Talking Taylor #2

An Interpretation of “Innocent” by Taylor Swift

It’s 2009, Taylor Swift wins Best Female Video at MTV’s Music Video Awards, but instead of being able to accept her award, Kanye West barges forward, taking the microphone, and starts speaking on how Beyonce’s video was really the best. This event sparked Taylor Swift to write a song (of course) where she addresses this event that changed her entire image.

Taylor starts addressing Kanye’s insanity at that moment by saying, “Lost your mind tryin’ get it back” (Swift 4). Here she directly calls him out for doing something no one could have ever expected. Who really runs up on stage at an award show to interrupt someone who just won? When you think about it, it really does seem like he lost his mind when he did that, and I think everyone who watched him storm the stage was in just as much shock as Taylor.

She continues to address his immaturity when she writes, “32 and still growin’ up now” (Swift 28). Here she is calling him out for being a whole 32-year-old grown man when he went and decided to bombard what should’ve been Taylor receiving her hard-earned award. This is especially important because at this time Taylor was only 22 years old, meaning she is calling Kanye out for being immature as a woman who is 10 years younger than him. It’s quite embarrassing for him honestly how he could make such a rash decision that was plain disrespectful at 32 years old and take away from a 22-year-old’s big moment. Unsurprisingly, Taylor had years of maturity on him even though he was 10 years older.

After calling Kanye out for his immaturity, Taylor takes a step toward maturity, and decides to be the bigger person by saying “Your string of lights is still bright to me. Oh, Who you are is not where you’ve been. You’re still an innocent” (Swift 10-12). Here she is claiming that she still supports Kanye as an artist and that his actions were just a mistake and don’t define who he is as a person. This is one of the most important lines because it shows that even when people make mistakes, we shouldn’t let them define who they are because forgiveness is an important aspect of life. Taylor was able to forgive Kanye and he humiliated her at an important moment of her life that she worked so hard to get to, while also being in front of thousands of people. So, what I get out of this is that if she can forgive him on that large scale, we should be able to do the same in our everyday lives. Her forgiveness sends a message to anyone listening to the lyrics and allows us to think about how she was able to be the bigger person so we can too. This message is important to all of the young girls who grew up with her music in 2010 when this was released and although it might seem silly, the messages learned from her truly are something I will carry with me forever.