Passion Blog: Welcome to New York

It’s a fact of life that everyone is eventually going to leave home and start writing their own story. While this is most commonly described as a scary, stressful time full of unknowns, it is also filled with the exciting prospects of being on your own, meeting new people and starting fresh in a new place. The song I chose for this week’s passion blog is not one I ever thought I’d find inspiration in, but have recently been listening to and viewing in a new light as a college student.

Welcome to New York is the opening track off of Taylor Swift’s fifth studio album 1989, which was originally released on October 27, 2014. It was written by Taylor Swift and Ryan Tedder, and produced by Swift, Tedder and Noel Zancella. Due to the sale of her masters to Scooter Braun, Swift re-recorded the album and released it on the nine year anniversary of the original album’s release, October 27, 2023. The new version of the song, titled Welcome to New York (Taylor’s Version), was produced by the same original trio of Swift, Tedder and Zancella. The song is a fun, upbeat pop song that discusses Swift’s excitement of living and being in New York City. It opens up with Swift saying that everyone in the city is looking for something new, or as she puts it, “searching for a sound we hadn’t heard before”. She then talks about how she, and everyone else, are starting fresh in their new environment, saying “Took our broken hearts, put them in a drawer. Everybody here was someone else before.” In the bridge of the song, New York is described as being three different types of love; a great love, a true love and a real love. These analogies tell us that Taylor Swift has a great love for this city and truly feels like she belongs there. The chorus also incites the same feeling of belonging, with the phrase “Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you.” describing to the audience that it’s where they were always meant to be.

As mentioned earlier, I never thought I’d find motivation in this song. It doesn’t have a very deep meaning, and the lyrics are very surface level. The song is simply about having fun with your friends in New York City. However, now that I’m in college, I can appreciate this song differently. At this moment, my “New York” is Penn State. It’s my new environment, and it’s scary and new, but also very exciting. I’m living a life I could have only dreamed of a year ago. I’m meeting new people and getting to make amazing new memories. Just like New York has been waiting for Swift in the song, I truly feel as if Penn State has been waiting for me. In the few weeks I’ve lived here, I’ve felt so many emotions, but the overwhelming one has been excitement. Listening to this song and relating it back to what I’m going through now has helped put everything into a new perspective, and has really helped me in terms of focusing on the positives instead of dwelling on the negatives of being somewhere new.