Taylor Swift's "Fearless" Album

When given this Wildcard assignment for the week, this was the first artist and album that popped into my head. Even though I see Taylor Swift as too fragile or sensitive sometimes, I think her songs are extremely catchy and easy for young girls to relate to. Her album, "Fearless" is all about love. Many of the songs she has written actually include the names of her exboyfriends or real situations that she has found herself in. The first song of the album is the same as the title - "Fearless." This song starts off talking about a young girl who is nervous and timid about love, yet when she is around the person that she feels most comfortable with she suddenly becomes fearless of anything. To start off the album like this, it is obvious that the song writer has a positive outlook on love and being a young girl, has many love stories to look forward to.
As the songs of the album continue, Swift starts to sing about specific instances in her life or in the lives of people close to her and their experiences with love. The second song of the album "Fifteen" talks about a fifteen year old girl who is very naive when it comes to boys and love. This connects to the album title again since this teenager is fearless when thinking about love, she is willing to believe anyone who says that they feel something for her. The girl, Abigail, mentioned in this song was acutally Swift's friend when she was younger and they both had the same thoughts about their high school boyfriends - they would end up together. The song goes on to say that looking back, the song writer wishes she knew what she knew now since not everything is so important as it seems when you are fifteen. In general, I think that many people can relate to this. In high school I always felt that little arguments or friendships were so much bigger and greater than they actually were.
The songs throughout the middle of the album are all related to the greater things about love. Some popular songs include, "Love Story," "Hey Stephen," "You Belong With Me," and "Breathe." I thought that placing "You Belong With Me" before "Breathe" was very clever, since the messages of both songs can be intertwined. The first, "You Belong With Me" is a young girl singing about how the popular boy at school is with the wrong type of girl. The singer wants him to notice her, but instead he is involved with a popular girl at school. "Breathe" is a song talking about how without that specific person in your life you feel as though you cannot get any air. Perhaps the song writer placed these two songs one after another because the person that he/she longs to be with does not notice them and makes them feel as though they cannot live without them. Again, this is a feeling that can be relatable to many young boys and girls since at a young age we all have feelings for someone else that are not reciprocated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw

Towards the end of the album, we see the heartbreak that Swift has experienced with the song "Forever and Always." This song talks about a boy who promised to always be there for her, yet broke her heart in the end. The song writer is left confused and hurt by the break up. The very last song of the album is called "Change." This is definitely a different tone than from the first song, "Fearless." At this point, the song writer has gone through all of the emotions one can feel when experiencing love and has come out on the other side a changed person. She now sees that being fearless when entering love can cause pain, but that pain can sometimes make you stronger.