Full disclosure. I am tone deaf. I prefer listening to books over music, I generally can’t identify a song until well into the lyrics and I immediately lower the radio when riding in a car with my offspring.
But I’m certainly not a music monk. I’m first on the floor when Burning Down the House pops into a playlist (earning wide-eyed stares for my offbeat flailing), I belt out every word (off-tune) to Piano Man as it plays in the 8th inning at CitiField and I smile with nostalgia whenever I hear Peaceful Easy Feeling (another story for another time).
As a youth I went to just about every concert $7.50 could buy, rotating between the Spectrum, Tower Theater and the TLA in Philadelphia. It didn’t really matter who was playing, it mattered who was going. Which is why I was just as likely to attend a Beach Boys as a Deep Purple concert.
Back in 1991 as a pre-parenting last hurrah, my music-loving spouse and I went to New Orleans for Jazz Fest. In 2012 I saw John Prine at a small venue in New Jersey and last month listened to a slightly known band play under the stars at a small town festival. And that is just about the extent of my musical ventures over the past 32 years.
Which may lead one to wonder how – and more importantly – why – a woman who has aged out of middle age, ended up at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, screaming with the Swifties last Saturday night.
I have loved Taylor Swift since I first heard You Belong With Me on CD repeat in the minivan as I carted the daughter from soccer to softball, from gymnastics to cheerleading, from sleepovers to boyfriends’ houses (not one in the same). I have always been somewhat star struck, googling the rich and famous and later having “informed” conversations about their lives. But that’s more likely a search for “what did Francisco Lindor name his second daughter,” than a full-out follow on all forms of social media – which is what I do with Taylor Swift. I know her mother’s Great Dane is named Kitty, that she is exactly one month older than I am (the mother, not the dog), that her brother went to Notre Dame and her grandmother was an opera singer. I know which of her exes made their way into her songs and who her favorite friends are.
The daughter and I exchange texts about her as if she is someone we actually know.
“Did you hear Taylor might be back with Joe?”
“Rumors. All rumors.”
“It’s so sad. She really loved him.”
Yes, I am well aware that what I know about this pop icon is absolutely nothing.
Fast forward through the eras, through boyfriends and breakups to last November when tickets went on sale for Taylor Swift’s first concert tour in five years.
“I’m going,” I announced.
Along with millions of others, I registered online for a presale code. Unlike the multitudes, I didn’t really understand what this was all about. After all, most of my concert tickets had been purchased from a booth in the back of Korvette’s department store in the Cedarbrook Mall. I was asked to list four choices of venues and I typed in New Jersey, New Jersey, Philadelphia and on a whim, Los Angeles.
I got the code, a feat unto itself, I later learned – for the LA show only – and was instructed to go online in the early hours of November 15 to get in the queue which could possibly, but my no means guarantee me being able to actually purchase tickets.
It didn’t take long for me to realize the ridiculousness of the whole scenario. Was I really going to fight for a concert ticket at my age? Would I even be able to survive in a mega-stadium with 70,000 other humans? And in what world did it make sense to fly across the country to see a pop star, whom yes, I professed to love … but come on.
And so I bagged the whole silly idea.
If you recall, the day tickets went on sale, Ticketmaster crashed and the world went mad. I self-praised my good judgment for not attempting to battle the masses. But. Mid-afternoon I got an email saying that the glitch was fixed and west coast ticket sales would open back up at 6 pm. I had finished my Wordle, had chopped the spouse’s dinner shrubbery, Jeopardy wasn’t on for another hour, so what the heck? I logged in. Again, I know nothing of queues and spinning circles, but it soon – and I mean within mere minutes – became clear that I was about to score. I texted the daughter.
“Hey, it looks like I’m going to get tickets for Taylor Swift. You in?”
“Mom. You’re NOT getting tickets. My friends and I have been online ALL day. It’s not happening.”
Three minutes later, I sent her a screen shot of the two lower bowl, right-behind-the-VIP-tent seats that I had purchased for a small fortune. But, I reasoned, amortized over all the years of not going to concerts, it was a pretty good deal.
Anti-hero no longer. I was the MAN. (See what I did there, fellow fans?)
When we checked in to the hotel last weekend, the aging desk attendant greeted us with a grin, “You girls here for Taylor Swift?”
