Taylor Swift Blues

  Way back in 2006, I heard a story about a new young musician named Taylor Swift on NPR and immediately bought her first album for Anna. I thought she sounded like one gutsy girl and I kind of like my girls listening to the music of other gutsy girls.

(ok, I know that they aren't really called "albums" anymore but old habits are hard to break)

 I liked that Taylor wrote all of her own songs and was able to turn her teenage dreams and dramas into something the other kids could relate to. Anna and Taylor are almost the same age and Anna enjoys hearing those lyrics of love and loss from someone of similar vintage... I guess we all do really.

My favorite factiod (ferreted out by my pals at npr) is that Taylor spent the entire summer when she was twelve, writing 350 pages of a novel that was never published. 

So, while she is a superstar/singer/songwriter, she also remains an unpublished middle school novelist.

 

Anna at the rest stop on the way to Louisville.

When Taylor Swift's tour came kinda close to Cincinnati, Anna's cool mom (me!) got two super  tickets so that we could go see her in Louisville in early July. Anna and I were both excited for the trip. She carefully assembled a "going to see Taylor Swift concert" uniform of a sundress, wide belt and cowboy boots and we hit the highway south. We had a great time singing along with all of her songs of victory and despair and Anna taught me a few things about Taylor's search for personal growth.

"This is her YOU'RE SO MEAN response song to Kanye West when he told her and everyone else that Beyonce should have won for best video, and not her..."
Apparently, Taylor can be quite vengeful.
But Anna and I had a great little road trip, singing our hearts out the entire 105 miles to Louisville.


Then we arrived only to discover that our girl Taylor was sick.
 And cancelled her show.
And forgot to tell us.

Can you imagine?

But we tried to make the best of it.
We walked around that pretty city and visited sights like the monument to fallen police officers. Interesting and important, but not as much fun as a concert.

 

And then Anna's feet in her fashionable boots started to hurt so we got dinner and then hit the road home. And for the approximately two hours it took us to get home we were whiny and not all that understanding of Taylor Swift's health crisis. I mean she's 20... how sick could she be? Elvis Costello played an awesome show recently with bronchitis... and I'm pretty at 69 years young, Paul McCartney has had some creaky days that he didn't cancel. 
Oh well.
Taylor did reschedule her Louisville concert... on a school night in early October. Anna and I can't go, but I really, really want someone to go Louisville on our behalf and whoop it up with the fabulous Taylor Swift.

 

The new concert date is Tuesday, October 11th, 2011... KFC Yum Center, Louisville KY. 

Let me know if you want to go.
I got two for you.