September 30, 2025 • 29 mins
Taylor Swift is about to take over the world again with her highly anticipated release of TS12: The Life of a Showgirl. But how did she get here, how did we get here, and why does she even matter?
How did a young girl from Pennsylvania become the most significant, prolific storyteller of our time? Why does she captivate us to the point of madness, why does her music resonate so deeply, and how do her stories reflect our own stories?
In the first episode of the Taylor Swift 101 series, your Swiftie English teacher dives into 5 major reasons why Taylor really matters, and the answers might not be what you think.
Resources
Check out the full TS 101 Lesson Series at SwiftlySungStories.com, along with lyrical analysis of 250+ songs, close readings of all of Taylor’s prologues, lyric quizzes, and more.
Find My Video Episodes on YouTube
TikTok: @SwiftlySungStories
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's 2006 and Taylor Swift is prettymuch a nobody in the cultural zeitgeist.
Her first album wouldn't dropuntil October of that year.
Her songs aren't on the radio yet.
Her record isn't on the shelves yet,and Taylor Swift only really matters
to Taylor Swift and her family andfriends and big machine records.
(00:20):
She said on her MySpace page, if youstart a conversation about Law and
order, SVU or CSI, with me, we willbe talking for at least an hour.
I consider myself an expert on thosetwo things, only those two things
she didn't consider herself to be anexpert on anything but Olivia Benson,
and at that point she definitely didn'tconsider herself an expert songwriter.
(00:43):
But here we are now, almost 20years later, and we are studying
her songwriting like it is a sacredtext descendant from the heavens.
So how did we get here?
You and me and millions ofother fans have become united by
one thing, Taylor songwriting.
She isn't just a superstar inthe songwriting world either.
(01:04):
She's one of the definingfigures of our entire generation.
So how did she get hereand how did we get here?
Why is Taylor Swift one of themost important and influential
artists of our generation?
And why does she really matter?
Why are we studying Taylor songwritingand not Pinks or Christina Aguilera
(01:26):
or Kelly Clarksons or even Beyonce's?
I am Jen.
I'm a writer and a former Englishteacher, and I have been writing about
and dissecting Taylor Swift's workon my website, swiftly s stories.com.
I've had so many readers reach out andask me to start a YouTube channel, and
though I'm terrified of public speaking.
I know, I know I was a teacher, butmiddle school students are a lot easier
(01:49):
to talk to than strangers on the internet.
But I've decided to divein headfirst fearless.
But with this topic as massive as TaylorSwift's career, where do we even start?
I wanna start with the why.
Why is Taylor's work important?
Why is it so impactful, and why is itworthy of a million and a half deep dives?
(02:09):
So in my very first video inTaylor Swift 1 0 1, we're gonna
answer this question together.
Why does Taylor Swift matter?
So let's dive in.
Welcome to swiftly sung Stories wherewe unpack the Taylor Swift Universe
one era album and lyric at a time.
Think of it like English class,but it's all Taylor Swift
(02:30):
and none of the boring stuff.
I'm Jen, your Swiftie English teacherand class is in session, so come
on in and meet me in the margins.
Just a quick note before we get started.
All of my lessons in the Taylor Swift1 0 1 series are available in text
version on my website, linked in theshow notes where you can also find my
lyrical analysis of over 250 songs,lyric quizzes, close readings of all
(02:51):
of Taylor's prologues and so much more.
So go and check that out.
If you really just wanna geekout about Taylor Swift with me,
please like and subscribe whereveryou're seeing or hearing this.
Okay.
Shameless self-promotion over.
Why does Taylor matter?
I can hear all the swiftiesout there screaming.
She Matters because she has thebestselling albums of all time, or The
(03:15):
Eras Tour broke every tour record ever.
And Sure.
When we talk about Taylor Swift,it's easy to list the obvious
reasons she's everywhere.
And why she's important (03:24):
the sold out stadiums, their record
breaking album sales, the massiveand very passionate fandom.
But when we talk about allthat stuff, we're talking about
fame and monetary success.
Of course, those things are importantbecause those are the typical ways that
we measure success in our modern society.
(03:45):
I. But I propose that Taylor mattersfor way more than just her popularity.
She wouldn't have her popularityif not for this one thing that she
does better than everyone else,and that is her storytelling.
Bringing me to my first reason that TaylorSwift matters, she's a master storyteller.
And she has, in my opinion, changedthe game of songwriting forever.
(04:10):
But to understand why Taylor's entrance onthe scene made such a big impact, we have
to understand where the music industry wasduring this era and really what it lacked.
Taylor came on the music scene at atime where music and lyrics weren't
exactly telling relatable tales.
When her first album hit the shelvesin 2006, 2007, the pop charts were
(04:31):
dominated by songs like Daniel Powder'sBad Day and Shakira's Hips Don't Lie.
You all know that one (04:37):
"I'm on tonight. You know, my hips don't lie, and
I'm starting to feel it's right."
It's a catchy song and it's relatable.
Is it going out havingfun hooking up song?
But is it emotionally resonant?
No, it's not.
And you all remember a bad day: "because you had a bad day. You're (04:52):
undefined
taking one down, you sing a sadsong just to turn it around." Should
be a really relatable song, right?
We all have bad days all the time.
But this person that the song iswritten for is having a bad day,
and we don't get to know why.
We don't get to hear thestory of how they got there.
(05:15):
It's written to be universal, but there'sno emotion behind it because we don't
get any kind of story or backstory.
These 2006 pop songs are very catchy,but they're lacking connection.
They're lacking storytelling.
Now, Taylor didn't begin on the pop scene.
She debuted as a country singer, but thecountry genre, which is usually known
(05:36):
for its storytelling, was similarly kindof bleak in the early to mid aughts.
The chart toppers that year includedsongs like Rascal Flats, my Wish, and
Carrie Underwood's, Jesus, take the Wheel.
Carrie Underwood sang, "she saw boththeir lives flash before her eyes.
She didn't even have time to cry.
She was so scared.
