Every Single Album - The Taylor Swift Take Purge | Every Single Album: Taylor Swift

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Introducing the "Summer of Taylor Swift" series ... because there's a lot going on at the moment. To start off, Nora and Nathan take a note from the 'Fantasy Football Show' and do a take purge, airing all of their wildest takes about Taylor Swift. They talk about the length of her concerts (1:00), her very brief relationship with Matty Healy (31:30), and if we're ever going to see '1989 (Taylor's Version)' (59:25). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You may find this hard to believe, but 60 songs that explain the 90s. America's favorite poorly named music podcast is back. With 30 more songs than 120 songs total. I'm your host, Rob Harvilla, here to bring you more shrewd musical analysis, poignant nostalgic reveries, crude personal anecdotes, and rad special guests, all with even less restraint than usual. Join us once more on 60 Saws that Explain the 90s every Wednesday on. Spotify. And welcome to every single album, Taylor Swift. I'm Nora Friziotti. We are back. Nathan

Hubbard is here. Nathan, say hello to the people. Hello. It's a little chaotic at the moment. Not a lot going on at the moment, Nora. Nathan's going through a lot right now. It's the summertime. And what a great summer it is, because it's the summer of Taylor. She's everywhere. She's all around us. she's on the ERIS tour. She's single or not single or dating or not dating. She walks among us, or at least for me, here in New York City. Speak Now, Taylor's version is coming. And we just, we had to get some stuff out there.

We had to react to all of it. So this is, first of all, our first episode in a long time, and it's good to be back. But it is the first episode of a series that we're going to call the summer of Taylor. Yes. So she's everywhere and we are going to be here breaking it all down once a week all the way through the end of the U.S. leg of the Ares Tour. You know, we'll see. Maybe she'll do something crazy and we'll have to extend. But that is our plan.

We will have you covered every week. Vacations canceled, Nora. With all of the craziness that's happening in Taylor Swiftland. And to get started for our first installment, since it has. been a little bit and there is a lot going on in the moment, as Nathan said. We're stealing an idea that my pal's over at the Ringer NFL draft show fantasy football show. They like to do, which is something called the take purge. And it's a really good way of just like getting all your stuff out there, getting all your thoughts out, getting all the stuff you want to talk about

out there. But it's like the purge. So everything is free. Takes are free. There are no consequences. is we can just let it rip. We're going to go through all of our thoughts and feelings from, you know, deep down in our psyche that we've been sort of wanting to put out there. But we're not sure if we believe it. And we'll see. And we have not talked about this. So we're just going to lay it all out there for each other and get started with this wonderful

excuse to just talk about Taylor Swift all summer. I feel like we have really done well by establishing a reputation of not being completely unhinged and being a somewhat rational voice dissecting what happens. But in the chaos and the clamor, there's going to be some unhinged shit that happens in the next, I don't know, hour and a half, whatever this is going to take. That's the point. That's the point of the take perch. And I hope that people listening along to this will contact us, smoke signals, social media, whatever. get your takes out there too. Because if we're getting a few freebies here,

everybody else should get them to. And we'll just get extra crispy bucket of crazy with this one. And it'll be a lot of fun. So Nathan, do you want to start us or shall I? I really need to hear your first take. Okay. Here's where I'm starting because I, let's see, it's been a little bit over a week

since I got to see the Ares tour at MetLife Stadium. And my first take is that the nearest tour could be longer. Could be twice as long. What? Three and a half hours. She could have, I am in mourning. Do you want her to not have legs? I want her to have legs.

But I also, like, when she got to the beginning of the midnight section during that show, my body, like, went into, like, not to quote Roman Roy, but like, I, like, pre-greaved the end of the concert. I was just like, no, I don't know. go back, go back to fearless. Like, let's do it all over again. She could sing for five hours, and I would just stand there, like, wrapped.

I know this is not like audience. I know this is not like audience. I mean, like, what are we talking about? She could go, did you read that? There was an article in Time magazine that got passed around on post-concert amnesia where they had like this psychology professor explain what happens in your brain

when you're literally that excited. And his example was that when you're, when your brain releases like tons of glucose and like noroprenephrine and whatever, he was like, you're saying, we're really stressed out, we're running away from a bear, or we're watching Taylor's life.

Did you just make those things up? You're not a doctor. I'm definitely not a doctor. That might not be right. It's the take perch. It's fine. It's wild. It absolutely could be longer, Nora.

There's no speak now in this show. There's no debut. So it could be longer. I guess what I want to know is having been there, and you texted me at some point and said there's been seven cries and I'm only 20 songs in. I want to know, in hindsight... I don't remember that. I blacked all of that out.

In hindsight, are there any things that you would cut to make room for more... more stuff. How did the whole thing land with you, Nora? It landed unbelievably well. I do think, like, if I had to cut something, I would cut, like, I remember saying to you that I was really, really curious to see if I got in and went, oh, I get why tolerated is here. Like, this is, it's so artistic. It's like a set piece. You probably get a little something by way of contrast from having that moment and then getting to sort of pivot back and forth from that to the super high energy 1989 stuff, the super high energy red stuff, even the super high energy fearless stuff,

because the songs that she's doing there are, you know, the mega, mega hits. Yeah, it was not like particularly more powerful to me in, in stadium the way that the big sing-alongs were. So I guess that would be it. And I do think that you were, you were proven. correct, but the variety still matters. I know, I know, being so magnanimous. It does. It does matter. I agree with you. But there were not, there were just not a lot of skips. No. My advocacy is, to be very clear, is that she plays for five hours, not that she swapped some

stuff out. Well, do you feel like you were able to take it all in once? Or do you feel like you were feel like you need to go back. Or at this point, can you do what a lot of people are doing, which is just dip in online and find the moments that happen that are spontaneous each night, whether it is trying to kidnap a small child and bring it on stage potentially or not, whether it is the secret song of the night, whether it is mouthing the same words that Maddie Healy mouths in the Asia tour a few weeks earlier? Again, these are all things. But my question to you is, do you feel like you've got to go again? Or did you take it in and you can now sort of live vicariously through the people who are streaming or posting from the show?

Did I take it all in? No, absolutely not. It's not possible to take it all in. And I, like, I have never had, I've never had better seats to a concert than I had to the year's tour. I was on the floor. I've never had that experience. Could you see the stage? So, funny story. We did not, as of like a day before the show, my group had, we had like one ticket and another group of friends that somebody had dropped out. And we were doing like jenga pieces of figuring out who was going to go. And we were just, I'd monitored the last minute situation the weekend before in Foxborough and was like, okay, we're going to like, we are resigned to dealing with the secondary market.

And that's fine. and we're paying attention. And I think we have a sense of like when the right moment for this is going to be. And like the day before we're just going to like we know sort of where the number is. And as soon as we find something that's good enough, we're just going to take it and go. And my darling boyfriend who was doing this in part as a birthday gift, which was like the most amazing thing ever. Hey, gets a mention on the pod.

