Top 10 Taylor Swift Songs

I wasn’t one of the first Taylor Swift fans ever, but I’ve liked her music for a while. My introduction to her was totally involuntary. It was 2007 and the radio at my work was stuck on the country music station for most of the year. I groaned inwardly at the prospect of coming to work and listening to fiddles and twangs all day, but after a while I didn’t really mind it. I realized that country music these days is just another subgenre of “pop music,” and no more unlistenable than top 40 stations or a hip-hop channel or whatever.

I eventually came to recognize and actually like some of what I was hearing. Miranda Lambert, Sugarland, and Alan Jackson were all ok in my book. But the song that absolutely wowed me was “Our Song” by a Ms. Taylor Swift. I loved that song. I’d find myself waiting for the song to be played and, when it came on, stopping everything to listen to it. It was pretty popular; I got to hear it three or four times a day.

After a few weeks, I decided that it was time to buy her album. I went to Best Buy and bought the deluxe edition of her self-titled debut album for $15. (Yes, the same one that routinely goes for $100 these days. Not stocking up on those and not buying Apple stock when it was $80 a share—my two great regrets of the last five years.) I took it home, played it, and loved everything. I don’t think I listened to any other music for months.

That year, I made a little 5 song CD to give to everyone at Christmas. It was the Best Songs of 2007, according to me. “Our Song” was, of course, number one. (Kanye’s “Stronger” was number two. J) (And lest you think it’s cheating to put it on a 2007 list since Taylor Swift was a 2006 album, I’d like to remind you that it was #1 on the country charts when I gave out the CD, so I think it’s fair to consider it a 2007 song.) It’s funny thinking back on that Christmas because at the time nobody had heard of Taylor. They all agreed that her name sounded made up. J It’s almost hard to believe that there was a time when people didn’t know who Taylor Swift was.

She’s certainly come a long way since, becoming a Global Megastar with three albums under her belt. I’ve obviously kept up with every release and I have to say she’s getting better and better. If she tops herself again with her next release—which should come out later this year—it will be really amazing.

Here is a list of my personal top ten favorite songs of hers…

#10
♥♪ The Other Side Of The Door ♪♥

This is a bonus track on the Platinum Edition of Fearless. It’s such a sweet makeup song, told from the perspective of someone who is fighting with her boyfriend, but it’s the kind of fight that both parties wish they could end if they just knew how. The final lines are really cool—they reference a bunch of her old songs, like “Tim McGraw” and “Beautiful Eyes.”

#9

♥♪ Jump Then Fall ♪♥

Another bonus track off Fearless Platinum. (She has a predilection for putting really great songs as bonus tracks. “I’m Only Me When I’m With You”—from Taylor Swift Deluxe—is fantastic, and she liked “Ours” enough to make a video for it.) This song is so good, it could’ve easily been a top ten single.

#8

♥♪ Sparks Fly ♪♥



This one had been floating around a while before Taylor put it on an album. It got such a positive reaction at concerts that she just had to make a studio recording of it eventually. The final version does not disappoint…it’s amazing.

#7

♥♪ Long Live ♪♥

She’s described “Long Live” as about her fans, for her fans. It’s the final track of Speak Now and it’s got such a nice epic sweep to it, a sort of culmination of all the success she’s had in her career thus far. There’s even a nice melancholic moment toward the end—a reminder that nothing lasts forever, which gives it a poignant touch.

#6

♥♪ Speak Now ♪♥



Her storytelling prowess is on full display here. The scenario she paints is so vivid, and the song is like an explosion of colors in music form. There is real emotion at the core of this fun song, and you have to love the giggle 3/4ths of the way in.

#5

♥♪ Fearless ♪♥

This might be the perfect evocation of reckless young love. Her lyrics are direct and powerful, and the music complements it perfectly by not being too airy or frivolous. The whole song feels strong, sturdy… it’s a song that demands to be taken just as seriously as the sentiment it is attempting to convey.

#4

♥♪ Love Story ♪♥



This is the song even people who aren’t Taylor Swift fans love. It’s just about the perfect pop song imaginable, just really catchy with an indelible chorus. An impeccably constructed gem of a song.

#3

♥♪ Last Kiss ♪♥



She’s probably never been better lyrically than with this song, which has lines in it like “How you kissed me when I was in the middle of saying something / There’s not a day I don’t miss those rude interruptions.” The emotions go beyond callow sadness, into the deeper realm of mature regret. Pretty startling when you first hear it, and ultimately unforgettable.

#2

♥♪ Enchanted ♪♥

Whether it’s “A Day In The Life” or “Like A Rolling Stone,” a great 6-minute song usually marks an evolutionary leap for a music artist, and “Enchanted” is Taylor’s great leap forward. It’s a perfectly modulated song, building at just the right pace to an awe-inspiring emotional peak. Taylor had never shown such masterful control of a song before this incredibly moving expression of yearning, and hopefully it’s a sign of even more tremendous things to come.