(05:56):
She threw her hands up in theair," and then you know the
rest, "Jesus take the wheel".
The song does tell a story.
A woman gets into a badcar wreck on an icy road.
She relinqueshes control and lets '"Jesustake the wheel." But even though we get
the full narrative of what happened,it's not relatable unless, number one,
(06:18):
you've been in a near death experience.
Or number two, you're Christian.
Not exactly universally relatable.
The other hit Country song of 2006,my Wish doesn't give us a narrative
at all (06:32):
" And if one door opens to another door closed, I hope you keep
on walking until you find the window."
The song has a relatable sentiment.
They're wishing someone well, butsince we never get to hear the story
behind it, it falls kind of flat.
Who do they wish will "have all thatYou want it to?" Why are they wishing
(06:53):
this person the best right now?
Is this person in a tough spot?
Did someone die?
Did they get divorced?
What happened?
We never get to know.
So unless you're playing it for a weddingor a graduation where the story is already
implied, it just feels kind of empty.
There's nothing wrongwith any of these songs.
Please don't get me wrong.
(07:14):
I am not bashing these artists.
But to see why Taylor matters, wehave to look at the context in which
she debuted and how she broughtsomething different to the table.
She didn't just fallout of a coconut tree.
The industry wasn't crankingout emotionally relatable
music during this time.
It was pushing sexy performers, boybands, and soulless country tracks.
(07:36):
The mainstream music industry lacked avoice for young people during this era,
and especially, especially young women
as a woman growing up in this era,well, I was in grad school at the
time, so kind of grown, kind of not.
But I can tell you firsthand thatthe pop music scene was pretty bleak.
I leaned really far into indie analternative at the time because the
(07:58):
pop scene was just really unfulfilling.
Why?
Because mainstream musicwasn't telling stories.
Humans are hardwired to createnarratives and storytelling is how
we understand ourselves and howwe understand the world around us.
Storytelling is how we connectemotionally to one another.
So used in songwriting, it'san incredibly powerful tool.
(08:22):
So when Taylor came on the scene,she filled a huge gap in the market
because she was using storytellingwhen other people weren't.
She debuted in the country genre,but quickly gained traction in
mainstream pop, and it's pretty easyto see that this is because she was
telling stories that people wantedand needed to hear in mainstream
country and pop emotionally relatable.
(08:43):
Songwriting wasn't the norm,and performers were mostly
marketed on sex appeal alone.
With Taylor, we got more substance.
I. And we glommed onto her because shewasn't just narrating her own stories,
she was telling our own stories.
Her first single Tim McGraw toldthe story of the nostalgia of First
(09:03):
Love and the pain of growing up
her second hit.
Our song narrated the thrill ofYoung love inside the relatable
everyday world of a teenager.
Um, teardrops on my guitar, toldthe story of unrequited love
and the heartbreak you feel whenyour crush doesn't like you back.
Young fans of every genre latched ontothese stories because Taylor wasn't
just singing about her own life.
(09:24):
She was kind of singing aboutall of our lives, and we didn't
have that voice elsewhere.
Today, if you take a look at thechart topping pop songs, you'll
mostly see songs that tell a story.
Artists these days have taken inspirationfrom Taylor and brought stories into
their lyrics because as we've seenwith Taylor's success, storytelling
matters and storytelling sells becauseit fulfills our human need to connect
(09:50):
and make sense of our emotions.
Reason number two, she matters.
Taylor made us part of the story.
The best stories, the ones that reallyresonate or inspire or make us feel are
ones that affect our lives in some way.
Say your best friend tells youa crazy breakup story of two
people that you kind of know.
It's interesting to hear, butit doesn't affect your life, so
(10:12):
you take note of it and move on.
But what if the same friend comes to you?
Bawling our eyes out about hergirlfriend breaking up with her in
a public super embarrassing way.
The story will immediately affect you.
You'll feel her pain andit becomes your pain.
You'll comfort her.
You'll protect her.
You'll wanna berate her ex-girlfriend.
(10:35):
The story will stay with you becauseyou know the storyteller and you
feel the emotions of this story.
Even though we don't know herpersonally, she is not our best friend.
This is the type ofstorytelling Taylor does.
She makes us feel as if we know her andlike she's writing about her own lives.
She does this in a reallyclever and unique way.
(10:57):
She makes us part of thestory, and she did it from the
very beginning of her career.
Taylor made one tiny decision in creatingher debut album that would change.
Everything.
She spelled out secretmessages in the liner notes.
She left us Easter eggsright from the start.
The secret message in picture to burnwas "Date nice boys." In teardrops
(11:22):
on my guitar, it was, "he will neverknow," and my favorite: in should've
said no, it was "Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam,Sam, Sam," spelling out the name
of the person who cheated on her.
This both added an air of mystery andmade us curious, not just about the
stories, but about the storyteller.
(11:42):
It's in our DNA to piece togethernarratives to make a cohesive story.
And that's exactly what thesecret messages allowed us to do.
Eagle eyed fans could decode thesemessages to find out what was really going
on behind her lyrics and in her life.
Who was the song really about whathappened to make her write it.
This small little mystery mayhave seemed inconsequential at
(12:04):
the time, but its impact was huge.
It made her stories transcendsongwriting, and they came alive in
the real world in those CD booklets.
Suddenly, Taylor wasn't just tellingstories about people we don't know.
She was telling us stories aboutherself and her private life, and
made us feel like we really knew her.
(12:26):
This made her fandom an interactive game.
It wasn't just, here's my music.
I hope you like it.
It was, here's my musicand I left you a puzzle.
If you figure it out, you'll get to knowmore about me and more about these songs.
It made us feel like we knew herand therefore made her lyrical
stories resonate in our own lives.
(12:47):
Then enter the world of socialmedia, and we had more access to our
favorite artists than ever before,which made them feel, again, more
like our friends than our idols.
This was especially truefor Taylor and her fan base.
We felt like we really knewher because she wrote about
what she was going through.
We felt that connection.