Wow. This is like, this is more than Taylor's done with Maddie. Fantastic. He was a hero who made me and some friends of mine exception. happy. And also, I was traveling, so it was all very chaotic. Anyway, he got kind of bamboozled by Stubh being really shitty. Because, but it actually, the story has a happy ending. Yeah. This story has a happy ending. Why don't you call me? Why are we having this conversation for the first time? I was like, I was in fucking Sweden. It was so complicated.

Like, you can have the full story of this some other time. But he's buying tickets. and they say in the listing, you know, they're on like one of the floor sections and they say in the listing, these tickets are in the first row of the section. And he's looking at them and going like, this is too good to be true. Right.

Like, you know, they're not cheap, but like that just doesn't make any sense. And he's like, you know what? Just in case this is right, it's worth the difference. Like, let's just see. They were only telling the truth in the sense that they were qualifying

the last row of the section as the first row of the section. So at first when they come through, he's like, what the fuck? Like, this is so annoying. Blah, blah, blah, blah. But we're just like, all right, we're so happy to, like, we figured this out.

We're going, it turned out to be awesome. Because there was nobody behind us, they let us stand on the chairs. So we're like down in the thick of it. And, you know, Aaron Rogers and Miles Teller are coming in behind us. And it's just like the coolest thing. and we get that whole like atmospheric buzz,

all of that awesomeness and just feeling like you're right in the center of the action. But we also got this sort of like top down vantage point. So I felt like I could see more of what was going on. That said, while like I could watch her, you know, I didn't have to look at the screen. I could just look at her and it was like so, so, so cool to look up and see the, spotlights, like going up into the sky, and it was this, like, unbelievably massive, just crazy chaos. That's what you imagine your immediate visions upon death might be like, I imagine, for you.

Yes, no, literally. Literally. Literally. I was in. Angelically lit up waiting for you. Going towards the light. That said, you can't watch everything at the same time. You just can't. Like, it's where, whatever you're doing at this show, and I think the fact that we had amazing seats. I'm not going to like BS was incredible. It was, it made it an amazing special experience. But also, it's just different. And like, when she jumps into the stage, could you see her swimming up or could you not see that from your seats? So we could see that because we could stand on the chairs. But if you were in front of us, I don't think you would have been able to see it. And when you see it, you're watching like one section of it. And you're not

getting the vantage point that I will see on TikTok sometimes. That's a very. where you see the whole stage become the guitar. Right, which is a work of art. I'm not going to sit here and be like, you know, having the last row in the 400 section is, is the same. Like, it's not the same. But also, it's still really, really, really friggin' cool and it's unique in its own way.

And she's done such an exceptional job of just making this show work, no matter where you're sitting. And then the other thing. Well, that's it. It's a different experience. if you sit way up high, if you sit in the lower bowl, or if you sit on the floor.

Those would be three very different experiences. The fact that you did not see the art of that stage for most of it, certainly not if you were sitting on the floor versus standing on the chairs. But if you don't experience the show with that, it's a totally different visual experience. It is more about just watching her

because you're close to it, but you don't get the full show of it. Well, and also, no matter where you are, like you can't look everywhere at once. Even if you can see everything, even if you had a drone, you know, you cannot see every, you cannot. My mind is alive. My mind is alive. My mind is alive.

I'm not asleep. My mind is alive. It was so cool. And then the other thing is just the audience is a show in and of itself, right? So like standing right behind my boyfriend Bobby. When she's introducing all too well 10 minute version, she's like, all right, there's another song from Red Era

that I want to play for you. And this guy standing right behind him just yells, how many minutes is it, bitch? And it was just the funniest thing in the entire. Like, the fans are so cool and so psyched to be there. Yeah. Like, there was this one girl standing next to us who'd gotten like so dressed up just to,

and she'd just gotten like a last. minute ticket to go by herself. And I was just like, you're the coolest person ever. Like, that's such a sick thing to do. It was just so good. And I want to go again. Yeah. Well, I'm sure you do.

The villages that are gathering outside the stadiums, I mean, the footage from outside Chicago last weekend was pretty nuts. How many people are just having a party listening to the noise as it percolates out into the parking lot. We didn't get that so much because, you know, MetLife is in the swamp of New Jersey as opposed to on the shores of the lake in Chicago. It's a little bit less attractive, yes. Just like even just trying to listen to it.

And I feel like I've gotten more of a sense of this from stuff that people have posted. But just listening to the sound of the crowd is not something that I have experienced. And it's not like I've spent a small amount of time in football stadiums. It's just a different thing. Like, I've never heard anything like that. Yeah, it's, I've spent a lot of time in concert venues, as you know. And there is the overenthusiastic bonkers apeshit child star crowd, which was Justin Bieber, circa 2010, where if you did not bring earplugs, you were physically in pain because,

of how many young female screaming balkers voices. Yeah, and it was just a thing that continued through the entire show. There wasn't a break. It just was a standard din that was literally damaging to your eardrums. There is the somewhat unenthusiastic crowd, call it the Jacksonville Jaguar Stadium for most of the last 20 years until this past year. And then there is what we saw in these.

in Foxborough at MetLife Stadium, so on and so forth, which is there's this crowd that gets so heated and so fired up. It's not painful. It's this sort of lovely warm embrace, but it's jet engine decibel levels. Yeah. I mean, look, not to brag, but from what I've seen of the people who track the post-Champaign problems, applause, our show gave the longest round of applause on record thus far.

And that was, I just, that was an experience that I've never had before. And probably we'll never have again is just all of these people cheering and cheering and cheering and cheering and keeping going. And it wasn't, it was like, it really was this like appreciative thing. It wasn't so rabid. It wasn't annoying to you that there's a spot in the show that's now dedicated to everybody screaming as loud as they can and her doing a little bit of the, you know, facial expressions and sort of evaluative judgment of.

Are you asking me if she's egging it on? Because of course she's actually egging it on. She's also having to invent new ways to compliment the crowd each night and give them a sense that maybe they're the loudest that's ever done it. But it has now become a thing. Whereas on the first couple of shows, like in Vegas it was like, all right, she's sort of asking for it. Now as the show is warmed up and people understand it more, they give it.

It's more of a push than a pull. Yeah, I mean, I think it's organic enough that it doesn't. Like, no, I was not bothered by it. I thought it was delightful. I'm excited to hear the criticisms that you have on this take purge because right now you are just in the bag for this entire show. And I don't blame you because it's fantastic. I'm a little bit jealous.

I have another one, but I want you to go first, but I have one that goes off of that. Great, but let's go. Let's go. No, I want you. You should go first. We should trade. I don't know that I have enough ridiculous things to, to say. Yeah, right.

