November 2023 was the Taylor Swift month for me as I had a chance to go watch her concert movie - The Eras Tour. When I first heard about it, I thought it would be some kind of documentary where she talked about her struggles behind the scenes, her overall success and how proud she is of herself and her team. However, when I got to watch it, I was in total awe because it was the whole concert itself. It lasted three hours with no real filler dialogue. If anything, there were just a few moments where she spoke well-versed sentences to transition smoothly to the next era, which truly impressed me.
I bought the ticket for the movie at IMAX Landmark 81 in Saigon, and I was extremely thrilled with the crowd. People treated it as a real concert with light sticks, dance moves and synced chanting as if it was live. I had such a great time that I ended up going to the same theater three more times just to watch her and enjoy the crowds. It was unexpectedly healing! Though I didn't join any of the 149 live concerts, the movie alone was inspiring enough to leave long-lasting impressions. So grateful for the experience, I exclaimed to my friend: What a time to be alive! You know? To be alive at the same time as the mighty Taylor Swift!
In April 2024, I suddenly got interested in learning Korean. So, I spent the past year intensively consuming K-drama OSTs to get exposed to Korean, besides binge-watching K-dramas. After a year of basically resetting my Youtube algorithms (it’s all Korean songs now), recently, I have found comfort back in my first love - English. No one else but Taylor Swift, specifically the album Lover, has lighted my “way back home”. While continuously, mindlessly streaming the album, I realized how much I loved some lines of it, and how much The Eras Tour healed parts of me that I couldn’t unpack on my own. So today, I decided to write about the lyrics that healed me during the concert and afterwards.
“You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.”
Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince - Lover
This line reminded me of quite an unpleasant experience. In the first quarter of 2023, in the middle of my own multi-layered crisis, I realized I got entangled in a very weird friendship-relationship triangle. I was friends with a couple whose girlfriend was secretly unhappy about my friendship with the boyfriend, but wouldn’t admit it. I found it out on my own and the boyfriend didn’t really take solid steps to clear the air, hence, failed to be there for me in my difficult times, too. I stepped back since the start of their relationship and tried to set firm boundaries, but none of it seemed to erase the insecurities and ambiguity that were in the air. At some point, I was so frustrated and angry that evil thoughts started to occupy my mind - something that went like: “Well if you really wanna be that jealous of me, I'm gonna give you more evidence. Let’s shake up this whole fake sense of peace and respect among us, shall we?”
Of course, I didn't act on those thoughts, and just set the real, final boundaries of no individual contact with either of them, giving up on both friendships I once treasured. Expectedly, the pain and the anger lingered. When this line was on, somehow it touched me, met me where I was and gently nudged me to shake off the lingering anger. I realized that all the villainous plans weren't really me and definitely weren't worth it. It's a poetic way to say, if you invest your energy and time into something that is going to sink anyway, even if you're winning, you're actually losing. With that simplified, light-hearted wisdom in the pocket, I was happy to just drop the act and cut down significantly on how much mental space these thoughts were taking in me.
“Clearing the air, I breathed in the smoke.”
Daylight - Lover
I felt so seen and heard listening to this line. Before I came to the final, ultimate boundary of no contact, I tried my hardest to communicate with both of them. I even initiated talks with the girl to help provide clarity, and confronted the guy to ask for a proper code of conduct, so my presence wouldn’t accidentally mess with their peace. I was determined to steer the wheel in the direction of protection and emotional safety for all. Not only me, both of them stated wholeheartedly (or so it seemed) that they, too, wanted to keep our friendships. But the more I tried, the more damage I received and the more exhausted I became. After each failed conversation, I was increasingly resentful towards not just them, but myself, and even a little bit of, you know, humanity.
