Taylor Swift’s Our Song

rom the first few notes of Our Song, every Swifty can instantly recognize the unmistakable, distinctive intro. I think that’s a requirement of every Swifty, being able to recognize Our Song within the first three seconds, because, come on, who could forget it? It’s so country, so early in Taylor’s career, yet it makes such a wonderful anthem, even today.

If someone came up to me and said, “Taylor Swift Debut: What song are you thinking of?” I would say “Our Song.” without skipping a beat, which, now that I think about it, is a little strange because it doesn’t represent the album the way that ‘Tim McGraw’ or ‘A Place In This World’ might.

Nonetheless, it is a song for the ages and will live on -at least as long as I’m DJing the radio- forever. It’s got everything a good country song should, the twang, the banjo, the fiddle, and a good story.

After listening to this song, I am always so amazed at the fact that she had not only pretty much taken over the country genre by the time she was twenty- but that she went on to take over pop, which, of course, she did successfully. I honestly wonder what’s left for her, how can her stardom and popularity and overall, awesomeness grow?

I think it goes without saying that I am a big Our Song fan! Something I’ve noticed about it is how different and young Taylor sounds in this song, as she does with most off the songs on her debut album, and she has such a heavy country accent that it really makes me notice how much her voice has evolved since she was sixteen, and again how she transferred from being so confident and proud of being in the country genre, to today, where she has so boldly and fearlessly, shall I say, sung pop.

The fun fact about Our Song is that it was written for Taylor’s ninth grade talent show (Which she won) and she put it on the album after having many doubts about whether it would even make it on the album. But she did, and not only was it an amazing track and a perfect addition to the album, but it went on to win a video of the year, and it even went number one. While she was accepting the awards Swift was barefoot due to advice from Faith Hill (Singer of country hits Wild One and This Kiss and many more and married to Tim McGraw.) to “Just take ‘em off!”

The secret message of our song is ‘Live in love.’ I think this is a sweet message because many of Taylor’s songs mention love, and how wonderful it is. The ones that come to mind are ‘King of my heart’ ‘Ours’ ‘Mary’s song’ and ‘New Year’s Day’. But I’d say the majority of Taylor’s songs are break-up songs. Some of those are spiteful and angry (Picture to burn, I knew you were trouble) and some are more-crying-at-the-piano sounding, (Champagne Problems, Exile, Coney Island) and though all those songs are so different sounding, and use such different styles, you can come up with one recurring theme for all of Taylor’s songs, the angry, sad, and the happy, and that is this: Love is precious, in any form. Love when it is in the process is priceless and when it’s ending or no longer thriving it’s devastating.

That’s what Taylor captures so well, that whole idea, and that love can be found in ordinary moments and in not so ordinary moments. The fact that she can sing and play a song for three minutes and twenty-two seconds about ridin' shotgun with her hair undone in the front seat of his car is just truly miraculous. She captures love, she finds a way to write it down and sing it in a way that no other singer has ever done. She deserves every one of those thirteen Grammys!