Okay. I'm on a red team a little bit here. I was somewhat bothered by the announcement of Speak Now, going up on a screen, having it say available July 7th. I thought I would just show you, so if you would direct your attention to the back, big screen that we had. That was great information, and it's been fun to sort of see her celebrate a few things like the release of the video. but she's got to stop selling stuff.

The song on the CD being sold out of a van in the parking lot exclusively. Or like here's another new version of stuff that you can pay for. I kind of understand why you're losing me ended up there because it was intended to create a sense of scarcity that of course then everybody ripped off and circulated around the internet because they wanted to hear that song because it obviously bears a lot of weight and we should talk about that. Totally. I can't find a pulse. My heart won't start anymore.

But there was a commercial feel to the release of Speak Now and to the stuff around the Midnight's versions that just hit different, if I can pardon the pun. It hits different. For me, this go round, because she just has set all the records. She's broken everything that there is to do. There's so much money being paid for these events. And look, it's also a very expensive tour. As you rightly noted, the cost part of this tour is not small.

And so while it will break a lot of revenue records eventually as she goes around the world, it's also certainly going to be one of the most expensive in history, if not the most expensive in history. but it just felt like there's some selling happening that I hadn't felt before. I didn't feel that way about the Midnight's vinals, even though in hindsight that was a very creative and intelligent ploy to drive album sales, actual album sales. She sold half a million vinyl probably to like 80,000 people who all bought them up

in multiple versions. But there just was a selling capitalistic things. which I do not begrudge a superstar for doing, but I wanted some of these songs... You're working through this so hard right now. To be released in a way that we didn't have to pay for them to get access to these interesting nuggets. And maybe, you know, listen, I don't begrudge any artists

want to get paid for their art. That's not it. But just pay sort of something incremental. We subscribe to these platforms. You should see what my Spotify recommendation algorithm them delivers to me on a daily basis because I am in the top point, whatever percent of Taylor Swift listeners every year, right? Some of that money's going to the artist. So I'm just not sure how to feel about it, as you can tell. It just made me a little uncomfortable. How did you feel?

So, okay, let's, let's break all of these things down. Bring it down. The Speak Now release, When you say you were okay with the, you know, Speak Now Taylor's version coming July 7th going up on the screen in Nashville and that being the announcement, are you mourning a little bit the fact that like we haven't gotten the puzzle or the anagram or like that type of release with this? No, I just, it felt geared around the message I got was pre-order now instead of this celebration that I'm signed up for, which is I'm fighting for General Swift right now. I'm on the battlefield going to war to defend and protect her art because she should own it,

and I'm 100% behind the re-recording that she's doing philosophically and in support of artists owning their work. That's what I'm in for. And so just the introduction having a tinge of buy it now instead of let's celebrate that it's coming because of course we're all going to stream it and of course we're going to buy the vinals or whatever

whatever the merchie part of it that gets put out there was just an angle to that I want these to be celebrations of her victory over tyranny because that's the battle that I'm here for I got you with that. I would love to see I would love for you to design celebrate our communal victory

over tyranny speak now Taylor's version coming July 7th I have no notes. She should have done that. That would have been phenomenal. Thank you. Hey, Nashville. Let's vanquish my foes.

No, I'm with you. Look, I'm with you. Like, there are small criticisms, but they are mounting. Right? Like, you could certainly say that pre-order now

is a phrase that has become part of the language of standum. Right? Like fans on Twitter, fans on TikTok, like go subscribe, stream Midnights Now. Like that is how fans talk about album releases now, which is psychotic in its own way, but it is true. So like, I guess a generous read would be to say that some of that is just slipping into her own vernacular. But then you combine it with the with the CD thing, which I don't know, she can't have made that much money off the CDs. you would know better than I would. It is another instance in which

instead of giving something, she's choosing to sell it. But I felt like that was more designed to create a special thing for people, for some people, at least. And maybe to build a little bit of mythology around you're losing me just because of the content of that song.

But I hear you, I mean... No, she didn't need it. always going to get there. To me, like, I was so happy just to finally have hits different on Spotify.

But nothing, like, I was fine. I'd gotten what I needed out of that. By the way, can we just talk about the fact that the onion every hour or so is tweeting

stories like Taylor Swift, apparently now dating Garfield creator Jim Davis with a Photoshop picture and then Taylor Swift now dating Senator Joseph McCarthy with this. with a Photoshop picture.

Thank goodness for the onion. That's true. The other thing, like, so here's what I would say. I would, I would give her a pass for these things, were it not for one thing. Her merch sucks? Yes. Her merch sucks. Someone get their act together on the stupid merch.

Yes. Because if I have to tell one more person, no, you have to, I. it before you wash it. I mean, good Lord, am I not doing that. Yeah. Yeah. It's the thing that doesn't get said, but that everyone knows and understands

because they don't want to say it out loud. We're going to say it out loud. The merch sucks. It can be better. By the way, one reason she gets a lot of leeway for me on this stuff right now is because I don't think there are very many artists who would spend three,

plus hours a night working really hard. So I think she gets that she has to create a value proposition. Oh, for sure. Of this is going to be a big flipping deal to go to and it's got to be worth it. And I think in the core, you know, exchanging goods for services agreement that people are entering into to go to this show, she's got it. Like, it's okay. No.

She's making it so, so, so, so, so. so worth your while. And ultimately, like, that is much more important than saying pre-order and a CD and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Unequivocally. Fix the friggin merch. My bootleg, no, it's Becky's shirt, cannot hold up better than the Midnight's hoodie. Yeah, but, like, it probably, it will. Like, it will.

It has already. Yeah, no, it will. Whose turn is it with the take? Was her merch sucks yours or mine? It's mine. It's mine. It's my turn. Let's go.

Let's go. So the Arestor was the best concert-going experience of my life. I'm 100% sure of that. We need to be putting some respect on the reputation tour's name, though. Because there was a Rolling Stone piece that got a lot of attention. I've seen, you know, the just TikTok thing and the ability to talk about it in that way is so much bigger than it was at the time. I've seen a lot of descriptions of like, this is the greatest thing she's ever. done and it's not even close.

Like, this is so many eons far and away better than anything that she's ever done. I'm sorry. Are we forgetting when she flew across football stadiums in a snake skeleton? Are we forgetting, like, the artistry and the story? Karen, we love Karen. The storytelling. Like, I feel that the Ares Tour is the best Taylor Swift's tour ever. but it's not like those other tours were unbelievable record-breaking,

coolest thing that's ever happened type shows to. Particularly, like I think 1989 is in that conversation, but particularly the reputation tour was so freaking epic. And I just don't want it to turn into this like afterthought because it was also incredible. I have nothing to add to that other than, I do think that there are some tours that have existed in the history of the world that can rival this one. I don't know that there's energy that can rival this one.

The bending over backwards of every town mayor, the outside scene, the economic impact of what's happening. It's like an Olympics except without the infrastructure investment. Right. And so I'm not sure we've seen anything like it. It's going to be fascinating to see what happens as she goes outside of Latin America. And there's been a lot of chatter about ticket prices there and how they're somewhat different than they are here. But yeah, I think reputation was outstanding. There's some parts of that tour that I miss.