“Uh, duh,” I said.
He laughed.
“No, really. We are going.”
When he realized his ageist faux pas, he tried to dial it back. He earnestly asked what I was going to wear, referring to the fact that “everyone” dresses up for the show, picking one of Taylor’s eras to commemorate.
I am not a dresser-upper. Not for nothing. Not for no one.
But this was different. I was going to be totally out of my element, not to mention my peer group. And while I would never lie about my age, and don’t care (that much) how wrinkled I am, I do have this inexplicable need to stay agelessly relevant. So for weeks I had run the gamut of choices through my mind – I could wear a shiny bodysuit, a fringe-filled skirt, a blazer and Louboutins, a ball gown, a top hat, a folksy, floor length dress, or just call it a day with bright red lipstick.
I finally decided that I best related to one of her lesser-hits and had the song title custom printed onto a t-shirt:
this is me trying
More perfect words were never worn.
As we walked into SoFi Stadium I felt an overwhelming … something. My throat got a bit tight and my eyes a tad watery. I looked around at all those jubilant faces, mostly women, mostly less than half my age, and I was overpowered with … something.
As is typical, I engaged random strangers in conversation.
“Mom, read the body language,” the daughter quipped. “They doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Oh, but they did. With in minutes I was gifted two friendship bracelets (a line in one of Taylor’s songs morphed into the making and exchanging of bracelets at concerts) even though I didn’t have any to trade back (you have to draw the line somewhere.) I gave the daughter a smug smile. Like all my other sentimental bracelets, they’re going to stay on my wrist until they fall off.
“But how was the SHOW?” my spouse asked after I gushed about the malls being stocked with Taylor outfits, the airplane filled with concert-goers, the city alive with pre-concert electricity, the little girls in front of us passed out from overload.
Oh yes, the show. Well the actual show was amazing. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Three hours and fifteen minutes, 44 songs filled with theater, dance, style, lights, effects, conversation and pure joy. There were multitudes laughing, crying, singing, shrieking, hugging and swaying. Not that I have any 21st century comparisons, but to me the concert was a spectacular spectacle.
But Taylor Swift is more than the show. So much more.
Which brings me back to the why.
My spouse, who can identify Taylor Swift’s voice but really only knows “The Romeo and Juliette” song because Richie belted it out in one of The Bear episodes, mocks my idol mercilessly.
“Is she going to sing another mean song about one of her boyfriends?”
“Mean? Are you kidding me. She’s the nicest person in the world!” I protested.
Granted, she does sing a lot of songs about her past, present and future love life. And while I will forever remember the guy at that party with whom I had an hours-long conversation after which I deemed him to be the one (you guessed it, he didn't call) and falling in hopeless love with the one who later became my ever-loving spouse, her tales about newfound and unrequited love are not why her songs resonate with me.
I used to think it was because she started out as a Pennsylvania girl growing up in the exact town where we traveled for our very first of hundreds of baseball tournaments. Or because she’s a kind human, a self-proclaimed people pleaser, a masterful marketer and an absolute genius of a writer.
“There’s no way we’re going to get through this concert without sobbing,” the daughter warned me as we headed for the show.
That's when it hit me.
My love for Taylor Swift wasn’t all about me.
As a three-time mother, I think I can vouch for the fact that living through an offspring’s pain hits us twice as hard as it does hard as it does the child. And three times harder than it ever hit us when we went through it ourselves. Of course said child will roll their angsty eyes in denial, but once they’re in our shoes, they’ll know we’re not lying. Every heartbreak, every mean girl, every dashed dream ricochets through a mother’s body and soul, over and over, long after the slashes have turned to scars.
Taylor Swift has perfectly penned the story of our lives. Mine, the daughter’s, and the millions of other hopeful souls in the world. But of course that’s the magic of a master storyteller – somehow everyone believes that the tale was spun specifically and solely with them in mind.
As smoothly as it all went, as amazing as the experience was, as much fun as we had, I know that I don’t ever need to go to a stadium concert again.
But I promise you this. Some thirty years from now when I'm well into late-stage old age and the daughter's the age I am now, we'll be the first in line when Taylor Swift announces her residency show in Las Vegas.
Long live all the magic we made.
