10) “Enchanted” (Speak Now)
“Enchanted” is pacing across the gym floor at a high school dance right as a slow song starts and mentally rehearsing what you’re going to say to your crush the entire time. It’s the agonizing silence between when you ask them to dance and when they finally say yes. It’s the soft, dreamy haze of swaying back and forth in a dimly-lit room before getting picked up by your mom and gushing to her about it the whole way home with the phantom feeling of their hands wrapped around your waist. It’s sending that good night text that you agonize over for 30 minutes before shakily pressing send and chucking your phone across the room.
9) “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” (Reputation)
“Dancing With Our Hands Tied” is looking across the room in a crowded bar and picturing a future with someone you’ve never met. It’s desperately wanting to define a relationship. It’s grappling between the part of yourself that wants to be loved and the part that doesn’t want to get hurt. It’s the butterflies of a crush turning to fear in your stomach.
8) “Tim McGraw” (Taylor Swift)
“Tim McGraw” is a teenage summer camp romance. It’s late nights laying out under the stars in the grass with a symphony of mosquitoes as the soundtrack to your love. It’s air that is balmy and sweet with the scent of wildflowers. It’s exchanging emails and addresses and writing love letters as the leaves change color. It’s growing up but still keeping those letters tucked away somewhere and grinning at the photographs of you as a fresh-faced kid with your arms wrapped around them.
7) “Last Kiss” (Speak Now)
“Last Kiss” is hysterically sobbing on your bedroom floor after a bad breakup. It’s mascara-stained cheeks and puffy red eyes. It’s tearing up pictures and love letters and frantically ripping out drawings. It’s a whirlwind romance in reverse, with every memory flooding back at once. It’s wondering whether or not you were good enough. It’s a memoriam to the life you planned with this person and all the dreams you shared. It’s when the tears run out and you pick yourself up off the floor and realize that it’s not your fault. It’s when you wash your face in the sink and your eyes are glassy and your hands are shaking and you can feel your heartbeat in your ears but you’re alive and right now that’s enough.
6) “Peace” (Folklore)
“Peace” is loving someone when you’re mentally ill. It’s knowing that being loved isn’t always easy but it’s worth it. It’s knowing that you’re safe right where you are. It’s knowing that your love is tumultuous hurricanes and volcanic eruptions, but that your lover is willing to sit there while you learn to calm those storms and quiet your mind. It’s knowing that your lover is just as committed to your recovery as you are. It’s the realization that you’re worthy of love and that you are more than good enough, both for yourself and for a partner.
5) “Holy Ground” (Red)
“Holy Ground” is the beginning of a whirlwind romance. It’s staying up all night on the phone just to hear someone’s voice. It’s laughing at the top of your lungs in the grocery store as they dance in the aisles while you push the cart. It’s having a thousand inside jokes and leaving each other notes in the pockets of your jeans. It’s feeling indestructible. It’s dancing around your room in the middle of the night because you never imagined love could be this good.
4) “Death By A Thousand Cuts” (Lover)
“Death By A Thousand Cuts” is racing down the highway with the windows down and screaming the lyrics to your favorite song. It’s the aftermath of Last Kiss, where your eyes are dry and your hands have finally stopped shaking and you’re wondering why you ever gave so much of yourself to a person who wasn’t right for you. It’s coming home and getting wine drunk in the kitchen while cooking dinner and realizing that you’ve survived so much worse than this before. It’s knowing that it’s not okay right now but that it will be someday.
3) “I Did Something Bad” (Reputation)
“I Did Something Bad” is black high heels and fishnet stockings. It’s beat-up leather jackets and bright red lipstick. It’s breaking boys’ hearts and laughing about it with your friends. It’s taking a bite out of a heart-shaped lollipop. It’s sitting in the driver’s seat of a fast car and revving the engine while you’re doing 80 miles an hour on a city street. It’s giving people something interesting to talk about because you know that they’re going to talk no matter what. It’s feeling like the main character in a black and white action movie.
2) “Cruel Summer” (Lover)
“Cruel Summer” is late-night trysts where neither person wants to show their hand. It’s one-night stands that turn into staying the night that turn into a drawer of your clothes in their dresser. It’s being tangled up in bedsheets in a shitty apartment in New York City with a broken AC. It’s slamming doors after a fight. It’s choosing to be furious instead of being scared. It’s breaking down and confessing how you feel after months and months of dancing around, your voice trembling and tears streaming down your face.
1) “Blank Space” (1989)
“Blank Space” is impulsively booking a last-minute flight with passports in hand. It’s getting matching tattoos after a week of knowing each other. It’s lipstick stains on cheeks and fancy dinners. It’s having sex on every surface of the hotel room, their tie discarded next to your dress in a crumpled mess on the floor. It’s the teasing and flirting over cocktails in the neon lights of a bar.