The thing that I come back to on this one is I think she learned. you know, I was on the, I was on with our mutual friend Bill Simmons. And the thing that I'm struck by with this tour is that I think she really learned from watching Harry Styles that she could post up in a city and do a series of basically mini, mini, mini, residencies. And then I think that she learned from the 1975 watching what happened on that show that you're performing yes for the people in the stadium. And she is excellent, excellent at creating that. community. But I think she understood that she had to create some viral moment every single night and that rather than have to invent it a la potentially pulling the kid out of the stage or

you know, out of the crowd in Chicago or whatever, that she'd have something you could depend on that you knew you had to check in on, that even if you are looking at time zones, you know what time it's going to happen if you follow the show. It's 10.30 p.m. wherever Taylor Swift is, boom. I got to open TikTok. I got to figure out what are the two-season. Secret Songs Tonight. And so in that way, it is a tour that stands on the shoulders of even some of her contemporaries just a year or two ago who have been pushing the envelope about how to, if not reinvent the live event, certainly evolve it. Okay. You brought up the 1975. Should we just talk about Maddie? Well, I want to do it via this take. Okay. She smokes now. Like marijuana?

She smokes. She smokes cigarettes now. There's a lighter on the cover of Midnights. One of two things had to happen for that time with Maddie. He either gave up smoking or she started. You tell me, which is it? No, no. Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, an incredibly like careful, hardworking and like thoughtful person who seems to take very good care of her body.

Did not. Gigi Hadid sitting in the VIP tent, no problem taking Insta Photos with her vape. You know what Gigi Hade is not doing, singing for three and a half hours the night on stage? I mean, look, history will be the judge and maybe we'll know if by the time she hits night five in Los Angeles,

she's like, and maybe now we got bad blood. But I don't think it's happening. I love how I froze you with that. That was unbelievable. There's absolutely no way she's just, like, decided to get into cigarettes. You don't think post shows Chardonnay and one of Maddie's Marlboro Reds that he left behind before the breakup? Sometimes you want her to be this, like, grunge queen weirdo that is just like, that's, like, not a person.

That's not happening. I don't really believe that take, I don't think. But it's a take. No, it's the take purge. And what better, what better way to demonstrate the value of the take purge than for Nathan to be like, maybe she smokes cigarettes now? She smokes now. That's my take purge that was intended to allow us to pivot into the Maddie conversation.

And darn it, it was over before we even got to start it. And the take two purge that I was going to bring here was. there's a chance she's married by Christmas. And that's when I've been feeding you for a little while. It's clearly off now. And I love that it's off. I love that she came out of that relationship with Joe and was like, you know what?

I never got around to this one. I still have the crush. She went to the show in London and was the special guest for the 1975. There had been some back and forth. And she's like, I'm going to scratch the sit. Like, let's do this. Yeah.

That was, my take on this was that she is entitled to a semi-problematic rebound. Yes. It was a rebound. It's okay. It might, so yeah,

like TMZ says they've broken up. People confirmed it today. Basically, a lot of it was, this is never serious. This is never a big deal. I know there's a lot on, on like,

Dimouin stuff saying, no, it's not over, but it's just a casual thing. It's still going on, but they want the press off their back about Maddie. sure maybe there's a bit of a messy situationhip element that has fuzzy start and end dates

and they're both on tour so that could be part of it too. But like I tend to think people is fairly reliable on Taylor Matters. Seems like they've got some... I can't put my finger on it. Yeah, I don't know what it is exactly. But they seem to always have it right, Nora. They see the forest for the tree. That was good.

That's really good. But it's fine. Everybody calmed down. Maddie is a bit of an edge lord douchebag, and I wish he would never go on a podcast again. And I think he should be a lot quieter than he chooses to be and should just shove it, maybe a little bit. But I really, like, I know that we are so in the bag for Taylor. I just don't think it's fair to be like, if she marries the guy,

then she probably has to answer for some of his bullshit. Why does she owe that to you? Because... Why are we so over-invested in the relationships of famous people? Like, what are you... Because it does matter.

Like, it does matter what people with massive platforms say. And I do think that, like, look, I'll be just to be incredibly blunter about it. I've had conversations with people in the last month where, like, people who are smart and tapped into pop culture and read all the things that I read and, you know, know the facts of the case have come up to me and been like, what do you think about Taylor dating a white supremacist? And like, that is a jarring conversation, right? And I don't think that's right.

I don't think that's true. I don't either because when you understand the breadth of the beliefs of magic. Healy and the 1975 as a band when they are being serious and when he is being serious, these are clearly tolerant people. That said, Maddie said a lot of shitty stuff that he should apologize for. And the reason that he doesn't is because he's gotten on this thing where he thinks that people advocating for people not to punch down on marginalized communities is,

like this fake, woke thing that it just isn't. Like, just get over it. It's not the crime he's being accused of, but it's also kind of shitty. And he's famous. He hasn't, like, that matters. And the reason that he gets mad about it is because I think he's convinced himself that it doesn't matter and that it shouldn't matter. And of course it matters because it's immensely frustrating to see someone with a ton of success

say intolerant things maybe as a joke, but if you have to be paying a ton of attention to know that it's a joke, I'm not sure that that's a reasonable standard. And then just say like, oh, how can you, you know, you're just, you don't actually care about this because people actually care about it because they just want the world to be a better place. Like, I think he's got to get over himself a little bit. So I have complicated feelings about this because I don't think that he is the monster

that he has been characterized to be, but I think that he should just, like, get over himself a little bit. I think that there are portions of the fan base that consume their information in snackable bites, that are devoid of context, that are devoid of the richness of color,

and that last more than the original length of a vine. And they take information in somewhat myopic, feedings instead of dialing out, widening the aperture of the lens and consuming the entirety of a quote. By the way, they do this with Taylor as well.

Totally. And I think we end up as a fan base sometimes looking for enemies instead of looking for lovers. And in this case, I think if you broaden and widen the aperture and look at the richness of color and the entirety of context.

I think you would be less angered than you are. That said, yeah, Maddie Healy's a famous person who's made too many jokes about shitty stuff. And I think his own reconciliation with his platform and being a famous person instead of, like his own insecurity about being famous is not an excuse. In the same way that he said out loud,

you know, mental, health challenges are sad, but it's not an excuse to do anti-Semitism. He said that out loud. You're right. And being famous is hard and difficult. It's not an excuse to shrug off saying dumb shit to lots more people.

When you have an audience, that is a covenant that gives you responsibility. So not to both sides the shit out of this, but I think Maddie Healy has been unfairly tagged because I think if you dial out, you will see him actually being a champion of a lot of causes that the people who are criticizing him

believe deeply in. In moments where he did not have to and in moments where he used his platform fairly effectively. But I think this has been a long learning process for Mattie Healy, and I suspect that's why they're not together at this point.