(13:07):
I. She became a part of our livespretty much instantly, and her
stories affected us as if theywere told by our best friend.
What started in secret messages has growninto the world's biggest Easter egg hunt.
Today.
Taylor has one of the largest andmost dedicated, some might say,
crazed fan bases in the world, andher clues have become much more
(13:28):
cryptic, but the result is the same.
It connects us to these stories.
Taylor tells us stories we wannahear and tells them in a way
that makes her stories our own.
Her art doesn't just live on arecord or inside a streaming app.
It lives inside our lives.
And that's because we havebecome part of the story.
(13:50):
My very favorite example of this isYou're on your own kid, which began
with this simple lyric (13:54):
"Make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and
taste it." It's such a relatable line.
We should savor these momentswhile we're living in them.
But then all of a sudden, thefriendship bracelets jumped out
of the lyrics and came alive.
We were all making friendshipbracelets together, trading them,
posting them, collecting them.
(14:14):
The lyrics, transcended themusic and became a part of our
story, a part of our lives.
And in wearing and trading thosefriendship bracelets, we were reminded
over and over again, "Take the momentand taste it." Remember this time in your
life because you'll never get it back.
It's a physical manifestationof Taylor's lyrical stories.
(14:36):
She has allowed us not only tosee ourselves in her stories,
but to become part of her story.
She is a part of our lives in a waythat no other artist has ever been.
And from here on out, I canguarantee every pop artist will
try to recreate the Swiftie effect.
I don't know whether they will achieveit or not, but if they can make their
stories, our own stories, they just might.
(14:57):
Reason number three, she's not justa songwriter, she's a writer, writer.
This reason is my favorite, and it'snot just because I'm a writer myself.
This is what we're gonna cover forthe majority of Taylor Swift 1 0 1.
But first I wanna play a little game.
I'm gonna give you three quotesand I want you to tell me
which one was written by Ms.
Taylor.
Allison Swift,
(15:18):
number one.
"And so being young and dipped infolly, I fell in love with melancholy"
number two.
"A dreamer, I walked enchantedand nothing held me back."
And number three, "I tapped on yourwindow, on your darkest night, the
shape of you was jagged and weak."now hardcore Swifties will already
(15:38):
know this, but just look at it on thesurface, it's pretty hard to tell, right?
They all sound literary.
They all sound a bit Victorian and theyall have great imagery and metaphors.
So which one is it?
If you pick number three, you are correct.
Those are the opening lines ofRenegade by Big Red Machine, written
by Taylor Swift and Aaron Desser.
(16:00):
The first two quotes are by theother great writers, Edgar Allan
Poe and Daphne de Maurier, butit's pretty convincing, right?
The fact that Taylor's lyricscan sit alongside Poe and Du
Maurier and hold their own.
That isn't just a coincidence.
In fact, it's because she's not justwriting songs, she's writing literature.
(16:22):
She's writing poetry.
She's writing stories.
She may be a singer and a performer, butshe's a writer first and foremost, and
if it weren't for her writing, she wouldabsolutely not be where she is today.
Her lyrics use the same techniques thatyou'd find in novels and poetry, literary
devices like imagery, metaphor, symbolism,point of view, even narrative structure.
(16:46):
In fact, one of the reasonsher music connects so deeply is
because it reads like a storyor a poem or a three act play.
Just told over a beat with a melody.
Her albums, much like novels andplays, come with a prologue, and the
tortured poets department even has twoprologue poems and an epilogue poem.
(17:07):
She is a writer.
Now, she's absolutely not the first artistto write lyrics that read like literature.
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, PattySmith, all very literary songwriters.
But in my opinion, Taylor is the firstartist to really bring this type of
songwriting into mainstream pop music.
(17:27):
She's worthy of this huge amount of studyand dissection because she really is doing
it differently than her predecessors.
She's put the writing and thelyrics first and the rest last.
Now in the rest of the videos in thisseries, we're gonna break down each of
the literary techniques that Taylor usesincluding narrative structure, imagery,
metaphor, symbolism, point of view,character development, motifs, and themes.
(17:52):
But when you stack all of theseelements together, what you
get isn't just a catchy song.
You get incredible writingthat can stand on its own.
Taylor songs aren't justlittle pop ditties that float
in and out of the zeitgeist.
Her writing, just like the work of Poeand Du Maurier lasts and it lasts because
(18:13):
her focus has always been on her writing,on her words, on her stories, and that's
also why we feel so seen in her lyrics.
That's why her songs last she maturesbecause she flipped the focus of pop
music from writing catchy beats to writingrelatable lyrics and relatable stories.
Reason number four is her evolution.
(18:36):
Is this girl the same as this girl?
And is this girl the same as this girl?
For those of you listening to the audioonly version, I just showed photos
of Kid Taylor and Grownup Taylor, andphotos of Young me versus grownup me.
Are we the same person when we growup that we were when we were little?
(18:57):
Kind of, but kind of not.
And one of the biggest reasons TaylorSwift matters and keeps on mattering is
because she evolves, and I don't just meanswitching from country to indie folk to
whatever genre she's feeling next week.
I mean real meaningful growth as awriter and as a human and as an artist.
(19:21):
Yes, her chameleon marketing tacticsare brilliant, and they'll be studied
in business schools for decades.
But for fans, her evolutionhits on a much deeper level.
Remember, in reason number two, Isaid she made her stories our own.
This is the same thing.
Her growth is our own.
(19:41):
Her growth is our growth,and her change is our change.
We didn't just stick around because shekept reinventing her sound or reinventing
her looks or her songwriting style.
We stuck around because she kept growingand we grew right along with her.
We watched her make mistakes andtry new things, but this evolution
matters for a few big reasons.
(20:02):
First, it reflects real life.
We are evolving too, all the time.
Watching Taylor grow in maturity,in confidence in her talent.
This makes her music feel like a mirror.
It keeps her storytellingdeeply relatable.
At every stage of our lives, no matterwhere you're at, there is an album and a
(20:24):
series of songs that narrate exactly whatyou're going through in Taylor's catalog.