Looking back, it was a wrong move on my part to have overstayed my welcome as a friend, and I hope that by now, I’ve learned my lesson to protect myself strictly from messy, questionable relationship dynamics. “Clearing the air, I breathed in the smoke” was the perfect visual analogy to describe my situation. Such a snapshot of what was going on helped me realize letting go was the only thing that made sense. The way she sang it, I felt as if I were venting to a trusted adult about my silly struggles and being offered a fresh perspective in return: “Well, I see what you’ve been trying to do, and why it matters, but look, aren’t you the one who got hurt? Was that even your job to begin with?” Oh, it sure as hell wasn’t!
“You live like that, you live with ghosts.”
Bad Blood - 1989
I remember this moment where my brother and I, on my fourth time going to watch the movie, just screamed this precious line from the top of our lungs: “You live like that, you live with ghosts!”, releasing all the bottled anger and frustration at the respective people in our lives at the time. I found that moment to be extremely liberating.
Anger and sadness are normally taught to be suppressed by our family and grander society. We often have no time or willingness to really sit with our anger. Even if we do, or we try to, there's always a rush in getting it over with, like: “Hey, anger, hey, I know better than to suppress you, so erm, I'm going to be here… tolerating you.” It was exactly the case for us, prior to that epic moment where the anger Taylor Swift so boldly embodied in this song gave us permission to truly feel and act out the anger. The poor anger then just evaporated, like it had been waiting forever to be felt. It wasn’t just us, people around us were just singing their hearts out too, but I doubt that any of us carried any real malice. Coming in contact with such a powerful catalyst to release the anger in its full weight, to be “the bad guy” out loud for once, was purely therapeutic. We even joked afterwards about how grateful we were of this kind of free therapy.
It also represents such an organic way to live, you know? I admire and respect Taylor Swift for the way in which she is willing to go to great lengths to live and capture such difficult emotions and turn them into art. It then widens her spectrum of emotions so that a lot of people can feel her empathy, no matter where they are on their messy, twisted human journey. In a world where emotions are judged so violently, and people with sensitivity are often looked down on, pigeonholed, or even bullied, she unapologetically lives through all of it. If that's not courage, I don't know what is.
“Please don't be in love with someone else. Please don't have somebody waiting on you.”
Enchanted - Speak Now
Here comes another shade of emotion and vulnerable state that Taylor Swift demonstrated so subtly. In today’s dating world, it’s advised, logically so, to aim for a secure attachment where you beg no one to stay or love you, but to cultivate love and reassurance within yourself. Easier said than done, isn’t it? Sometimes, it puts too much pressure on people to acquire a cool and unfazed facade.
When singing this song, Taylor was standing in a sparkly, gorgeous purple princess dress. Not moving much, she just stood still on stage, almost whispering what seemed like a deep, secret plea - not to be abandoned. This lyric specifically spoke to my inner soft, lover girl who was carefully hiding and healing behind the walls I’d built to prove that I'm enough and didn't need anyone’s mercy. Hearing the song with a fresh wound of post-breakup, it was both triggering and healing for me, because I was almost certain that my tender, loving girl was dead. No, seriously, I thought the heartbreak crushed her, and I’d never see her again. I was surprised to see her come out to admire the performance and silently shed some tears. And let's be honest, who of us hasn’t at least once wished that people we chose to give our heart to wouldn’t betray us? It’s so empowering to stand firm in our own truth, even when it’s something so vulnerable like admitting being unsure of the intention of the world. That moment stuck with me for a very long time.
“Did you hear my covert narcissism lightly disguised as altruism. Like some kind of congressman.”
Anti-Hero - Midnight
Wow, just wow! First, that was a lot of vocabulary to take in, ‘covert narcissism’, ‘disguise’ and ‘altruism’. But the layers were also so intricate that I was shook.
Narcissism is a modern pop-culture term for people who’re caught up in their own desires without giving a care to the others. There has been a growing number of articles and podcasts giving out warnings about and insights into this type of personality. Covert narcissism takes the concept one step further. When somebody with a tendency of narcissism, as described, operates from a place of mere self-absorption and self-serving, but manages to make it unnoticeable, it's covert. Using these terms is already deep, but then she cut open another layer by throwing in the word altruism. Isn’t altruism too big a word to be mentioned in a song? So the sarcasm and rawness here are on another level.