I think it is enormously difficult to be associated with the most famous person on the planet. And that, for me, drives great empathy. for Taylor Swift. And that was, you know, we don't talk a lot about her personal relationships on this show. But what is sad about the Joe stuff for me is that she was deeply invested in it, is that she gave a lot to it. It seems like she made a lot of compromises to who she probably is at the core, right? She wasn't out there with her friends walking the streets of the village, getting her photo taken.

And not that, like, that's what she thrives on, but some of that is like who she is. She's doing girl stuff, I imagine. and like just being a woman, like some of that, she compromised in service of a relationship that didn't work out. Restarting from zero for this individual, this person,

has to be one of the most difficult challenges from a relational standpoint that any human being on earth has to go find something that can have a shred of authenticity and natural interaction. It's unfathomable to me. And for those of us who are in the fan base, you know, there's part of you that can be like,

we're going to get an album out of it. But the part for me that was just sad and heartbreaking is I cannot imagine how you start over and not get into a repetitive pattern like this one, which is this is a known person who's in my orbit, who I think I can trust, who I have a little bit of a crush on, because I have always had crushes on my musical heroes. Right. And let me experiment. and then, you know, half the fan base unravels. So it is equal parts tragedy and comedy for me.

Yeah, I mean, look, again, like, it's not... I don't know how much time they could have even spent together. Obviously, they had dinner a few times. He went to a bunch of... I mean, right, like, why she doesn't... Why would she want to be around that? It's going to smell all the time. This is what I'm saying.

You saw... I hugged him out front of the Bowery Hotel and that in February, or March it was, that boy smells like cigarettes. She's chaotic post-breakup. As we all are. Like, let's give a little bit of grace here. I do want to just, just, I think.

That's what I'm asking for. I'm asking for grace. It's impossible to be her. No, totally. And that's why, like, I don't, I don't think it's completely unfair for members of the fan base to sort of go,

hey, what the heck? I know, great band. I know you're a huge fan. I know this has been a thing. But like, he said crappy stuff about your mom. And like, why? And what do you make of, like, what does Taylor make of all of those comments

and things that have been said that are really, really unsavory? And like, I don't think that is an unfair thing to ask. I do think that it is unfair to be like, Like, she doesn't own all of that. And it is a little crappy for her that, okay, he says horrible things about Ice Space on a podcast. And then either as an attempt to smooth things over. And by the way, like, how many times have we all seen somebody's girlfriend

try to patch up something that some guy in a bad moment did, right? Like, that's a pretty familiar story. Maybe that gets worked into the karma remix, but no matter why it happened, then she has to answer a bunch of questions about like, okay, are you just doing this to try to smooth things over? Is this performative activism? Is this like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it's just, or if that's not why, if she just thinks Ice Spice really, really rules, and should be involved in that project, it still gets tagged with all of that stuff. So I feel like, I'm not like, oh, poor Taylor Swift. She can't, like, she has some power. We should acknowledge that she has some power in here, but it just seems like a massive pain.

It just seems like an absolutely massive pain. And then when, you know, for Maddie, like I agree with you that I think when people widen the lens and take a closer look, it's a much better picture than is widely getting portrayed. But when you are a, you know, when your game is to provoke, I don't have a tiny violin if people don't do that. Like, if your game is I want to get a rise out of people and then it happens, you kind of made that bad. He has convinced himself that the backlash to that, which is, I think, grounded in people who want to make.

make a better world. He's convinced himself that that response is this like performative wokeness activism thing. And so then when he thinks he's making jokes about it, I think he thinks he's punching up when like it's, it's not. And it's not, it's not cool. And it's also just not funny. So anyway, I don't know. I think it's more complicated than is is really going on. But I also don't think that like, I don't, I think they're hooking up or work.

Yeah, for sure. She's in the box with dad. He's in the box with dad. He's in the VIP tent with all of the celebs on the big nights. And, you know, just to bring it back to the mouthing of the words, whatever it was, this song is about you. You knew who you are. I love you. Where Maddie does it week or so before he shows up in Nashville and she does it in Nashville. You're kind of asking for. some chatter, aren't you? You're putting things out there. You're asking to take this relationship and the speculation about it and make it public and make it viral. Totally. I don't know. That doesn't mean you get,

that doesn't mean you get humiliated. That doesn't mean you get to, you know, that people get to take pictures of you walking into your home necessarily. It doesn't mean you have to tell everybody what's happening. But you're playing to the crowd in that bit, just like pivot.

releasing you're losing me on CD and selling it out of a trailer in a parking lot in New Jersey kind of makes people go, okay, let's go listen to it. And in that song, when you write the line, I wouldn't marry me either. You are exposing very publicly the intimate details of your relationship, which makes you a brilliant songwriter. It makes you easy to connect with. but the yang of that is that it also is a consistent pattern of you publishing personal details where it's not exactly clear where you want the line to be. Are we only accessing that via the songs and the art themselves and not able to pursue sort of details about that relationship outside of those songs?

Okay, but then why are we doing this on stage? Why is he sort of hanging out in the box with dad? Those are questions that I think the fan base is asking. Yeah. Yeah, well, we will see, I think, because we are getting our first, you know, the first sort of set of data points in what it looks like for her as she's newly single and maybe casually dating and has been seen, you know, out on the town a lot more. And look, go get it. Absolutely. That's what I say. Have at it.

And if there was a real priority when she was in that long-term relationship with Joe of keeping everything locked down and keeping everything private, you know, that takes a lot of work and that if you are Taylor Swift, that limits a lot of what you can do in your life. And those are sacrifices. And maybe she, you know, feels now that she doesn't have to make those anymore. And that's great. I will say. Like, restaurants have backdoors. And if she wanted to use them, she could. And New York City is not Los Angeles.

It is not the same paparazzi town where, you know, they're just hanging out at certain hot spots with a few exceptions. But for the most part, there's got to be some information changing hands somewhere. And I'm not saying that that has to directly come from her, right? Sometimes it's just people are crappy and they, you know, maybe what we're going to learn over time is just Taylor Swift wants to be able to go out to dinner with her friends and she wants to be able to walk in through the front door. And if that means that there are photos, so be it. And, you know, she wants to be able to go on a date with someone who she's casually seeing. And if that means that there are photos, so be it. And if that is what happens, cool.

I think that's great. I think that seems fun. It's just a quest for normalcy that no longer exists, Nora. it didn't exist in 2014 and it doesn't exist now. And that's the pain and the hard part that she's going to have to reconcile because she hadn't had to think about this for six years. Well, and also, like, one of the things that is the most sort of, like, weird for me to try to figure out now, even though it's not in my business, is just like, I conflated that, that privacy with a lot of like, like, objectively good value judgments about that relationship with Joe. And maybe that's fair, right? But in my head, it was like, oh.