But second, her evolution keepsthings interesting with every step.
She surprises us just when wethink we know what's coming next.
She pops up and gives us folkloreor reputation or midnights.
She's always moving forward, buther relatability and the emotions
(20:47):
that she writes about will always bethere to meet us wherever we're at.
The core of her storytellingalways remains the same.
And we can't wait to seewhat stories she tells next.
And finally, her constant shapeshifting opens the door for
more and more of us to connect.
Each shift in sound or style or themebrings new listeners into the fold
(21:09):
from country loving teens who arelistening to debut or indie vibe.
Millennials with folklore on repeator literary-minded grownups dissecting
the tortured poets department.
Taylor's fan base is so massive becauseher constant evolution makes space for all
of us and welcomes more and more of us.
(21:30):
With each shift, there reallyis something for everyone, which
is incredibly, incredibly rareto come from just one artist.
But her evolutions in her erasaren't just surface level either.
Each new era reflects this likedeepening of her craft of this
new layer in her storytelling.
(21:50):
And just like in your life, aseries of events have occurred that
landed you where you are today.
With Taylor's work, we can see theexact steps that she's taken to
get where she is and the lessonsthat she learned along the way.
So whether you first met her in highschool with fearless or connected later
through her reflections on grief andidentity, it's the journey, the entire
(22:14):
journey that gives us permission to dothe same, to change, and to grow and
to become new versions of ourselves.
We can look to the past to learn,but we don't need to live there.
And Taylor's evolution as an artist andall of the art that she's made along the
way becomes this sort of shared timeline.
(22:35):
It's a way of marking the chapters in herown lives, through hers and her music.
Finally, reason numberfive, Taylor Swift matters.
She is a damn cultural force.
Let's do a quick recap of all ofthe reasons I've covered so far.
She is a storytelling savant.
She's made us her audience, part of herstories, she's put the writing back into
(22:57):
songwriting and she's constantly evolving.
And the final reason is sort of thesum of all of these, and that equals.
She's a cultural force.
She matters because she has a hugeimpact, not only on the economy, but
on our entire culture as a whole.
She's not only writing hit songs, sheis rewriting what it means to be an
(23:19):
artist, what it means to be a woman,what it means to be in the public
eye, and rewriting what it means tobe a storyteller in the 21st century.
I'd argue that the impact of her artisn't only limited to the music industry.
It isn't even just about pop music.
It's about power and presence.
And what happens when one artistreally taps into the emotional
(23:39):
pulse of an entire generation?
Her influence goes so farbeyond music, beyond, uh, charts
and tick sales and fashion.
She's changed how wethink about vulnerability.
Change how we think aboutcommunity and ownership and
female identity and empowerment.
So let's break down this reason a littlebit more into some sub-reasons here.
(24:04):
What I think are four key waysthat Taylor Swift's cultural
impact goes so far beyond music.
Number one, she's madevulnerability powerful again.
From the moment she first stepped on thescene, she was incredibly, incredibly
vulnerable and should have said no.
She told us a story about a boywho cheated on her, and then she
hid his name in the liner notes,which is number one iconic.
(24:29):
But number two is she brought this newemotional aspect into music that didn't
really exist in pop culture at the time.
She put raw feelings back out there.
And I'd argue that in thedecades since she's encouraged
other artists to do the same.
The content of songwriting these daysis much, much more emotionally honest
and candid than it has ever been.
(24:51):
And I think a lot of that is dueto Taylor making this blueprint for
artists to share vulnerability andbeing successful, sharing vulnerability.
And second, she's built acommunity, not just a fan base.
She has achieved this level ofcommunity building and music that I
can only compare to one other artist.
And that is the Grateful Dead Swiftiesare what Deadheads used to be.
(25:16):
And I say that as a woman whohas a dancing bear tattoo.
But she did this without the advantageof the free love hippie movement.
She did it in an age of social mediawhere we have less and less togetherness
and community than we ever have before.
She started telling stories.
She made those stories universal butpersonal and invited her fans to connect
(25:40):
not only with her, but with one another.
She's built an entire universe.
That invites us to participate andactively fosters this community,
not only with her songs, butwith every aspect of her career.
We aren't just listening to music.
We're decoding and theorizingand building friendships.
(26:02):
Swifties don't just belong to a fandom.
We belong to each other.
And Taylor is the reasonthat we have found community,
and that's a powerful thing.
And third, she's redefiningthe music industry.
She has reshaped the rules of the game.
They will never be the same again.
She fought for artist rights withApple way back in her reputation era.
(26:24):
Then she made massive headlines,rerecording her stolen albums, then ended
up buying back all of her music, whichby the way, isn't the norm in the music
industry at all to even own your own art.
She challenged traditional albumrollouts, flipping between surprise
drops and elaborate clue filledcampaigns that go on for months,
(26:45):
both of them equally successful.
She's made albums with 19, 20, even30 songs that still top the charts.
And in changing on the rules, shehas shown that mystery and meaning
and storytelling matter just as muchas the music and maybe even more so.
And finally, she haserased the expiration date.
For women, for decades, women and pop wereexpected to burn bright and then burn out.
(27:10):
They'd have a good three or four albumsthen be shuffled off the stage and
replaced by someone younger and hotter.
But Taylor totally flipped that script.
She is thriving in her thirties.
She's still reinventing herself.
She's still topping the charts,and in doing so, she's proving that
talent doesn't come with a time limit.
(27:32):
And that evolution isn'tthe end of a career.
It is the career.
She's been telling us thestory of her life all along.
And we still wanna hear more.
The story doesn't just endwhen you hit 35 or 40 or 45.
You don't have to fade out into obscurity.
You're just like a middle agedmom doesn't have to start wearing
(27:53):
mom jeans and chop off her hairbecause she has some crow's feet.
I have a feeling, andI hope that I'm right.
The Taylor's career will now set the tonefor how we treat women as they age, not as
an afterthought, but as smarter worldlier,and more powerful versions of ourselves,
(28:14):
because that's exactly what we are.