Simply put, the lyric means I'm doing something nice to make it seem like I care, when deep down, I’m doing it for my own best interest. I cover it so well under the mask of good deeds, but I'm standing here asking you, half-challenging, half-admitting, unflinching: “Did you see through it? Did you see through all the psychological mind games at play? Either way, I'm owning my truth.” What kind of deep, brutal honesty and bravery is this? To admit such a thing takes balls!
At the time, I was starting to have my delusions destroyed when the image I built about certain people in my life who constantly said good things with their actions failing to catch up started to rot. I saw it in myself as well. Sometimes, I do not own up my intentions, I'm often not even aware of them, and I try a bit too hard to keep being the nice girl. I showed generosity, but deep down, who knows if I wasn't trying to take something people never signed up to give, like validation? So, I saw it in myself. I saw it in different people in my life, so it was a striking revelation of the inconvenient layers of humanity.
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Okay, that was a bit heavy, wasn't it? All those calling out and emotional release. But the next line I loved was from the song Lover.
“Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? With every guitar string scar on my hand, I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover.”
Lover - Lover
It was so cute. I loved it. I'm singing while writing these lyrics down.
I actually got to the theater a little bit late on my first time. As I walked in, this song was playing. At the ‘cue’: “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?” - Almost the whole theater stood up! Gosh, how interactive! How loyal and engaged did the fans have to be to follow her cue so perfectly? She wasn’t even there, and yet they followed her lead, no questions asked, no nudge needed! They all stood there as if to witness her poetic confession with ‘all the guitar string scars on her hand’.
She started out as a country girl that sang country songs, right? And the image of her holding a guitar has been long carved into our heart as the Taylor Swift we have always known. Now she speaks for anyone that has tried to play the guitar and knows the pain of fingertips pressed against the strings: ‘With every guitar string scar on my hand,’ I take not just this man, but this ‘magnetic force of a man’, in a declaration as grand and solemn as a wedding vow, yet not to be my husband, but ‘my lover’. It's just so sweet, so dramatic and heart-melting! It’s almost as sweet as the cover of the album itself, with the pastel palette of blue and pink watercolor mix and a sprinkle heart around her eyes. The whole thing screams love - so, so squeal worthy!
Following suit was the line from Cruel Summer, which also belonged to the starting era of her concert. It was the viral chanting moment that went: “Do you know the bridge to this song?” Then the fans screamed: “YES!” And she commanded: “PROVE IT!” and immediately sang:
“I'm drunk in the back of the car, and I cried like a baby coming home from the bar (oh). Said, "I'm fine, " but it wasn't true. I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you. And I snuck in through the garden gate, every night that summer, just to seal my fate (oh). And I screamed, "For whatever it's worth! I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?" He looks up, grinnin' like a devil.”
Cruel Summer - Lover
Okay, can't believe I just sang out the whole bridge while typing. But it's a magnetic and electrifying bridge, don’t you agree? It talks cinematically about some feelings every teenager girl would know: the sneaking out to see someone, the dilemma of either to share what we truly feel, or to hide it and just say we're fine.
As adults, we learn (or had better learn) the importance of open, honest communication, for the better, of course. But for a teenage girl, it's very tempting to just say ‘I'm fine, but it wasn't true’. Then came the expectable moment of ‘I scream for whatever it’s worth’ - so real and impulsive. Like, you did not know how to let out your true feelings in real time, so you just let them pent up inside, only to break dramatically at some point. You couldn’t say it calmly, you had to ‘scream’. You didn't know what would come out of it, either, hence: ‘for whatever it's worth, I love you! Ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?’ The whole bridge captured the pain of falling uncontrollably in love, while being completely unsure of the other person's feelings. The worst situation to be in!
Naturally, when someone confesses their love, it should be received gently right? But in this case, even the girl knew that maybe it would not land as music to the other person's ears, and would ultimately not work in her favor. “But you know what? Whatever. It's my truth, and I cannot contain it anymore. So here it goes, I'm going to scream it out.” I find it painfully relatable. The mood swing depicted was on point!
