There’s one thing uncanny about this nonetheless and gorgeous portrait of a twenty-one-year-old Taylor Swift, shot by Katy Grannan for Lizzie Widdicombe’s Profile of the singer, in 2011. Swift was already enormously well-known (“Fearless,” from 2008, gained a Grammy for Album of the 12 months; “Converse Now,” launched in 2010, bought greater than 1,000,000 copies in its first week), however she hadn’t but turn into the item of such fervent and unwavering curiosity that she needed to maintain her hand over her mouth when she spoke in public, lest she ship a nation of lip-readers right into a frenzy. Taking a look at this picture is like seeing an image of your self taken simply earlier than one thing seismic occurred: perhaps you met an important love, or discovered you have been having a child, or misplaced somebody. There’s your smiling face, perpetually moored within the Earlier than.
Did Swift sense what was coming? Perhaps. She has all the time been savvy about cultural wishes. Sure facets of her life have modified dramatically previously fourteen years, however the grand theme of her work has remained the identical. As she advised Widdicombe, she is concerned about “love, and unrequited love, and love that didn’t final, or love that you simply want had lasted, or love that by no means even bought began.” On the time, Swift was starting to imagine a extra sophisticated view of romance—Widdicombe factors to the lyric “There’s a drawer of my issues at your home” as proof of extra grownup themes. Swift remains to be in tune with the tenderness of a brand new love affair, however she is much less Pollyannaish, singing about intercourse and heartache with ease. Younger Swift possessed a sort of guilelessness, however the thirty-six-year-old model has seen issues, felt issues, been damage. It has made her solely extra compelling. ♦
How Taylor Swift made teen angst right into a enterprise empire.
