Taylor Swift has taken over the world, and she’s not going anywhere. Whether you’re a Swiftie or not, you can’t deny her talent of storytelling and relatability that she’s able to bring to life within her music.
I’ve always found myself feeling like Taylor stole pieces of my diary to write certain songs, because they’ve always felt a little too personal. How does she know exactly how I feel?
But as I listened to “The Tortured Poet’s Department,” her most recent album, for the first time, the songs felt even more familiar than usual.
It’s as if Taylor conducted personal research on dating in Charleston to script the lyrics to song after song on the anthology. Did she set up hidden cameras around downtown? Did she interview local Charleston girls who just got their heart crushed by a guy holding a fish in his Hinge photo?
Her gift of writing a song that feels like it was made just for you is consistently impressive, but there’s a few new Taylor songs that are just so Charleston dating coded that I can’t help but share my findings.
Down Bad
It doesn’t get more relatable than the lyric of “now I’m down bad crying at the gym” after you’ve gotten broken up with. We’ve all been there. In specific Charleston speak, that translates to “now I’m down bad crying at The Works/Jane DO/my hot girl walk around The Battery.” Guilty.
The Black Dog
We all have that one bar that was you and your ex’s “spot.” Maybe it was a place he showed you, somewhere you two frequented, or your favorite date that you went on. Whatever it is, it’s triggering to think about, to pass by, and especially to imagine what’s happening there without you. The brutal reality of Charleston is this: this city is too small to never interact with your “spot” again. You can try to avoid it, but it will haunt you somehow. So, you may as well face it head on, go back there, and rewrite your memories.
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
This song perfectly describes the sweet, innocent girls freshly entering the Charleston dating pool for the first time and thinking they found themselves a fixer-upper on the dating apps. They’ve yet to be scarred, and their determination gets the best of them because they “see the potential.” So, they try to convince themselves and everyone around them that they are in fact the chosen ones sent to turn these men around. Take it from me ladies…keep it moving.
Fresh Out The Slammer
This one goes out to the guys who took a quick vacation to rehab only to come back stumbling into the same bars they lived in before they left and hitting you right up after not talking for almost three years. I definitely don’t know this from personal experience.
I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
Don't forget, even a girl boss gets heartbroken sometimes! We can all think of a moment in our lives where we had to throw on a smile when all we wanted to do was scream, cry, and maybe even throw something at the guy who just broke your heart. However in Charleston, the smile we fake is taken to the next level. The life we live here is too beautiful, too amazing, and too exciting to let heartbreak fully take over. So we still go out, we still go to the beach, and we still post on Instagram like we’re living our best lives. We’re just crying behind our sunglasses.
