The Current - Why is Taylor Swift such a ‘catalyst for joy’?

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Shawndra Whaley says she cried and cried at Taylor Swift’s concert in Toronto Thursday, overcome by the emotions of being with thousands of other Swifties. We look at why the singer inspires such passion in her fans — including Dawn Johnston, a professor who has lectured on the cultural importance of the singer, and is a bit of a Swiftie herself.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway'm a teacher, dreaming at the end of the day. I've been learning to be a whole time, you can see that I'm the one who understands you. If you're all alone, so why can't you see? You belong with me You belong with me Those are hundreds of Taylor Swift fans, some with tickets to the big show,

some without, singing at the top of their lungs. That was the scene in Toronto at the Tailgate, which is the official pre-party for the Heiress Tour. Ivan Pagno and Randine Cortez were there. They flew in from Edmonton to be at one of Taylor Swift's six sold-out concerts in Toronto. So my outfit is inspired by the Bejeweled. I kind of recreate the jacket, the denim jacket,

to the denim pants, and put some jewels and stones on my outfit for this one. My favorite album from Taylor is Reputation, so of course I'm going to dress up as Reputation. I think Taylor's just nostalgia. Like I've been listening to her for like forever. Like if I think I have a bucket list that I made when I was 10, it literally said go to a Taylor concert and it's happening.

So I'm trying not to freak out. I will probably freak out and cry later, especially as like a woman. Like I think she's made such an impact for our community. And honestly, I feel so safe being here than anywhere else. Father and daughter duo Adele and Steve Frink drove in from Kingston. It's kind of our thing that we've bonded over. We're both huge Swifties. He's been a Swifty way longer than me. I was a country Swifty for her debut album in Fearless.

And Adele picked that up and made me go to the Ears Tour movie. She's just graduated from university and has a good job and so now has a bit of money. So then she went ahead and bought the tickets without telling me. So then we've just sort of got caught up in it and we actually haven't got dressed up yet. I have like a Midnight's inspired outfit, like an anti-hero costume. I actually have an official Kelsey sweater. Plus Del's made us sunglasses with our favorite songs in beads on the top. Steve was very excited to share this experience with his daughter.

Well, we've probably been best friends for 20 years, and I kind of raised out a lot on my own, and so through all that and 15 years of hockey and just going through all stages of life, we've actually just become best friends, so we just do a lot of stuff together. Yeah, exactly. It's a huge cultural movement in my generation,

and I'm happy he's jumped on the bandwagon, like, also loves Taylor Swift. When Taylor Swift announced her plan to finish her Heiress Tour in Canada, 31 million people registered on Ticketmaster to try to get tickets for the shows in Toronto and Vancouver. In Toronto, the city is predicting 500,000 visitors and the economic boost of nearly $300 million. And last night, Chandra Whaley was one of the lucky ones. She went to the opening night of the heiress tour in Toronto. She's with me in studio now. Good morning.

Good morning. How are you feeling this morning? I'm feeling good. Thank you. You get any sleep? I mean, it ended when? In the middle of the night and now you're here. It ended around 11 and I slept a few hours.

Got a good couple, three hours of sleep after. I got home at 1. This is the first time that you've seen her? Yes, very first time I've ever seen her. So tell me about the show. It was unreal. I really was not prepared when I thought I was. I wasn't expecting to cry as much as I did.

The atmosphere, I felt safe in the city. Why did you cry? It was all these songs were so emotional and hearing even Enchanted, Speak Now is my favorite album. So getting to hear that live really like touched my heart. You said it was unreal. What was unreal about the experience? Just everyone, how everyone was all there just to celebrate Taylor Swift and just being a part of the fandom. And everyone was so nice, trading friendship bracelets. Like you didn't feel, you felt like you could walk downtown Toronto.

Who did you go with? I went with three of my friends. How did you get tickets? I was one of the few that survived that Ticketmaster Great War. Yeah, I got in 15 minutes and out. You feel lucky? You feel like one of the lucky ones? Oh got in 15 minutes and out. You feel lucky? You feel like one of the lucky ones? Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

What is it about her music that does something to you? It's the fact how she can get in touch with different types of emotions and different ways of expressing those emotions in songs. And it can relate to, I feel like, different ages in your life and different stages. So for a Fearless album, whenever I was younger, those songs hit differently then. But now that I'm older, I can even look back on those and think, oh, now I understand these songs even more. oh now I understand these songs even more. So it's just she can hit every demographic, every age group and she can really get you to feel something.