‘I'm drunk at the back of the car’ - speaking of those reckless phases. ‘I cry like a baby coming home from the bar’ - there's a very high chance we've all been there? Finally, ‘he looked up grinning like a devil” just sealed the whole thing - a rom-com-coded ending to a chaotic confession. Mischievous, toxic, manipulative, even. Guess to a young lady, that’s hot? Hehe.
“No one wanted to play with me as a little kid, so I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since, to make them love me and make it seem effortless. This is the first time I’ve felt the need to confess.”
Mastermind - Midnight.
I still remember that specific day in my primary school, fifth grade, when I was sitting nervously at my seat. It was a class meeting, the teacher was asking for a show of hands from the class of about 45 10-year-olds whether I was deserving to be called “Cháu ngoan Bác Hồ”. Weird! How on earth was a child’s dignity and deservingness up for a vote like that? Anyway, looking back, I do think that was the exact moment when I started to sense that I would have to people-please my way through life. “Otherwise” - my then 10-year-old mind feared - “it wouldn’t end well”.
I was an awkward, reserved girl with an embarrassing short haircut (forced onto me by my mom) while in my class, there were brilliant kids who would grab all kinds of national awards. Then, there was even this adorable babydoll of the class whose comic collections charmed everyone. I started as early as at that age to wonder where my place in the world would be and how I could make sure people would willingly hang out with me.
I don’t think I carried this thought in my consciousness all these years, but when Taylor sang those words, it was like she reached into my past and found me. Struggling. Scheming. Anxiously calculating ever since.
It’s not an easy thing to admit, and even harder to unlearn. I’ve spent so many adult years trying to break the spell, trying to unlearn this deep-rooted belief and replace it with something healthier, something that feels more sustainable, authentic, and safe in the long run. But how can she describe it so well? She poked at my 10-year-old and made her feel seen! Who does that!
“You’re on your own kid.”
You’re On Your Own, Kid. - Midnight.
Next comes her famous quote that has made its way into a lot of graduates' footnotes in their senior yearbook because of how encouraging and acknowledging it is.
There she was, in a red dress, in the middle of the show at the acoustic set. When we reached this part where she brought out her instruments, it already felt like a wind down to the end of the show. Then, she went on to perform for another one and a half hours! Mad respect for her!
Back to the song. It was the first time I listened to this song in the movie. I didn't know the year it was released, but it was beautiful, real, and raw.
“'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned. Everything you lose is a step you take.” - My all-time favorite visuals, and I remember praising it somewhere in my blog already. So there's another part of the song that hit even harder to me:
“I looked around in a blood-soaked gown, and I saw something they can't take away.”
Earlier that year, I was going through a phase of accumulated losses. Almost all the foundational things that once kept me together came apart, it was overwhelming. I almost had to rebuild everything from scratch. But when I looked inside, I saw something “they couldn't take away”. I would not discount it by trying to articulate what it was, but there was definitely a sacred something that no heartbreak, no breakage, no betrayal, no back-turning could ever take away from me. Empowering yeah? The real kind. Her voice made it feel like it came from a big sister, reassuring me that it’s all okay. And I’m going to be just fine.
“I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.”
Long Live - Speak Now.
Taylor was ending the concert with the song Long Live. At the first listen, I found the melody to be a bit flat, not as charming as the tearful audiences made it look to be. But by the fourth time watching, after looking up the lyrics, I fell right in love with it, especially the ‘fighting dragons’ line.
How I love the image of ‘fighting dragons with you’! Like, of course, dragons - not even a real creature, and of course, fighting - with all seriousness of the world. Nothing calls for urgency like a childhood mission that draws a bunch of kids together. I often refer to my childhood as isolated and lonely. There were so many traumas (the way I see it) to the point where I forgot most of it growing up. For example, when people ask me about high school, I do not recall a lot of things. But this lyrics reminded me of a special time in adulthood where I experienced the same precious togetherness.
