Welcome to New York
Beautiful Ghosts
Dear Reader
“Everybody here was someone else before” is the core sentiment of Welcome to New York. To me, it speaks to a common queer experience of leaving a condemned life in a rural/conservative area in search of acceptance and other gays. Once out of the small towns, LGBTQQAA people are more free to be their authentic selves.
Welcome to New York:
New York City:
Girls and Girls and Boys and Boys-
WTNY talks about entering a city life and putting broken hearts in a drawer. Now that these queers are in a larger, more liberal city they can put all the rejection and bullying behind them. Forget it and be who you want (homo examples were given).
The new soundtrack is the unfamiliar, open life these queers are now allowed to lead. “Dance” is used to show affiliation with these urban queers. “Dance” is again used to show freedom and belonging.
Dancing with Ghosts
Feeling uninhibited in a queer community. Oftentimes requires leaving a conservative, religious, and/or heteronormative society.
Beautiful Ghosts- The past was difficult and Taylor felt unwanted, wandering around haunted.
https://kit10phish.wordpress.com/2024/01/08/swiftionary-part-3/
The fact she’s haunted (Taylor-speak for gay) keeps her away from normal society in Beautiful Ghosts. She wants to be wanted, but it isn’t safe because of her innate sexuality so she wanders aimlessly and alone. Her queer peers let her into this special world and she finally experiences being wild and free (vs. constrained and uptight). Taylor clings to this new life, sadly remembering her past life in the straight world. The wild ones give her hope even though it’s not safe. Dancing with these beautiful ghosts helps her forget the painful memories.
She “dances” or unites with these other gay people because that’s who she is, and they integrate her into their chosen family. Taylor never feels so alive as when she is with other queers and her lover. In the end she “dances” (joins) the other ghosts (queers) because that’s who she is, and they accept her for her true self. The preponderance of “dancing” in Taylor’s catalog is relaxation and ease with her innate sexuality.
Dear Reader talks about this too:
Burn all the files, desert all your past lives/and if you don’t recognize yourself/that means you did it right.”
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