It's just one song. Can you think of a time in your life when one of her songs really resonated with you? I mean it meant something really special to you. It would have to be whenever I first heard Back to December on the original Speak Now when it was released. That was my first introduction fully to her. And the first time I heard it, I was sitting in my room watching the YouTube video and just in awe at everything I was seeing. And I was like, I need to know more about her.

And ever since then, I've just been obsessed with that song, and it will always stay my number one. The thing with a concert is that it's a collective experience, right? Yes. And so, I mean, the scenes around, we're just across the street from the Rogers Center. The scenes around here yesterday were amazing to see thousands and thousands of people around.

But you're in a stadium with 50,000 other people who are all singing the same song at the same time. That's different than you being in your room by yourself hearing that tune. Oh, it's so different. It's so loud. So what is that like? It was so much fun. It was just one big party, you felt like. Everyone was singing the same song, all the words, everyone's dancing. You're not sitting down. It just felt like such a big party that you were a part of. And for people who don't get this, who think this is a concert, I mean, there are concerts all the time, and she's a pop star, and there are other pops.

What would you say to them? I would say you have to give it a shot. It isn't just a concert. It's one big experience that you don't realize it until you're in that moment. And you really do need to give her music a shot other than just the radio singles. So what happens now? You've seen the concert, but there's five more in Toronto. I'm going to be going to the tailgate later today. Which is the big pre-party. Yeah, yeah.

But I don't have any more tickets. I only got the one for opening night. You're not tempted to get more? We were looking at the resale market. The tickets are really expensive. It's like $15,000 for some tickets on the floor. Yeah, no. Unfortunately, I cannot spend that amount of money.

So I'm good with my night one. And you will remember this night that you had for the rest of your life, you think? Oh, 100%. I will. There's no way I will forget it. Chandra, thank you very much. Thank you. Chandra Whaley is a Taylor Swift fan from Cornwall, Ontario, who saw the opening night

of the Heiress Tour Canadian dates last night in Toronto. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Don Johnston is a professor of media and communications

at the University of Calgary, who has lectured on the cultural importance of Taylor Swift. Bit of a Swifty herself. Dawn, good morning to you. Good morning. You have a niece who went to the show last night. Did you get updates, minute-by-minute updates about the show? I was pretty impressed.

My brother was on the ball with sending short enough video clips to make me feel like I was there and snatch away the joy for me when the video clip ended. So you suffered with a bit of FOMO yourself, wishing that you had those tickets instead? Yeah, like legitimately the most jealous I've been of my brother my entire life.

Can you explain for people who are watching this and seeing the images and the news and hearing us talk about this? I mean, the downtown core of the largest city in this country is taken with the excitement of this tour. Why are people connecting with this tour in particular? I mean, there are concerts all the time. Bruce Springsteen was here for two dates just a couple of weeks ago, and you didn't see this kind of thing for Bruce Springsteen. What is it about Taylor Swift that's going on here? Yeah, I mean, if you think back to the interview you just did, and the way, the passion that that

fan spoke about, with which she attended her first Taylor Swift concert, people get super excited about their sense of connection to this artist. And I think a lot of it is, I think a lot of it is related to the fact that we've seen Taylor Swift kind of grow up in the public eye, kind of come into her own as an artist, as a woman, as a feminist, and as a, you know, kind of pop culture figure of real significance. And it's, there have been points of connection for people with various parts of her life and various parts of her work that I think have really allowed her to kind of cut through a lot of the noise around popular culture and make what feels like a genuine connection with a lot of her audience. were in Toronto last night from as far away as Colorado, folks from your town in Calgary. There were people that we heard on the radio who had flown in from Newfoundland. They had no tickets, but they came anyway, hoping that maybe something would happen.

You lecture, as I said, on the cultural importance of Taylor Swift. What is that cultural importance? Yeah. I mean, I think that for sure, Taylor Swift is, I mean, I think she's an exceptionally talented artist. You know, my niece and my brother both talked about the kind of recognizing intellectually that she was going to perform for three, three and a half straight hours. But the reality of seeing that sort of stamina and energy was kind of mind-blowing. We know that she's talented as an artist, but I think she's also an enormously talented businesswoman, style icon, role model, influencer. She's someone who has really figured out how to craft a story well and tell it in a way that connects with an audience. And I think that that's true of her music,

but I also think it's true of her sort of celebrity status and her role as a public figure and her sort of experiences growing up in the public eye. I mean, that business acumen you can see in this tour, it's called the Errors Tour because it goes through the different eras of her musical life. You have people who connect to one or two or many of those eras. They come dressed up, as you heard, in costumes that speak to those eras of her musical life. You have people who connect to one or two or many of those eras.