We don't name it. We don't come out and talk. Like, we don't care what other people think. I mean, she spoke to that. And it's so good and it's so healthy and it's so good for her mental health and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And to now be like, maybe we are learning that it was a little bit more complicated than that. Right. Or like maybe we are learning that there was some sort of ceiling on can you really be Taylor Swift in that context.

Okay. That's not really what it was about, right? and they just, they, they weren't going to get married. Okay. So it ended and that's the secondary thing. So that pivots to the next take that we are going to purge. Midnights is not a breakup album. Agree or disagree.

On the face of it, disagree. I think, as I have said on this podcast before, I think pejewled was a threat. I think that the set of feelings that were underlying the ultimate breakdown and that relationship appear to be percolating in between the lines of some of these songs. But in the lead up to the release of this album and some of the marketing, she spoke about this relationship fairly glowingly. And I do not believe that you're losing me was part of the original sessions that she just chose to leave off. That feels like something

that was put together a little bit later on. I think Midnights was done in the middle of what one would describe as maybe a trying time, but certainly not in the midst of a breakup. So you think that you're losing me was written more recently, written and recorded more recently? Absolutely. Absolutely. If Bejeweled was a threat, do you take the, and when I meet the band, they ask if, do you have a man? Do you take that literally? Yes.

So something was going on. I think that all of those things were signals. She was not happy. I mean, all of us were sitting back saying, why aren't they getting married? It's six years in. Her mother's been sick. It's six years. Like, she's not 25 anymore.

She seems like she's fully of age to make these choices for herself. Why is it not happening? Oh, maybe it's their reclusiveness. They're just not into it. They don't need to name it. It just is what it is. But now she's got a song out that sort of says, I wouldn't want to marry me either.

That is just a harsh stab in the stomach. That's what that is. She wanted to get married. He did not. That's so brutal. I can't even... I want to give her a hug. See?

It's hard being her. To me, that makes midnight's a breakup album, though. Even if it's not like... Okay, so you're saying it's not the... This relationship ended, and now I am looking back on it and processing through... songwriting and work.

Yeah. Okay. It's not that album. Yeah. But like it was, I mean, okay. It's about the midnight of the relationship. The clock chimes 12, turning back into a pumpkin. I think this happened more recently than you think.

I think Maddie Healy, when he was on Saturday Live, was not dating Taylor Swift. This was a 20-23 thing that probably was forced by, I'm speculating. I don't want to do this. Anyway, that's my take. I think that people are over-attributing things to it, and I think that is a good thing because it means we're going to get a breakup album for real, which is, at the end of the day, if you completely compartmentalize the sad and human part of it is selfishly what we want to come out of the intricate details of her life is music that matters. Okay. How's a take, Nora? Okay. I'm going to morph one of mine. off of that.

The original take was just like the young millennial in me just fears what is going to happen to my brain when I hear

the fallout boy and Paramour collabs on Speak Now Taylor's version but I'm morphing this take into something else which is what if Speak Now

Taylor's version is the breakup album? Like what if this forthcoming re-release is just full of every emotion that she's feeling right now?

And if that is true will we ever recover? I think no. So do you believe that the speak now vault tracks were then started at the time, never really finished, and basically rewritten to fit her current emotional state? I always think, like, that is a song-to-song question, but yes, I do think that they get updated. I think that they get, I think if she has an idea to add something, she goes for it. Why is battle not on the fault practice? I don't know.

I think it's because she wrote it with somebody else. That's okay. All right. That's a good answer. So then will we, do you think we'll get it at a different time? Do you think we'll get it as, will there be a 3 a.m. equivalent or chapters or some extended edition that includes it or are we just never going to get a release of that? Maybe she foe bundles it in with 1989 in the same way she foe bundled a few other tracks in to some of the, you know, as she came around late, the Spotify releases that she buried from Red era and put out some additional songs.

Like she may just do a little bit of cleanup on that front. I'm cool with that. That would be great. I'm into it. What do you think about that? What do I think about what? Do you think she's going to write a separate breakup album? or is Speak Now, Taylor's version, just going to, like...

Yeah. Because you can process some stuff to speak now. Yeah. I think so. My general sense is that these albums... We got a little bit spoiled by Fearless. And the subsequent release of Red. And I think these albums take a lot longer to finish than we thought,

especially when she's apparently writing and directing a movie, definitely doing a world tour, and prepping for that tour, which took a lot more work than I think. think any of us have been told yet. I assume we're going to see that in a documentary sometime. But I think these albums take a long time to make. And so my general sense is, yes, we're going to get a separate breakup album because just doing the work of mimicking an entire album takes what looks like a year or more. Well, especially not for speak now, but especially when you

have to, you know, do, I'm sure, all the negotiating of getting Harry Styles on board for style featuring Harry Styles, Taylor's version. Well, here's a related take. My related take is that 1989 babies are terrified of this breakup. Because 1989 is sort of the, like, neglected stepchild. Like, it thought it was going a year ago or more when the store started to change all its prices to 1989 and when like whatever that weird ass animated horse movie is that had wildest dreams in it just take it slow horses can feel what you feel it's in your heart to run free it's in mine too

i'm gonna call you spirit and you know when we heard we've heard now three full tracks from 1989 that thing has been in the cannon locked and loaded for a long time and it keeps getting put off it keeps getting postponed and i think it maybe was coming in the fall. And boom, all of a sudden, it's Midnights. And she has this massive burst of creativity and releases it. So if indeed Midnights is not a breakup album, we're going to get a breakup album, you might guess that all of the photos that are being taken of her coming out of a studio

are potentially her in there laying down some of these new tracks, which might mean 1989 gets the boot again. That would be really funny if it just was like the apologies to Matt Damon, ran out of time for years and years and years of the Taylor's community. Apologies to 1989. We ran out of time. Apologies that Matt Damon ran out of time.

Yeah, I mean, look, I don't really believe that. I broke up with someone. I broke up with someone. Apologies to 1989. I broke up with someone. The video, the karma ice spice video pretty clearly to me says 1989 is coming and that, in fact, it may be coming in September. That is what I would bet money on.

But again, this woman has changed her mind. She, in all kinds of ways, across her musical, creative, business, personal life. She changes her mind. She reserves the right to do that. She's earned the right to do that. She has definitely sent a message by standing on that podium baked in gold with 1989 in Roman numerals at the pedestal that it's coming and the fingernail stuff at the end, holding the cappuccino or whatever it is.

But I think that there is a chance that she gets inspired by all. of this, all of these events of her life, which has been a bit more, I mean, quite honestly, I bet it's been a bit more fun and a bit more chaotic and that has a tendency to fuel creativity with this woman. So all bets are off. 1989 may have to take a back seat again. Do you believe in style featuring Harry Styles? Do you think it's happening? Have you seen the copyrights? Where would he perform on that? He could just, you know what? He could take a verse? He could, okay, yes, he could take a verse,

but he could also just, what if he's just in, what if they do a music video? And she just sings the whole song, and Harry does his like little, little hip wiggle dance that she did at one of the concerts when she was singing style. Okay. I mean, I hope it happens.

