With the release on October 3 of her latest best-selling album, Taylor Swift turned the page, as this album finds her in better spirits than on many previous offerings. Obviously, her engagement to football star Travis Kelce has put her in a good mood.
For fun (and only for fun), I thought it might be interesting to look at some of Swift’s #1 hits (she’s had 12 as of this editorial) and re-imagine (as she has done with many of her songs when she obtained ownership of them) what these titles might have been hinting at if they portrayed local events, people, times, items, debacles, et al. Here we go:
“Shake It Off”- surely this one would focus on “ainokea”, where things just sort of happen and people locally shrug their shoulders (at best). We sometimes (often?) just accept “the way it is” (to quote Bruce Hornsby) and move on. Civic action often seems to be an oxymoron locally, like jumbo shrimp, as its pretty ugly…
“Bad Blood”- Ooooh, where to go with this one. While we may deal with passive aggressive behavior locally at times, you know things are not quite what they seem an inch below the surface when people leave employment positions “to pursue other interests” or “to spend more time with family”. Yeh, gotta be some “bad blood” somewhere…
“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”- one of the great things about an island is that (usually) you get along to thrive/survive, since invariably we all bump into someone we’ve quietly written off; there does seem to be a kinder, gentler side to this phenomenon here vs. elsewhere…
“Look What You Made Me Do”- nothing ever seems to be the fault of someone in charge locally. It’s always “the system”. You don’t see enough mea culpa from leaders locally, but admitting mistakes is actually a sign of being human, learning, and growing. Actually, this is systemic of our country right now. It’s always “them”, never “us”…
“Is It Over Now?”- boy, where do we begin on this one locally? The TMT? The HART project? The Waikiki Natatorium? The Ko`olau Stairway To Heaven? Road repairs? Aloha Stadium? UH autonomy? An east Kapolei high school? Add your favorite drawn out project here.
So here’s to Taylor and her swift ascent to superstardom, happy times, and fan idolatry. Maybe she’ll perform here one day… at the new Aloha Stadium?
Think about it…