"And that good surf, no hypocrites..."
Taylor Swift is a cultural phenomenon. Whether you love, despise or fall somewhere in between even if your “in between” is a practiced “I don’t care.” That is a silly lie. Everyone cares and when the title song to her just-released album “The Life of a Showgirl” popped up on the way to daughter’s morning ballet, today, my ears perked.
Now, daughter has swung between liking/loving Swift’s music to vociferously denying ever liking/loving any of it and so I was curious what her reaction would be to the latest offering. She bopped along to the tune, featuring Sabrina Carpenter, and I knew we were heading back to liking/loving.
The songs seemed fine Swift fare as we moved through The Fate of Ophelia, Elizabeth Taylor, Father Figure, Eldest Daughter and Actually Romantic. I found myself trying to piece together the various sources of her inspirations, listening for those classic “Easter Eggs” but with not enough real knowledge to make heads nor tails of much until, that is, we hit Wi$h Li$t.
It seemed easy enough to understand, Swift comparing the shallow things celebrities want (bright lights and Balenci’ shades, a fat ass with a baby face etc.) and what she wants (a couple kids looking like Travis Kelce, a driveway with a basketball hoop etc.)
Then came the next stanza.
They want that freedom, living off the grid
They want those three dogs that they call their kids
And that good surf, no hypocrites
They want it all.
Celebrity surfers catching a major licking.
But whom do you think she is crooning about, specifically? Rob Lowe? Anthony Kiedis? Edward Norton?
As luck, or fate, might have it, David Lee Scales and I received a must-hear encounter with that triumvirate at Zuma, of all places.