I love moments that melt the internet. Do you think John Mayer's going to play the guitar solo on Dear John? No, of course not. Why? So I was out on this. I was completely out on this idea and just like did not think that there had been enough water under the bridge until have you seen the things about how it's like co-trademarked the name style Taylor's version is co-owned by her and by Harry? I've seen something to that effect. I'm not sure if I believe what I'm seeing. Like, do you think that you think it's like a deep fake? I'm just not sure she would give up publishing and detail.

She's trying to control her art. Why does she need to give that to Harry? To convince him to come off of his never-ending world tour, he's just still out there. I know. He's back in LA. He's being a completely unsurious person. I am sure.

I am sure it's on the table. I'm sure it's on the table. But I think the bigger question is like, why is Taylor Lottner on his knees? Like, just since we're talking about people who might make guest appearances, like, why is Taylor Lottner on his knees praying for John in TikToks? What's going on? Because he's not famous anymore. That's why.

He's all love to Taylor Wattner. Got it. That one Twilight movie was like a big deal for me at a time long in the past. Well, also, well, but they were in Valentine's Day together, right? Yeah, iconic movie. You love that movie. I love it. And now I'm trying to just, like, buy into this thing so that you'll stop doing it, but you'll never stop doing it.

Taylor Lautner, again, I don't want to, like, shit on Taylor Lautner here. Fantastic. Seems like a good guy. He's in the fan base, whatever. Actor? Maybe. He's kind of like Joe Owen in that regard. They're both actors?

Even that is insulting to Joe. I don't know why. just like woke up and chose violence towards Taylor Lawtoner whose career I appreciate. I'm sorry I'm being so mean right now. That said, it is a fact that Taylor Latner is going to get more engagement with his fan base and the general populace on a day

when he makes one Taylor Swift related joke on the internet than I think pretty much anything else that's going on in his life right now. So that is why he did that. Well, are there any other surprises that you expect from Speak Now? Do you have any takes to purge about what we're going to get in one month and one day from the time we're laying this down? I really, really deeply hope that better than revenge doesn't have updated lyrics. Yes, agree. She's not changing them. Don't change it. No way. Nobody cares anymore. It's not really a discussion.

Teenage pettiness should be preserved. It fuels the world. Not Maddie's. Not Maddie Healy's. But teenage bettiness... It's a little different. It's okay. I agree.

It's different. I really hope she doesn't update that. But this was chatted about as being problematic across the fan base for a little while, right? But not in the same way. Like, I think it was... The target of it might be.

I think it was... The target of it might disagree. She really was unhappy. about the attention that she received. Yes, but I think it was spoken about as being unbecoming and not a demonstration of girl power or being a very nice person as opposed to something a little bit more dark and serious. And because of that, I really, you know, I think it's in the misery business category.

Right? And Paramour is on this record. has reintroduced that song a little bit, and I really hope that Taylor doesn't change that lyric because I think it speaks to something, if not perfectly attractive, completely true about the feelings that someone goes through at that age

in that kind of situation. So I want to hear it. That's all I have on Speak Now, Taylor's version. Do you have any more takes to purge? I have a lot of unhinged things. Let's do a speed round. I mean, I have one more take to purge that I think ought to be out there. And that is that she's bigger than ever because of JJ Watt.

And it's a football aficionado. No? Yes. And I'll tell you why. I think that video from J.J. Waugh made it safe for the alpha male to appreciate. And I am telling you that the crowd has evolved from Phoenix to New York. in terms of the composition of the bros who are showing up at this tour. It is safe somehow for guys who were not into this artist,

the last time that she went out on tour, to be into this artist now. And it has upped the ante. And I think a lot of it can be attributed to that video where J.J. Watt was like, this is badass. I went last night, and I have no idea how she's doing that, for three hours and 15 minutes.

And then suddenly you've got Aaron Rogers. You got Mac Jones coming to both shows. You got... Okay, Mac Jones is a real Swifty. Mac Jones went three times. Aaron Rogers, I was 10 feet away from Aaron Rogers at this concert. Aaron Rogers is a fake Swifty. Aaron Rogers does not know the lyrics to the songs.

Sister, I'm a real Swifty, and I'm telling you that the ratio of straight males in the crowd has gone up exponentially. and the only prescription is more cowbell. The only explanation is that there have been some high-profile dudes who have adopted this woman in her music and made it safer for people on the outside who were like, I like Taylor Swift, but I don't want to acknowledge it to jump in the pool. Maybe I'm just projecting, maybe.

You don't think that it's because Nathan Hubbard made it safe for them? You don't want to take credit for this? But JJ, why? Come on. No one even saw that video. A lot of people saw that video. So I don't disagree that there is something there. I would pause it as an alternate theory for the crowd demographics changing that the early dates of the show, I think included they were sort of like travel destinations. And I think there were a lot more people who are not from Arizona, from Vegas.

I mean, that's Vegas specific too. but I think a lot of super fans chose to go to those early shows on mass because they couldn't wait to get in the doors and really wanted to make sure that they saw it. So that may be part of it. But I think in general you're speaking to something very real. I don't really think that JJ Watt

is solely responsible for it, though I did enjoy his post. This is Take Burge. Give me a break. That's true. I'm allowed to walk back everything that I say on Take Purge. Nothing counts. It is the purge. I was told this is a safe space.

It is a safe space. I don't, I don't, even in the safe space, I'm not giving JJ Wad that much credit. But I do think that, like, there's something, there is something true about that. But I think it's just more broadly, like, her approval rating is really high right now.

Does that say you? And I don't mean to, it. So it, it doesn't, it doesn't. because on the face of it, when I first started thinking about like takes to purge, I was like, all right, it might be time to acknowledge

that it feels a little bit like a backlash might be coming. Just because the Maddie stuff did get to like such a pitch. I do think that some of the, why is she just selling everything all the time? Peace is tough for people. I'm not sure I actually think that, though.

I'm not even sure I actually think. that in a take-perge way. Because the thing that's completely different about right now, as opposed to coming off the 1989 era, is that I think the people who are, like, the groups of people who are being critical, I think it's completely inverted itself. Where to the extent that there's a little bit of a potential, I hate the word backlash, it does, like, I don't want to use it. But there's something building of like, hey, can we ask a little bit of, like, can we ask a little bit more from you in certain areas. That's coming from the fan base. That's coming from the like hardcore super fans who are maybe getting to a point where a lot of them are asking,

you know, I've put my heart, soul, time, money into being a fan of you for decades, over a decade. I'm going to speak up if you're not. doing what I want or if the merch is bad or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, where a little bit of that is happening. But ultimately, those are people who are going to be with her. Whereas I think what happened in the sort of post-1989 era was a lot of outsiders were just like, I'm annoyed by Taylor Swift. She's too skinny. She's too pretty. She's got too many model friends. She's everywhere. She's trying to sell me Diet Coke and a credit card. And it just like rubs me the wrong way. Whereas I think that group right now is like, oh my God, the Taylor Swift tour is the coolest place to be this entire summer.