We don't grow old, we grow up.
I hope you found this contentinsightful, and if you did, you're
gonna love what's coming next.
We'll be diving even deeper intoTaylor's writing techniques and.
What makes her one of thegreatest storytellers of our time.
So if you haven't already, pleasehit subscribe so you don't miss the
(28:36):
next chapter of swiftly sung stories.
And just a reminder, I have allof this content on my website,
swiftly sung stories.com,that's linked in the show notes.
But before I go, I wanna hear from you.
Why does Taylor Swift matter to you?
When did you find her?
How have you connected with her musicand how have you grown alongside her?
That is the most important part of all ofthis is what she means to you, not what
(29:00):
she means to me, not what she means toall the swifties, what she means to you.
Drop it in the comments.
I would love to hear from you.
It's 2006 and Taylor Swift is prettymuch a nobody in the cultural zeitgeist.
Her first album wouldn't dropuntil October of that year.
Her songs aren't on the radio yet.
Her record isn't on the shelves yet,and Taylor Swift only really matters
to Taylor Swift and her family andfriends and big machine records.
(00:20):
She said on her MySpace page, if youstart a conversation about Law and
order, SVU or CSI, with me, we willbe talking for at least an hour.
I consider myself an expert on thosetwo things, only those two things
she didn't consider herself to be anexpert on anything but Olivia Benson,
and at that point she definitely didn'tconsider herself an expert songwriter.
(00:43):
But here we are now, almost 20years later, and we are studying
her songwriting like it is a sacredtext descendant from the heavens.
So how did we get here?
You and me and millions ofother fans have become united by
one thing, Taylor songwriting.
She isn't just a superstar inthe songwriting world either.
(01:04):
She's one of the definingfigures of our entire generation.
So how did she get hereand how did we get here?
Why is Taylor Swift one of themost important and influential
artists of our generation?
And why does she really matter?
Why are we studying Taylor songwritingand not Pinks or Christina Aguilera
(01:26):
or Kelly Clarksons or even Beyonce's?
I am Jen.
I'm a writer and a former Englishteacher, and I have been writing about
and dissecting Taylor Swift's workon my website, swiftly s stories.com.
I've had so many readers reach out andask me to start a YouTube channel, and
though I'm terrified of public speaking.
I know, I know I was a teacher, butmiddle school students are a lot easier
(01:49):
to talk to than strangers on the internet.
But I've decided to divein headfirst fearless.
But with this topic as massive as TaylorSwift's career, where do we even start?
I wanna start with the why.
Why is Taylor's work important?
Why is it so impactful, and why is itworthy of a million and a half deep dives?
(02:09):
So in my very first video inTaylor Swift 1 0 1, we're gonna
answer this question together.
Why does Taylor Swift matter?
So let's dive in.
Welcome to swiftly sung Stories wherewe unpack the Taylor Swift Universe
one era album and lyric at a time.
Think of it like English class,but it's all Taylor Swift
(02:30):
and none of the boring stuff.
I'm Jen, your Swiftie English teacherand class is in session, so come
on in and meet me in the margins.
Just a quick note before we get started.
All of my lessons in the Taylor Swift1 0 1 series are available in text
version on my website, linked in theshow notes where you can also find my
lyrical analysis of over 250 songs,lyric quizzes, close readings of all
(02:51):
of Taylor's prologues and so much more.
So go and check that out.
If you really just wanna geekout about Taylor Swift with me,
please like and subscribe whereveryou're seeing or hearing this.
Okay.
Shameless self-promotion over.
Why does Taylor matter?
I can hear all the swiftiesout there screaming.
She Matters because she has thebestselling albums of all time, or The
(03:15):
Eras Tour broke every tour record ever.
And Sure.
When we talk about Taylor Swift,it's easy to list the obvious
reasons she's everywhere.
And why she's important (03:24):
the sold out stadiums, their record
breaking album sales, the massiveand very passionate fandom.
But when we talk about allthat stuff, we're talking about
fame and monetary success.
Of course, those things are importantbecause those are the typical ways that
we measure success in our modern society.
(03:45):
I. But I propose that Taylor mattersfor way more than just her popularity.
She wouldn't have her popularityif not for this one thing that she
does better than everyone else,and that is her storytelling.
Bringing me to my first reason that TaylorSwift matters, she's a master storyteller.
And she has, in my opinion, changedthe game of songwriting forever.
(04:10):
But to understand why Taylor's entrance onthe scene made such a big impact, we have
to understand where the music industry wasduring this era and really what it lacked.
Taylor came on the music scene at atime where music and lyrics weren't
exactly telling relatable tales.
When her first album hit the shelvesin 2006, 2007, the pop charts were
(04:31):
dominated by songs like Daniel Powder'sBad Day and Shakira's Hips Don't Lie.
You all know that one (04:37):
"I'm on tonight. You know, my hips don't lie, and
I'm starting to feel it's right."
It's a catchy song and it's relatable.
Is it going out havingfun hooking up song?
But is it emotionally resonant?
No, it's not.
And you all remember a bad day: "because you had a bad day. You're (04:52):
undefined
taking one down, you sing a sadsong just to turn it around." Should
be a really relatable song, right?
We all have bad days all the time.
But this person that the song iswritten for is having a bad day,
and we don't get to know why.
We don't get to hear thestory of how they got there.
(05:15):
It's written to be universal, but there'sno emotion behind it because we don't
get any kind of story or backstory.
These 2006 pop songs are very catchy,but they're lacking connection.
They're lacking storytelling.
Now, Taylor didn't begin on the pop scene.
She debuted as a country singer, but thecountry genre, which is usually known
(05:36):
for its storytelling, was similarly kindof bleak in the early to mid aughts.
The chart toppers that year includedsongs like Rascal Flats, my Wish, and
Carrie Underwood's, Jesus, take the Wheel.
Carrie Underwood sang, "she saw boththeir lives flash before her eyes.
She didn't even have time to cry.
She was so scared.
