L @ 10:49 AM
"Sorry also must exprain"
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Hello Uncle...Bah Chor Mee one. I want chilli plus tur Kwa plus can I watch your CCTV playback of Jeff Lopez...=D