In order for media to be considered queer representation, it does not necessarily need to be explicitly queer. A very important aspect of queer representation in media is telling stories that queer people can relate to, even if the stories aren’t specifically stated to be queer. A prime example of this would be Taylor Swift’s music. Taylor Swift is amazing in every way, but the one thing she excels at above all else is storytelling. She is indisputably the best songwriter of this day and age. It doesn’t matter who you ask, everyone can relate to at least one Taylor Swift song because of the way she manages to capture raw human emotion and set it to music that feels like she is ripping your heart open and sewing it back up with a dull needle. With this gift of hers, she has been able to craft songs that shine a light on the queer experience without making them openly queer songs. So, let’s dig into some queer representation as told by Taylor Alison Swift (otherwise known as the music industry itself).

Taylor Swift during photoshoot for Red (Taylor’s Version) (Image Source)

In my personal and professional opinion, one of Taylor Swift’s gayest songs has got to be “The Very First Night” off of Red (Taylor’s Version). This song is about wanting to go back to the feeling of falling in love with someone. Now you might be thinking that this is just another breakup song about one of her ex-boyfriends because that’s all she writes about, and to that I say 1. How misogynistic and 2. Wrong.  The song is not explicitly queer as it follows a relationship with someone of an unspecified gender, but it is still relatable for queer listeners. The themes of accidentally falling in love with someone and having a secret relationship is very quintessentially queer. Notable lyrics that portray these themes are “Not trying to fall in love, but we did like children running”, “they don’t know how much I miss you”, and “we broke the status quo, then we broke each other’s hearts”. These lyrics make it clear that the relationship being written about was sort of out of the ordinary and unexpected. This is something that queer listeners can relate to because queer love in general is considered to be out of the ordinary by many people. I don’t know of many people that would consider a woman dating a man to be breaking the status quo, but I do know a lot of people that would treat two women or two men dating to be some sort of out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. Queer listeners everywhere can listen to this song and relate to this specific type of falling in love experience, and that is certainly meaningful queer representation even though it is not explicitly queer.

The best picture from the Lover photoshoot (Image Source)

Another very gay Taylor Swift song is “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” from Lover. This is a song about falling in love with your best friend. I feel like the queerness is self-explanatory for this one, but I’ll speak on it anyway. If you don’t understand how the very premise of this song is gay, I urge you to take a moment to contact a queer person you know and ask them if they have ever either fallen in love with or had a crush on their best friend (preferably you know them well or this will just be really awkward). The answer for all of them will be yes, and if they don’t say yes, they’re lying. Falling in love with your best friend is like a rite of passage for queer youth, so this song is extremely relatable to the queer audience. Notable lyrics from this song that really make it Gay™ without it being gay include “sun sinks down, no curfew”, “20 questions, we tell the truth”, and “something gave you the nerve to touch my hand”. Let me tell you, these lyrics are queer. For starters, I don’t know a singular person my age whose parents don’t give them a curfew when they are hanging out with someone of the opposite gender. If I’m hanging out with a girl my parents don’t care if I’m out all night, but if I’m out with a boy I need to be home by 11:00 P.M. on the dot. Furthermore, the whole 20 questions thing is something I believe every queer child has experienced; the only difference is that Taylor specifies that the people in the song tell the truth. You can once again fact check me using any queer resource available to you, but I can from experience that during a game of 20 questions or truth or dare everyone is always asked who they have a crush on and if you’re a closeted queer kiddo you never tell the truth. Queer people can relate to this song making it a thing that they told the truth because it’s unlikely that that would actually ever happen. The same thing goes for the last lyric that I mentioned – most queer people never worked up the courage to actually make a move on their best friend, but this lyric shows the people in the song having the guts to go for it. This song is very gay because falling in love with your best friend is gay, but the meaningful queer representation comes from the fact that the story in the song is kind of the ultimate dream for the queer people that like their best friend. It represents the hope that queer people have and their little fantasy world where everything works out, and I think that this is very important representation to provide for queer people even though the song isn’t specified to be gay.

Taylor Swift has a way of writing songs such that they are relatable to all audiences, even if the song doesn’t explicitly represent a certain group. Put simply, she is the moment. Although the songs she writes might not be overtly queer, they resonate with queer audiences and that is what makes them impactful examples of queer representation. She truly is the music industry as her words have the power to be whatever the listener needs in that moment.

P.S. Stream Midnights and Midnights (3am Edition) wherever you listen to music! You absolutely willnot regret it. It is a transcendental experience.

Stunning photo from the Midnights photoshoot (Image Source)