Maybe I am, you know, some bro who was not in it from the start, but I'm seeing JJ Watt and Aaron Rogers and Miles Teller. And Ben Stiller was there the night that I was there going, holy crap, this is like a sight to see and she works really hard. And they're getting into it. and they're in a place where the general populous, I think, has really bought into her. So I don't think, like, it's clearly an interesting time. But there was a moment a couple days ago when I was thinking about this and going like, all right, is there a little bit of a backlash coming? And why ultimately I'm not so sure is just because I feel like the people who are launching the critiques are actually hardcore fans.

and I don't think that those people would ever desert her. Yeah, I think the backlash is inevitable. I think people are looking for it. I mean, there was backlash related to her relationship with Maddie in a moment in which... Yeah, but again, like, I don't... I just think people are looking... There is a difference between the backlash coming from, like, e-news and the backlash, the quote-unquote backlash, coming from like...

...redd accounts or, like, not even the depths of the Reddit threads. like accounts that are titled, you know, Swift loves me, red is my fave, 23, 23. Like, that person is not. Yep. Of course. I'm just saying I don't think, like, it's, it's, look, it's, it's up to the fan base, right? But I just, I think it's a little bit different than the post-19. We have, we have a way in this world of tearing down everything that gets higher, higher than we feel.

we can see. And I don't see how, but I think, you know, her personal relationships have been adopted by the world as fodder for dart throwing. And a single ready to mingle, Taylor, to me, feels like she's got a target on her back unfairly, but that's how it is. And I suspect that after a year of incredible heights, that there will be some kind of backlash. But here's the thing that I know, the reputation experience, she's capable of going away. And she knows when she's getting overexposed. So. And did learn from that. And hopefully, yeah, I hope it doesn't happen. But I hope it's easier this time. I hope it's easier this time. She's more mature. She doesn't need the attention as much. I suspect that may be why they're throwing the Maddie out with the

bathwater, so to speak. And that she's, she's going to try to manage it as best she can. But I don't think it's a debate that she may be the most famous person on the planet right now. Okay, let's go rapid fire. If I don't want to live forever is allowed to be on the set list as a surprise song, so is Maccabity. There's no one like Maccabity. He's broken.

Every human law breaks the law of gravity. Okay. Producer Kaya is probably screaming behind her her Zoom rectangle right now because she is going to one of the shows in L.A., I believe, when Taylor will have run through as many secret songs as possible. I'm just saying it's on the table. Christmas tree farm, on the table.

In my heart is a Christmas tree farm where the people would come to dance under spark of in light. Calvin Harris song? Interesting. Hmm. Not her song, though. She was attributed as a writer. Well, right.

But, like, in this case, this is a song that she sang. But, you know what? What I'm saying is that if songs from movies, if soundtrack songs are fair game, then we could hear a little something from cats. And I'm just not saying it's out of the question. She's done weirder things.

That is true. Like doing the movie Cats. What a time. What else you got? All concerts should start on time. The moment when that clock ticked down to zero and it was just like eight o'clock on the money, who incredible feeling. Just an act like it built anticipation.

It was so exciting. I'd gotten a glass of wine and was like running to my. seat. It was 10 out of 10 experience. Every concert should start on time. Okay. Do you disagree? No, I totally agree. I hate waiting. Let's go. It's much better for the external tune-in. People know when it's happening and when to go check their phones. That would be like an incredible byproduct of the TikTok social media age, is if it like made things start on time because people are watching. Yep. It might be, it might be one of the most. important contributions the tour makes?

I think we should all band together and everybody put in a dollar and we should buy Cornelia Street. Like the entire block? Well, first of all,

or the apartment? No, just the townhouse. But the townhouse makes up 30% of the block, basically. So it really wouldn't be that hard. It is on the market. I believe it is rentable for the low, low price

of $45,000 a month. The list price is like 18 mil. There's a lot of Taylor Switch phones out there. This is super doable. I'm just saying that if we all put our heads together, we could make it happen. I am fully supportive of this and let's get going.

Somebody started GoFund me to buy Cornelia Street. Excellent. Okay. Is this my last thing? Maybe this is my last thing. Oh, yeah. I'll end with this. Confession.

I did not know false God mattered to people like that. False God was one of the surprise songs when I saw the tour. And I'm not going to lie to you. I was like, L.O.L. She's playing False God. This is really funny. Where's the saxophone? I love that song, but I was just like, of all the songs, this is very funny. But come on. The Saturday Night Live rendition where she brought out the band leader to play it.

Like, that was the shit. It was so cool. It was such a cool moment. I loved it. I thought it was super fun and interesting to be a part of. It also, because it is not like the jamiest of all jams, people actually stopped singing. And it was like I could hear her and her vocal quality better at that moment in the tour in the concert than any other. And it was awesome. And I loved it.

I was wondering if people were going to go like, oh, false God, that's a little weird. and to my delight when I looked at the interwebs, the audience reaction was like super, super into it. And I thought that was so cool. And people had a lot of jokes. It's not like it's girl at home. What if she does McCavity and girl at home for one surprise song set? I really, she won't do it because she cares too much.

But like, I just want the most un, just one night of the tour, just something so incredibly nuts. it would make my life. Do you have any other ridiculously hot takes? I think that's all I got. This has been fun. This has been cathartic. I really feel like we had a lot to get off our chests.

Well, we have a lot more to talk about in the weeks ahead, don't we? Because she's moving into another town. I expect we're going to have the release of some more international dates. There will certainly be more personal kerfuffle. I just made that word up. kerfuffle. I think it's kerfuffle. No, I know that. My hot take is it's now kerfuffle.

Okay. When it comes to Taylor Swift, it's kerfuffle. She's going to have a lot of kerfuffle. We're going to have a whole lot to talk about as we get closer to speak now. We're going to figure out what that video was she was filming in the UK, stealing things out of an art museum and what had previously been Gotham City. We're going to learn a little bit more, I think, as hints start to drop, around whether the stepchild, 1989, is going to be left at home by itself once again while mom goes out partying. There's so much that lies in these weeks ahead. I'm excited to keep doing this weekly, even if not for an hour and a half every time. We'll see. Great stuff. Nathan, as always, so good to talk about Taylor Swift with you. The first of many times we will get a chance to do that

this summer as we begin the summer of Taylor Swift. This has been every single album, Taylor Swift. I I'm Nora Preciati. He's Nathan Hubbard. We will be back with our next installment next week. Thank you, as always, to the wonderful Kaia McMullen for producing this episode and to you for listening.