(05:56):
She threw her hands up in theair," and then you know the
rest, "Jesus take the wheel".
The song does tell a story.
A woman gets into a badcar wreck on an icy road.
She relinqueshes control and lets '"Jesustake the wheel." But even though we get
the full narrative of what happened,it's not relatable unless, number one,
(06:18):
you've been in a near death experience.
Or number two, you're Christian.
Not exactly universally relatable.
The other hit Country song of 2006,my Wish doesn't give us a narrative
at all (06:32):
" And if one door opens to another door closed, I hope you keep
on walking until you find the window."
The song has a relatable sentiment.
They're wishing someone well, butsince we never get to hear the story
behind it, it falls kind of flat.
Who do they wish will "have all thatYou want it to?" Why are they wishing
(06:53):
this person the best right now?
Is this person in a tough spot?
Did someone die?
Did they get divorced?
What happened?
We never get to know.
So unless you're playing it for a weddingor a graduation where the story is already
implied, it just feels kind of empty.
There's nothing wrongwith any of these songs.
Please don't get me wrong.
(07:14):
I am not bashing these artists.
But to see why Taylor matters, wehave to look at the context in which
she debuted and how she broughtsomething different to the table.
She didn't just fallout of a coconut tree.
The industry wasn't crankingout emotionally relatable
music during this time.
It was pushing sexy performers, boybands, and soulless country tracks.
(07:36):
The mainstream music industry lacked avoice for young people during this era,
and especially, especially young women
as a woman growing up in this era,well, I was in grad school at the
time, so kind of grown, kind of not.
But I can tell you firsthand thatthe pop music scene was pretty bleak.
I leaned really far into indie analternative at the time because the
(07:58):
pop scene was just really unfulfilling.
Why?
Because mainstream musicwasn't telling stories.
Humans are hardwired to createnarratives and storytelling is how
we understand ourselves and howwe understand the world around us.
Storytelling is how we connectemotionally to one another.
So used in songwriting, it'san incredibly powerful tool.
(08:22):
So when Taylor came on the scene,she filled a huge gap in the market
because she was using storytellingwhen other people weren't.
She debuted in the country genre,but quickly gained traction in
mainstream pop, and it's pretty easyto see that this is because she was
telling stories that people wantedand needed to hear in mainstream
country and pop emotionally relatable.
(08:43):
Songwriting wasn't the norm,and performers were mostly
marketed on sex appeal alone.
With Taylor, we got more substance.
I. And we glommed onto her because shewasn't just narrating her own stories,
she was telling our own stories.
Her first single Tim McGraw toldthe story of the nostalgia of First
(09:03):
Love and the pain of growing up
her second hit.
Our song narrated the thrill ofYoung love inside the relatable
everyday world of a teenager.
Um, teardrops on my guitar, toldthe story of unrequited love
and the heartbreak you feel whenyour crush doesn't like you back.
Young fans of every genre latched ontothese stories because Taylor wasn't
just singing about her own life.
(09:24):
She was kind of singing aboutall of our lives, and we didn't
have that voice elsewhere.
Today, if you take a look at thechart topping pop songs, you'll
mostly see songs that tell a story.
Artists these days have taken inspirationfrom Taylor and brought stories into
their lyrics because as we've seenwith Taylor's success, storytelling
matters and storytelling sells becauseit fulfills our human need to connect
(09:50):
and make sense of our emotions.
Reason number two, she matters.
Taylor made us part of the story.
The best stories, the ones that reallyresonate or inspire or make us feel are
ones that affect our lives in some way.
Say your best friend tells youa crazy breakup story of two
people that you kind of know.
It's interesting to hear, butit doesn't affect your life, so
(10:12):
you take note of it and move on.
But what if the same friend comes to you?
Bawling our eyes out about hergirlfriend breaking up with her in
a public super embarrassing way.
The story will immediately affect you.
You'll feel her pain andit becomes your pain.
You'll comfort her.
You'll protect her.
You'll wanna berate her ex-girlfriend.
(10:35):
The story will stay with you becauseyou know the storyteller and you
feel the emotions of this story.
Even though we don't know herpersonally, she is not our best friend.
This is the type ofstorytelling Taylor does.
She makes us feel as if we know her andlike she's writing about her own lives.
She does this in a reallyclever and unique way.
(10:57):
She makes us part of thestory, and she did it from the
very beginning of her career.
Taylor made one tiny decision in creatingher debut album that would change.
Everything.
She spelled out secretmessages in the liner notes.
She left us Easter eggsright from the start.
The secret message in picture to burnwas "Date nice boys." In teardrops
(11:22):
on my guitar, it was, "he will neverknow," and my favorite: in should've
said no, it was "Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam,Sam, Sam," spelling out the name
of the person who cheated on her.
This both added an air of mystery andmade us curious, not just about the
stories, but about the storyteller.
(11:42):
It's in our DNA to piece togethernarratives to make a cohesive story.
And that's exactly what thesecret messages allowed us to do.
Eagle eyed fans could decode thesemessages to find out what was really going
on behind her lyrics and in her life.
Who was the song really about whathappened to make her write it.
This small little mystery mayhave seemed inconsequential at
(12:04):
the time, but its impact was huge.
It made her stories transcendsongwriting, and they came alive in
the real world in those CD booklets.
Suddenly, Taylor wasn't just tellingstories about people we don't know.
She was telling us stories aboutherself and her private life, and
made us feel like we really knew her.
(12:26):
This made her fandom an interactive game.
It wasn't just, here's my music.
I hope you like it.
It was, here's my musicand I left you a puzzle.
If you figure it out, you'll get to knowmore about me and more about these songs.
It made us feel like we knew herand therefore made her lyrical
stories resonate in our own lives.
(12:47):
Then enter the world of socialmedia, and we had more access to our
favorite artists than ever before,which made them feel, again, more
like our friends than our idols.
This was especially truefor Taylor and her fan base.
We felt like we really knewher because she wrote about
what she was going through.
We felt that connection.
