all-my-possessions:

original-cypher:

all-my-possessions:

taytaysbeard:

Heterosexual ladies in heterosexual relationships (like myself) please listen to Taylor’s Riptide and try and sing along with her while thinking lovingly of your partner. 

Can you honestly replicate that kind of genuine affection while singing the word LADY and thinking about a man? 

It couldn’t be more obvious that she is not thinking about whatever bf she’s supposed to have while singing this song.

________________________

Submission ☝🏼

Not only was Taylor officially single in October 2014 (and thus had no boyfriend to be thinking of), to suggest that when she sung the word ‘lady’ she was thinking about a man is deliberately to ignore the context: she was, explicitly, singing a song about a woman from a female perspective. If it sounds queer, it’s because that’s how she intended it to sound.

THIS IS THE ONE! THE VIDEO UNDER THE LINK.

I found in very very enlightening that the part from the live when she says she wanted to change it up to know what it would sound like when a girl sang it. And she stumbles on her words a bit and I wondered, Taylor are you nervous perhaps?

But the MOST enlightening thing of all? That part was cut. From every other non live things. I had been looking for it for a while and people who hadn’t streamed it didn’t know.

I would absolutely recommend that anyone who hasn’t already seen the full performance does so. There are two further points of interest — apart from Taylor’s lovely smile — which the official video excludes: her introduction of the material (8:46-9:11), which, importantly, establishes queer intent, and her reaction at the end (12:32-12:43). (Note: I don’t think this was a deliberate omission, in the sense that it was malicious. All Live Lounge performances are edited in the same way – if you don’t hear them on the radio or catch the live stream, you don’t get the context.) In both cases, as @original-cypher​ suggests, Taylor seems unsure of herself — her words are tentative and her movements hesitant (or shy.)

Consider, for example, the following:

This is just one of my favourite songs that has come out all year, so I think that, you know…for me it just…it…it was a no brainer. And, I wanted to change up the arrangement a little bit and…ah…kind of hear maybe what it would sound like if a girl sang it?…So there’s a little hint.  

*The emphases are Taylor’s.

Taylor starts confidently enough — if she stutters through her first sentence it’s because she’s fighting a smile (before ‘for me’). Similarly, she begins the next sentence with apparent determination — the emphasis on ‘And’ is complemented by a raised brow. But, then, she seems to lose her nerve. She ducks her head (just before the second and) and trails off. When Taylor continues it is with several modifiers in rapid succession — ‘kind of’ ‘maybe’ — and the conditional — ‘would’ ‘if.’ The fact that she looks away from the camera towards the other people in the room and in the direction of the host, Fearne Cotton (who she would not, in fact, have been able to see) as she says ‘girl’ — a word which is inflected, so that, effectively, she ends on a question — exaggerates her apparent uncertainty. Arguably, she seeks reassurance. Certainly, it is interesting that, though Taylor is smiling as she turns back to the camera, she almost immediately lowers her head.

This is a motion which she repeats, as she concludes the song, before again turning — jerkily — in the direction of her back-up singers. As Fearne starts to clap and exclaims ‘joys of joy,’ Taylor’s shy smile blossoms slowly in to a bashful grin. And, when Fearne adds ‘I loved —loved —that,’ Taylor responds, almost unbelievingly, ‘You, did?’ She only relaxes — allowing herself a happy little fist-pump — when Fearne reiterates her approval. Of course, it might be argued that this behaviour is unexceptional in the context of a live performance. But, I think, when her earlier hesitance is considered we might reasonably suppose it was something more than the usual stage-fright — in particular, because Riptide was Taylor’s third performance of the day (after Shake It Off and Love Story.)

Taylor Swift covers Vance Joy’s Riptide