Every fairytale needs a happy ending, and after 11 albums of love, heartbreak, and shattered dreams, Taylor Swift has found her Prince Charming. But after she announced her engagement to Travis Kelce, what will Swift's newfound happiness mean for her music?
Swift's greatest gift as a lyricist is the way she weaves her own story into her songs, balancing intricate, specific detail with universal themes of love, hope, heartbreak, and betrayal. And from the very beginning, the musician's love life has been the connective tissue of her writing.
Her debut single, Tim McGraw, written during a school maths class, was all about her then-boyfriend, Drew Dunlap. Believing they'd break up before he left for college (a premonition that came true), she wrote a song to commemorate the times they'd slow-danced in the moonlight to the car radio: When you think Tim McGraw/I hope you think of me. It's a timeless story - one that's destined to be repeated at fresher's weeks across the country this autumn - and set in motion a career-long narrative about Swift's romantic tribulations.
She's written about emotionally unavailable men (Jake Gyllenhaal, All Too Well), falling for a bad boy (Harry Styles, I Knew You Were Trouble), and rebound romances (Tom Hiddleston, Getaway Car).
Throughout it all, she's been aware of the obsessive level of debate around her relationships. In Shake It Off, she poked fun at the media's discourse: I go on too many dates / But I can't make them stay / At least, that's what people say.
Now, it's reductive to cast Swift's back catalogue (274 songs and counting) to a soap opera about her love life. She's written insightful lyrics about the media, joyous bonds of friendship, and even about getting away with murder.
As she embarks on this new chapter with Kelce, it remains to be seen how her music will change. Marital bliss and domestic boredom tend to make less interesting rock songs than searching for love, but history shows that female artists frequently use such transitions as sources of inspiration. For Swift, the thrill of newly found happiness might just invite a new era of creativity that fans are eager to hear.