#1

♥♪ Our Song ♪♥

This is still the one for me, almost 5 years after hearing it for the first time. I’ve never gotten sick of it; I could listen to it over and over again, still. It never fails to make me smile and feel happy. She really captured a magical sound with “Our Song” that continues to resonate with me and probably always will. “Play it again…oh yeah…”

DHS

My Bookshelves

As we ease into the new year, I thought I’d share my bookshelves with you. Now, I’ve had a Kindle for the last 3 years. But for the other 24 years of my life, I read what are now known as DTBs or Physical Books. (I’m still not 100% sure whether “DTB” is an affectionate term or a pejorative one.) Since almost all of us have lived most of our lives with these tangible books (apologies to all the 3-year-olds reading this blog), we still have to own shelves to put them on. And if you’re like me and really love to read, you own a bunch of books and space becomes an issue. Well recently I acquired some shelves that not only hold all my books but allow me to arrange them as I’ve never had the chance to before. Check it out:

Yes, they are former Borders bookshelves. Don't hate me.

I used to own the bookshelves you typically see at places like Walmart, the ones that have really deep and tall shelves, requiring you to stack books behind one another. I hated that. I’ve always wanted shelves that were the perfect size for a paperback and allowed all the books to be seen, spines facing out. Which is exactly what these are. It allows me to get totally “High Fidelity” with how the books are ordered. J

I love the Mamet :)

Actually, the order is pretty simple. Everything’s alphabetical by author, exactly like you’d find at a bookstore. (It’s kind of pathetic how happy this makes me. My books had previously been thrown together in a slapdash manner, and now everything’s wonderfully easy to find.) What’s slightly different from a bookstore’s order, however, is that within each author’s section, the books are placed in chronological order. So it goes from the author’s first book (if I have it) to her last (ditto), left to right. Oh, and the author’s novels come first, then short stories, then essays, etc. Autobiographies and interview books and stuff like that are last, generally. But if the author is more well-known for something other than novels (like plays for instance, like good ole Mamet supra) than that thing comes first. Got it? (Maybe it is a more “High Fidelity”-type obsessive ordering than I thought…)

I own a lot of fiction, which is my favorite kind of book. Novels pretty much fill 2 of the 3 bookcases. The third one is filled with graphic novels and books about movies—screenplays, film theory, filmmaker biographies, stuff like that. Those I haven’t really put in order yet. For the movie books, I’ll probably bunch the screenplays together and find some sort of way to arrange the rest of it. The graphic novels will eventually be alphabetical by either title or writer…still thinking about it.

So while we’re talking DTBs, I’ll share some of the most cherished ones on my shelves…

This is an advance galley proof of Infinite Jest that I got on eBay last year for an obscene amount of $ (for me, at least). But I’ve wanted one for years, so I just had to get it. It’s one of my favorite books, and supposedly only about 1000 of these things exist. It’s also signed on the inside, with a little smiley face, which is just extra cool.

Here is a signed first edition of American Gods. These were buried in the displays at bookstores upon the book’s release in 2000. Way back when I was 16, I went into a Barnes & Noble and snagged one and was totally psyched.

An out-of-print book by Pauline Kael—the best movie critic of all time. This massive volume contains a ton of her reviews, and I can spend hours just flipping through it. It’s quite baffling (and a shame) that this book is currently unavailable.

My 1st Edition Curse of Lono was a lot more impressive before Taschen published a handsome oversized edition for a reasonable $60 ($37.79 on Amazon). I still love it though.

This is my dictionary. I think a dictionary tells a lot about its owner. Personally, I’m an OED man. J This is the 2-volume Shorter OED, 5th Edition. Great, great resource for both writer and reader.

This one I’d definitely try to save if there was a fire. It’s a facsimile of the manuscript of one of the greatest novels of all time: The Great Gatsby. Only 2000 of these puppies were made for what I believe was the 50th anniversary of the novel. I love stuff like this for the same reason I love making-of docs and director’s commentaries on DVDs—it shows you the process of how a work of art is crafted. This stately volume allows you to see Gatsby’s creation ab ovo. (J) It is quite astounding to see the novel materialize on the page as Fitzgerald goes about the business of writing an American classic one beautifully handwritten word at a time. When I bought it, there were a bunch of them available in the Amazon marketplace. Now there’s just one, going for 3 times what I paid for mine. I have a feeling that when Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio comes out later this year, we probably won’t see these around anymore.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of my books. They are my most prized possessions and I really feel like they’re a big part of who I am in some way. Everything I’ve read has changed me for the better. I’m sure all you readers out there know what I mean. When I look at all these books, written by authors who have spent countless hours creating lasting and important works of art, I’m not only inspired but extremely honored to be—in my own small way—contributing to the venerable tradition of the written word.

And with that, I bid everyone goodnight.

DHS