(13:07):
I. She became a part of our livespretty much instantly, and her
stories affected us as if theywere told by our best friend.
What started in secret messages has growninto the world's biggest Easter egg hunt.
Today.
Taylor has one of the largest andmost dedicated, some might say,
crazed fan bases in the world, andher clues have become much more
(13:28):
cryptic, but the result is the same.
It connects us to these stories.
Taylor tells us stories we wannahear and tells them in a way
that makes her stories our own.
Her art doesn't just live on arecord or inside a streaming app.
It lives inside our lives.
And that's because we havebecome part of the story.
(13:50):
My very favorite example of this isYou're on your own kid, which began
with this simple lyric (13:54):
"Make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and
taste it." It's such a relatable line.
We should savor these momentswhile we're living in them.
But then all of a sudden, thefriendship bracelets jumped out
of the lyrics and came alive.
We were all making friendshipbracelets together, trading them,
posting them, collecting them.
(14:14):
The lyrics, transcended themusic and became a part of our
story, a part of our lives.
And in wearing and trading thosefriendship bracelets, we were reminded
over and over again, "Take the momentand taste it." Remember this time in your
life because you'll never get it back.
It's a physical manifestationof Taylor's lyrical stories.
(14:36):
She has allowed us not only tosee ourselves in her stories,
but to become part of her story.
She is a part of our lives in a waythat no other artist has ever been.
And from here on out, I canguarantee every pop artist will
try to recreate the Swiftie effect.
I don't know whether they will achieveit or not, but if they can make their
stories, our own stories, they just might.
(14:57):
Reason number three, she's not justa songwriter, she's a writer, writer.
This reason is my favorite, and it'snot just because I'm a writer myself.
This is what we're gonna cover forthe majority of Taylor Swift 1 0 1.
But first I wanna play a little game.
I'm gonna give you three quotesand I want you to tell me
which one was written by Ms.
Taylor.
Allison Swift,
(15:18):
number one.
"And so being young and dipped infolly, I fell in love with melancholy"
number two.
"A dreamer, I walked enchantedand nothing held me back."
And number three, "I tapped on yourwindow, on your darkest night, the
shape of you was jagged and weak."now hardcore Swifties will already
(15:38):
know this, but just look at it on thesurface, it's pretty hard to tell, right?
They all sound literary.
They all sound a bit Victorian and theyall have great imagery and metaphors.
So which one is it?
If you pick number three, you are correct.
Those are the opening lines ofRenegade by Big Red Machine, written
by Taylor Swift and Aaron Desser.
(16:00):
The first two quotes are by theother great writers, Edgar Allan
Poe and Daphne de Maurier, butit's pretty convincing, right?
The fact that Taylor's lyricscan sit alongside Poe and Du
Maurier and hold their own.
That isn't just a coincidence.
In fact, it's because she's not justwriting songs, she's writing literature.
(16:22):
She's writing poetry.
She's writing stories.
She may be a singer and a performer, butshe's a writer first and foremost, and
if it weren't for her writing, she wouldabsolutely not be where she is today.
Her lyrics use the same techniques thatyou'd find in novels and poetry, literary
devices like imagery, metaphor, symbolism,point of view, even narrative structure.
(16:46):
In fact, one of the reasonsher music connects so deeply is
because it reads like a storyor a poem or a three act play.
Just told over a beat with a melody.
Her albums, much like novels andplays, come with a prologue, and the
tortured poets department even has twoprologue poems and an epilogue poem.
(17:07):
She is a writer.
Now, she's absolutely not the first artistto write lyrics that read like literature.
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, PattySmith, all very literary songwriters.
But in my opinion, Taylor is the firstartist to really bring this type of
songwriting into mainstream pop music.
(17:27):
She's worthy of this huge amount of studyand dissection because she really is doing
it differently than her predecessors.
She's put the writing and thelyrics first and the rest last.
Now in the rest of the videos in thisseries, we're gonna break down each of
the literary techniques that Taylor usesincluding narrative structure, imagery,
metaphor, symbolism, point of view,character development, motifs, and themes.
(17:52):
But when you stack all of theseelements together, what you
get isn't just a catchy song.
You get incredible writingthat can stand on its own.
Taylor songs aren't justlittle pop ditties that float
in and out of the zeitgeist.
Her writing, just like the work of Poeand Du Maurier lasts and it lasts because
(18:13):
her focus has always been on her writing,on her words, on her stories, and that's
also why we feel so seen in her lyrics.
That's why her songs last she maturesbecause she flipped the focus of pop
music from writing catchy beats to writingrelatable lyrics and relatable stories.
Reason number four is her evolution.
(18:36):
Is this girl the same as this girl?
And is this girl the same as this girl?
For those of you listening to the audioonly version, I just showed photos
of Kid Taylor and Grownup Taylor, andphotos of Young me versus grownup me.
Are we the same person when we growup that we were when we were little?
(18:57):
Kind of, but kind of not.
And one of the biggest reasons TaylorSwift matters and keeps on mattering is
because she evolves, and I don't just meanswitching from country to indie folk to
whatever genre she's feeling next week.
I mean real meaningful growth as awriter and as a human and as an artist.
(19:21):
Yes, her chameleon marketing tacticsare brilliant, and they'll be studied
in business schools for decades.
But for fans, her evolutionhits on a much deeper level.
Remember, in reason number two, Isaid she made her stories our own.
This is the same thing.
Her growth is our own.
(19:41):
Her growth is our growth,and her change is our change.
We didn't just stick around because shekept reinventing her sound or reinventing
her looks or her songwriting style.
We stuck around because she kept growingand we grew right along with her.
We watched her make mistakes andtry new things, but this evolution
matters for a few big reasons.
(20:02):
First, it reflects real life.
We are evolving too, all the time.
Watching Taylor grow in maturity,in confidence in her talent.
This makes her music feel like a mirror.
It keeps her storytellingdeeply relatable.
At every stage of our lives, no matterwhere you're at, there is an album and a
(20:24):
series of songs that narrate exactly whatyou're going through in Taylor's catalog.
