Metadata Subject Classification: Taylor Swift

Project Overview:

Centered around creating and defining subjects for Taylor Swift’s music, this project aims to detail the wide range of subjects she sings about. Ultimately culminating in a defined guide on how to categorize her music in various ways.

Subject Classification Goal & Why:

Subject Area:

Taylor Swift’s Discography with a focus on certain songs spanning all her albums that I found to relate to everyday life, including topics such as family, friends, and personal struggles, rather than just strictly romantic relationships.

Intended Audience:

My topic is aimed at individuals who accept the ongoing claim that she only writes songs about her ex-boyfriends, which is false. The idea is to prove that everybody can relate to her music, whether they relate them to their experiences or take the lyrics literally.

Intended Purpose:

Showcase the depth and range that these songs withhold, and how close to home they may hit millions of listeners worldwide regardless of who you are or where you come from.

Metadata Category Breakup & Creation:

1

Human Relationships

2

Relatability

  • Mental Health

  • On top of the world

  • Growing up

  • Regret

  • Reminiscing

  • Self-Love

  • Not fitting in

  • Daydreaming

3

Themes

  • Revenge

  • Loss

  • Beauty

  • Betrayal

  • Fighting/Arguments

  • Forgiveness

  • Feminism

  • Pop culture references

  • Social Commentary

    • Politics

4

Symbolism

  • Locational

  • Religious

  • Family

  • Friends

  • Romantic Relationships

    • Heartbreak

    • Deeply in Love

    • Crushing

Sample Definitions

Human Relationships

Divided into three main subcategories that revolve around the type of human relationships we experience throughout our lifetimes.

Relatability

Those songs you listen to and even though the artist doesn’t know you on a personal level you still feel seen by their lyrics. Divided among various topics most if not everyone goes through or experiences at some point.

Themes

Divided into various subcategories that represent the overall topics within her songs.

Symbolism

Separated into religious and locational categories, essentially denoting when songs contain a certain element that is subtly communicating with the listener.

Family: Not the easiest people to deal with, but no matter what, you love them. In “The Best Day,” she talks about the love she has for her parents and brother.

Friends: They come and go, but the best ones always stay. You have fun with them and cry with them. They’re the people who aren’t obligated to be there for you but are there because they want to.

Mental Health: Most of society, if not all, struggle to some extent with mental health, and having such a big name in music discuss her own struggles alludes to this welcoming sensation that you’re not alone. For example, “This is me trying” talks about burnout and how one is simply trying to get better and wants that effort to be noticed.

Growing Up: The moments that come along with such a pivotal and inevitable part of life. For example, “Never Grow Up” details those difficulties and recalls those moments in one’s life when, as children, we couldn’t wait to grow up, but the reality is much colder than we thought it would be.

Loss: the sadness that comes with losing someone, that can be through death or mourning a living person who was once your closest confidant and is now no longer a part of your life.

Pop Culture References: Subtle verbal references to notable people, events, or other incidents may also be included. For example, in songs like “…Ready for it” she references Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, an iconic old Hollywood couple where Elizabeth Taylor was at one point notably seen as a ‘maneater’ and Richard Burton was the one who ‘tamed’ her. In “Starlight” she references Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s love story.

Locational: places that hold meaning to the writer (Taylor Swift), thus leading the listener to think of places that hold meaning to them. For example, the song “Cornelia Street” talks about having memories with someone in an apartment on Cornelia Street and that if that love ever broke, she wouldn’t be able to walk that street again.

Religious: Included in songs like “Soon you’ll get Better,” where she states, “Holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you/ desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too.”

Concluding Thoughts

In conclusion, this final product, while it is semi-specific, still holds some vagueness but will allow any outside indexer who uses this system to understand its components. I was able to gauge critical elements that will ultimately get the point across that her music is much more than surface-level love songs about exes. They all hold a much deeper and much more emotional meaning.