I once joined a book club where the host created a space for all of us to bring out our inner curious child, the one who loved to read, learn, and share. Over time, we grew closer, updating each other on even the silliest, most absurd, awkward things in our lives. I’m not sure if that was the host’s intention. Maybe, at some point, the unexpected closeness strayed too far from what he had envisioned, and he dismissed the club altogether? But my friend and I truly found solace in it. Hearing this lyric, we deeply related to those book club days when we met twice a month, just to talk about what we had learned, from books and in life, in the purest, most unfiltered way possible. In return, we were genuinely curious about the others’ thoughts. It was a beautiful thing to be reminded of by this song.
The phrase choice of “I had the time of my life” was brilliant, it holds truth. It wasn’t just a good day, a good month, or even a good year - it was the time of my life, fighting dragons with you. Take one step further, and it’s not just about the imaginary battles we went to as a child anymore. To me, the dragons can represent something possibly harder to see but easy to feel, like the constant anxiety, the self-imposed pressure to always do better, the fear of falling behind, the weight of depression, the endless cycle of overwhelm and doubt - all the invisible, yet very real monsters we face every day in early adulthood. I don’t know about others, but for me, it’s an everyday fight. And for Taylor to describe it in such a pure, lively, childlike way, it speaks volumes. Once again, I thank the book club and the friends in it for being my camaraderie through that phase of life, giving me strength to stand tall in the face my dragons.
From the same song, there was another line:
“If you have children someday. When they point to the pictures, please tell them my name. Tell them how the crowds went wild. Tell them how I hope they shine.”
It reflects the deepest love and goodness human beings can offer to one another, one that feels freeing rather than constraining. Yes, go ahead and “tell them how I hope they shine.” Not just “I wish you shine,” but “I wish your baby, the person you hold dear when I may not be in your life anymore, shine too.” I would love to believe in forever, but I’m realistic and grounded enough to know that life changes in ways no one can predict. And if life happens to force us into a goodbye, I want you to know, I don’t just wish you the best. I wish everyone you hold dear the best.
Isn’t that so expansive, abundant, and freeing? The kind of love I yearn to cultivate within myself.
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So, that's it for now.
Of course, if we look hard enough, or not even that hard, we can find gems splattered all over the concert. It's already too long, otherwise, I’d keep going. But these are the moments that stuck with me throughout the years. Even now, I’m writing this with the Eras Tour setlist playing in the background.
I don't know where she's going with her career. I'm not specifically invested in her love life. I even went through a phase where I refused to admit being a Swiftie. But then, my dear friend hit me with a question that made me laugh out loud and came out of my denial:
My friend had just posted a story about watching the Eras Tour concert movie that day, and I messaged her, asking where she went, because I wanted to find the same vibe. At the time, I was seriously considering going to see the movie for the third time, because my second experience wasn’t it - the crowd was too introverted for my liking. So I hesitated and said: “I’m considering it… but going to the same movie three times when I’m not a Swiftie seems a bit much, yeah?” And she, completely unimpressed, threw it right back at me: “On what level of denial are you that you claim you’re not a Swiftie, but considering seeing the same movie for the third time?”
A slap in the face.
She didn’t have to call me out like that, but she did. And too bad she was right. So, I made peace with the fact that maybe I’m not the hardcore Swiftie who buys flight tickets to attend her concert (yet) nor one who defends her on every online platform, but I am the Swiftie who absorbs her lyrics, takes them in, and holds them to heart. Her work has single-handedly brought me through a lot of difficult seasons and made me feel a little less lonely in a lot of delicate moments. For that, I'm really grateful.
I'm so happy to finally share with you some of my thoughts on this. I kept it to myself for over a year. I thank technology for allowing me to record this blog post then convert it to text, saving my eyes from exploding in excessive contact with screens. I then spent a day refining the original text, with a bit of help from ChatGPT, about 10% of it. Thanks, mate!
I hope you enjoyed it.
Till next time!
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