They come dressed up, as you heard, in costumes that speak to those eras. That's smart business. That's smart marketing to be able to play to a wide range of an audience. It is. I mean, it's enormously bright to be able to figure out how to not just build new audiences, bright to be able to figure out how to not just build new audiences, but maintain the audiences that you've got. And I think that I think the way that Taylor Swift has embraced every era of her, her development, rather than sort of letting go of earlier music or letting go of earlier parts of her identity in favor of more mature or newer or recent work. I think that that's a lot of the appeal. She's not sort of saying, you know, who I was in my late teens or early 20s is kind of cringe now. I think she's kind of owning the various parts of her development,

and that allows her fans to do the same thing. And yeah, I think there's something really smart about that. Smart in part because the tour has made a billion dollars so far. Yeah, that's not nothing, hey? It's not. When you are that influential, I mean, it's interesting not to talk about politics, but people wanted to get her to talk about things like politics, right? What does that do to that business acumen? Michael Jordan used to say that he didn't make political statements because, in his words,

Republicans bought shoes as well. Is there a danger in being asked to make statements or take positions on things when you are trying to speak to that enormous audience? Yeah, I mean, for sure there's a danger from a business perspective. There are a lot of points in Taylor Swift's career where she has made decisions that could have proven to be really unpopular. When she decided to take on Scooter Braun... This is her former manager. Sorry? Her former manager.

Yes, exactly. Yes. And decided to, you know, re-record her entire back catalog. I think that was a moment where she could have alienated a lot of folks in the industry and was named one of Time's Silence Breakers back in 2017. These are all moments where she ran the risk of sort of speaking out and risking some of her success or popularity. But one of the things that I've liked best about her is that she has used, you know, for lack of a better term, she's used her power for good instead of evil. And she's recognized that she has an enormous opportunity to influence a huge audience, particularly an audience of young women who have maybe not voted before or have not considered themselves to be politically active, to see that they can make a difference and that their values are something that can drive their interaction with the world and

their opportunity to impact the world. What do you say to people who don't get it, who say that, as I was saying earlier to our previous guest, that there are people who might say that she's just another pop star, that what we're talking, these are successful concerts and successful tour, but that's it, that it's not more than that. Yeah, I mean, I think you'd have to be living under a rock to suggest that it's nothing more than that at this stage. I mean, you cannot be a fan of the music. Like, music is a lot about personal taste.

And her music speaks to me. I recognize it's not going to speak to everybody. taste. And her music speaks to me, I recognize it's not going to speak to everybody. But to suggest that her role as a savvy businesswoman, as an incredible philanthropist, as an influencer, as a voice in the political landscape, to say that none of that matters is, I think, being really dismissive of the power that she has as a woman in business, the power that she has as a social and political icon. And I think you ignore that to your own peril, frankly. She's also a catalyst for joy, right? I mean, if you saw the scenes in the downtown core of Toronto yesterday, it was amazing. And the news is terrible and winter's coming and it was light rain in the city. And yet people were having the time of their lives.

What does joy mean and the joy that she can create in this moment, do you think? I think that it's irreplaceable at this moment. I think that for a lot of folks, myself included, there's been a lot of turning away from news in the last little while because it just feels like a lot. And I think for a lot of people, the ability to connect emotionally, in an embodied way, in a way with a community of people who are as excited as you are about something, it feels joyful. And it's almost like an invitation or permission to kind of fully embody that joy for a short period of time with a group of people who are feeling it too and i don't know i think there's a total beauty in that that's the magic

of live music being in that collective space with somebody and singing along with a bunch of other people that you don't know but you're singing the same thing absolutely so you're going to try and wangle some tickets for uh i mean there are shows in vancouver i know there are shows in Vancouver. I know there are shows in Vancouver. I was in that same lottery as everybody else trying to get those tickets. And, you know, let me tell you, I'm too generally nervous about resale tickets to think that if I paid kajillions of dollars that it would still turn out to be a fake ticket. And I couldn't handle that leveling of anxiety. So I think I'm going to be like the armchair fan through this tour and living vicariously through everyone else, my niece included.

Dawn, thank you very much. My pleasure. Dawn Johnson is a professor of media and communications at the University of Calgary. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.