One of the things that you’ve talked about in relation to Swift’s music is this concept of “girl culture.” Could you say a little bit more about that and how Taylor Swift has a big role here?Ībsolutely, one of the things that I’ve really been thinking about, possibly because it’s what I know the least about, is her early music. Every song is written from a fictive point of view. So every song is highly autobiographical. But this is really going to be a topic for the class that we talk about because, you know, every writer is drawing on their own experience in some way, even when they’re creating something that’s a complete fiction. I think that’s what people said in the media for some time. You know, the one thing is, if you don’t want a breakup song written about you, don’t date Taylor Swift. Is that fair to say? A lot of her past loves and that sort of thing seem to make appearances. She gets a lot of attention for being rather autobiographical. And her bridges, man, are they fantastic.
She’s extremely famous for her bridges – the part of the song that moves between a couple of verses and a repeated chorus to the final verse that kind of concludes the song and takes it to another place. But there are certainly poetic aspects to the way she writes a song and constructs the narrative. I think you have to look at her writing as a songwriter, not as a poet. You know, she’s not a poet, so she’s not trying to write something that only appears on the page that you have to hear or understand only through looking at those words as they’re printed and as they’re visually laid out on the page, which is what a poet does. And, you know, the students would say that they don’t read Shakespeare for fun, but they listen to Taylor Swift all the time. You know, it’s not really a course on literary value, but it is certainly a course on what makes literary value. Are Swift’s music and lyrics of that caliber? Plath, Shakespeare, Marlowe – these are some of the greats. And they’re going to use what they do when they analyze Swift’s writing at that kind of level in detail, and then take it over to Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Sylvia Plath, and look at what’s going on in the other literature as well. And then I’m having them go to some really old traditional literature that they may or may not be familiar with. And I’m having the students kind of think really hard about the kind of verbal play and figures that they see in Swift’s writing.
And I’m thinking about what Taylor Swift does as a songwriter.
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But right now this course is a freshman seminar, so it is full at 16. Is it pretty well-registered?Įlizabeth Scala: It is full. Texas Standard: I’m guessing that there’s a similarity between your class and Taylor Swift concerts in that it’s probably standing room only at this juncture, if you have any standing room in that classroom. This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity. Scala spoke to the Texas Standard about how her class is going and the cultural impact of Swift’s music. She’s also been the center of a number of high-profile media stories around her personal life – including public fights with Kanye West and record executive Scooter Braun.Įlizabeth Scala, a professor at the University of Texas – and a self-identified Swiftie (a Swift superfan) – is teaching a class focusing on the singer’s catalog and songwriting this semester. Her long and storied career, which started in 2006 with the release of her first album, has been characterized by a transition from a teenage country singer to a global pop sensation. With her 10th studio album set to release next month, Taylor Swift has already solidified herself as one of the most prolific artists of her generation.
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