At a recent concert in Arizona, Taylor Swift told approximately 70,000 fans her fondness for “explaining to men how to apologize.”
The singer-songwriter spoke about her 2020 album “Folklore,” which marked a departure from her previous seven albums’ autobiographical approach.
Instead, “Folklore” features songs centered around imaginary characters and their stories.
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Swift described her earlier work as akin to journaling for the public, likening the experience of releasing an album to undergoing a “live-streamed, public autopsy.”
With “Folklore,” she sought to create characters who could “live in different times” and experience love, hurt, war, and more.
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“i love to explain to men how to apologise” pic.twitter.com/QIvLamcQ4l
— rafia ✰ (@repromantic) March 18, 2023
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She admitted that a recurring theme in her music is her enjoyment of instructing men on how to apologize, noting her penchant for outlining simple steps to mend relationships in her songs.
“I just love it. It’s kind of my thing. I love to tell them step-by-step, ‘Here’s how simple this is to fix things if you just follow these easy steps that I’m laying out for you in a three-minute song.’ I just love the idea of men apologizing.”
Swift went on to discuss a song about a teenage boy named James apologizing to his love, Betty. This pair of characters was inspired by actors Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s young daughters.
Interestingly, in late 2019, Swift claimed that she faced discrimination as a woman, tweeting, “When you’re pretttttty sure that if you were a man, you’d be the man.”
When you’re pretttttty sure that if you were a man, you’d be the man 💅
📷: Sami Drasin pic.twitter.com/rjJesldpEQ— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) December 11, 2019
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Following her album “Lover,” which featured the song “The Man,” Swift contemplated how society might perceive her if she were male.
CNBC News reported that the song’s lyrics included the lines, “I’d be a fearless leader. I’d be an alpha type. When everyone believes ya: What’s that like?”
In a September 2019 Vogue interview, Swift reflected on her initial inability to recognize sexism in the music industry.
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She attributed her naivety to being seen as a “kid” by men in the industry.
Swift argued that it’s acceptable to trivialize a girl’s success, calling it “cute,” but when a woman achieves significant success, it is no longer seen as “cool.”
She cited her own experiences of playing in stadiums and being perceived as a woman rather than a girl.
In her 2019 acceptance speech for Billboard’s “Woman of the Decade” award, she criticized the “toxic male privilege” in the music industry, exemplified by people dismissing her concerns about artists’ rights to their music by saying, “but he’s always been nice to me.”
