How Taylor Swift's engagement collides with her discography of heartbreak
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement this week after dating for two years. (Instagram: @taylorswift)
Taylor Swift has built a billion-dollar empire off the back of relatable lyrics, taking her decades of experience with romance and heartbreak to craft love songs and break-up ballads.
Now, she's getting married.
Swift announced her engagement to NFL player Travis Kelce on Instagram this week, sharing photos of the proposal in a post that has garnered more than 33 million likes.
The pair began dating two years ago after Kelce revealed his desire to pursue the global superstar on his football podcast before trying to meet Swift backstage at the Eras Tour.
He was swiftly denied entry, but the risk was worth the reward.
Taylor Swift said previously that Travis Kelce's courtship "is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager". (Instagram: @taylorswift)
"It was such a wild, romantic gesture to just be like 'I want to date you,'" Swift said during an interview on Kelce's podcast earlier this month, which has amassed more than 21 million views on YouTube.
"It kind of felt more like I was in an 80s John Hughes movie, and he was standing outside of my window with a boom box just being like, 'I want to date you. Do you want to go on a date with me? I made you a friendship bracelet!'
"It's like, if this guy isn't crazy — which is a big if — this is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager."
Now that Swift is entering her bridal era, is this the end of her vast swathes of relatable heartbreak songs that have sound-tracked the lives of her fans?
Baby, just say 'yes'
Swift's relationships have always played a significant role in her music, from her earliest album to her latest releases.
"She's taken her fans on her journey from being a young teenager with crushes and experiencing first heartbreaks, through to the more complex experiences of looking for, finding, and losing love in your twenties and thirties," says Georgia Carroll, a fan culture researcher.
Fan culture expert Georgia Carroll says themes of marriage aren't new to Taylor Swift's music. (Instagram: @taylorswift)
But Dr Carroll says while Swift's relationships have been a key theme of her music, they're far from being the only theme.
"When they are a part of the stories she tells, they are also the story of her maturity and growth through life on a broader scale.
"So while her break-up songs are definitely part of the reason fans relate to her, Taylor has built her career and image on being more than just relatable for her relationships and their endings."
And as Dr Carroll adds, themes of love and marriage aren't new parts of her music.
"Love Story features an engagement, Paper Rings is all about wanting to get married, and fans have famously used Lover as the first dance song at their weddings from the moment of its release," she says.
"Even though this is the first time she's actually engaged, her music has always featured a belief in happily ever after and that she would one day find it."
A new era
According to Lauren Rosewarne, an associate professor at the University of Melbourne, Swift's relatable persona is impressive considering her net worth.
"Taylor Swift does vulnerability and confession well," Dr Rosewarne says.
"That she's perceived to divulge a lot about herself, her relationships and fears and anxieties endears her to fans, many of whom have grown up alongside her for nearly two decades.
"Taylor Swift has also managed to appear authentic and also accessible to her fans, which is an enormously difficult thing to accomplish when you're literally a billionaire superstar."
Taylor Swift showed off her engagement ring as part of a series of posts on Instagram. (Instagram: @taylorswift)
So will Swift's engagement have any impact on how fans relate to her?
"Ultimately this is to be determined," Dr Rosewarne says.
"I imagine that there are many fans who actually just want her happy and thus will enjoy her future creative endeavours, regardless of what they entail.
"For others, there might be more of an investment in the drama, so marriage and stability might make her life and music seem less interesting."
As Dr Carroll notes, many Swifties are also likely to be engaged or married themselves.
"Rather than making her less relatable, it's going to unlock a new layer of relatability," she says.
"Many fans on social media have already been saying that seeing Taylor find true love in her mid-30s gives them hope as they find themselves similarly single and looking for their Mr Right — and I'm also in that camp!
"And just because we won't be getting a break-up album about this relationship, it doesn't mean she doesn't have other angst to draw on.
"We have 11 albums — and potentially soon-to-be 12 — that touch on heartbreak, and they aren't going anywhere."
Since Swift's upcoming album, The Life of a Showgirl, was produced before the proposal, the earliest hints of this new era in her songwriting would come via her 13th album.
"It's hard to know how much of the process she'll share with us through her music, but also how different it will potentially be from her previous examinations of love and the thought of forever," Dr Carroll says.
"Albums like Folklore and Evermore have shown she's not afraid to experiment with fictional narratives in her music, so we could also see a return to a less autobiographical style of music should she wish to keep this next stage of her relationship more private."