But second, her evolution keepsthings interesting with every step.
She surprises us just when wethink we know what's coming next.
She pops up and gives us folkloreor reputation or midnights.
She's always moving forward, buther relatability and the emotions
(20:47):
that she writes about will always bethere to meet us wherever we're at.
The core of her storytellingalways remains the same.
And we can't wait to seewhat stories she tells next.
And finally, her constant shapeshifting opens the door for
more and more of us to connect.
Each shift in sound or style or themebrings new listeners into the fold
(21:09):
from country loving teens who arelistening to debut or indie vibe.
Millennials with folklore on repeator literary-minded grownups dissecting
the tortured poets department.
Taylor's fan base is so massive becauseher constant evolution makes space for all
of us and welcomes more and more of us.
(21:30):
With each shift, there reallyis something for everyone, which
is incredibly, incredibly rareto come from just one artist.
But her evolutions in her erasaren't just surface level either.
Each new era reflects this likedeepening of her craft of this
new layer in her storytelling.
(21:50):
And just like in your life, aseries of events have occurred that
landed you where you are today.
With Taylor's work, we can see theexact steps that she's taken to
get where she is and the lessonsthat she learned along the way.
So whether you first met her in highschool with fearless or connected later
through her reflections on grief andidentity, it's the journey, the entire
(22:14):
journey that gives us permission to dothe same, to change, and to grow and
to become new versions of ourselves.
We can look to the past to learn,but we don't need to live there.
And Taylor's evolution as an artist andall of the art that she's made along the
way becomes this sort of shared timeline.
(22:35):
It's a way of marking the chapters in herown lives, through hers and her music.
Finally, reason numberfive, Taylor Swift matters.
She is a damn cultural force.
Let's do a quick recap of all ofthe reasons I've covered so far.
She is a storytelling savant.
She's made us her audience, part of herstories, she's put the writing back into
(22:57):
songwriting and she's constantly evolving.
And the final reason is sort of thesum of all of these, and that equals.
She's a cultural force.
She matters because she has a hugeimpact, not only on the economy, but
on our entire culture as a whole.
She's not only writing hit songs, sheis rewriting what it means to be an
(23:19):
artist, what it means to be a woman,what it means to be in the public
eye, and rewriting what it means tobe a storyteller in the 21st century.
I'd argue that the impact of her artisn't only limited to the music industry.
It isn't even just about pop music.
It's about power and presence.
And what happens when one artistreally taps into the emotional
(23:39):
pulse of an entire generation?
Her influence goes so farbeyond music, beyond, uh, charts
and tick sales and fashion.
She's changed how wethink about vulnerability.
Change how we think aboutcommunity and ownership and
female identity and empowerment.
So let's break down this reason a littlebit more into some sub-reasons here.
(24:04):
What I think are four key waysthat Taylor Swift's cultural
impact goes so far beyond music.
Number one, she's madevulnerability powerful again.
From the moment she first stepped on thescene, she was incredibly, incredibly
vulnerable and should have said no.
She told us a story about a boywho cheated on her, and then she
hid his name in the liner notes,which is number one iconic.
(24:29):
But number two is she brought this newemotional aspect into music that didn't
really exist in pop culture at the time.
She put raw feelings back out there.
And I'd argue that in thedecades since she's encouraged
other artists to do the same.
The content of songwriting these daysis much, much more emotionally honest
and candid than it has ever been.
(24:51):
And I think a lot of that is dueto Taylor making this blueprint for
artists to share vulnerability andbeing successful, sharing vulnerability.
And second, she's built acommunity, not just a fan base.
She has achieved this level ofcommunity building and music that I
can only compare to one other artist.
And that is the Grateful Dead Swiftiesare what Deadheads used to be.
(25:16):
And I say that as a woman whohas a dancing bear tattoo.
But she did this without the advantageof the free love hippie movement.
She did it in an age of social mediawhere we have less and less togetherness
and community than we ever have before.
She started telling stories.
She made those stories universal butpersonal and invited her fans to connect
(25:40):
not only with her, but with one another.
She's built an entire universe.
That invites us to participate andactively fosters this community,
not only with her songs, butwith every aspect of her career.
We aren't just listening to music.
We're decoding and theorizingand building friendships.
(26:02):
Swifties don't just belong to a fandom.
We belong to each other.
And Taylor is the reasonthat we have found community,
and that's a powerful thing.
And third, she's redefiningthe music industry.
She has reshaped the rules of the game.
They will never be the same again.
She fought for artist rights withApple way back in her reputation era.
(26:24):
Then she made massive headlines,rerecording her stolen albums, then ended
up buying back all of her music, whichby the way, isn't the norm in the music
industry at all to even own your own art.
She challenged traditional albumrollouts, flipping between surprise
drops and elaborate clue filledcampaigns that go on for months,
(26:45):
both of them equally successful.
She's made albums with 19, 20, even30 songs that still top the charts.
And in changing on the rules, shehas shown that mystery and meaning
and storytelling matter just as muchas the music and maybe even more so.
And finally, she haserased the expiration date.
For women, for decades, women and pop wereexpected to burn bright and then burn out.
(27:10):
They'd have a good three or four albumsthen be shuffled off the stage and
replaced by someone younger and hotter.
But Taylor totally flipped that script.
She is thriving in her thirties.
She's still reinventing herself.
She's still topping the charts,and in doing so, she's proving that
talent doesn't come with a time limit.
(27:32):
And that evolution isn'tthe end of a career.
It is the career.
She's been telling us thestory of her life all along.
And we still wanna hear more.
The story doesn't just endwhen you hit 35 or 40 or 45.
You don't have to fade out into obscurity.
You're just like a middle agedmom doesn't have to start wearing
(27:53):
mom jeans and chop off her hairbecause she has some crow's feet.
I have a feeling, andI hope that I'm right.
The Taylor's career will now set the tonefor how we treat women as they age, not as
an afterthought, but as smarter worldlier,and more powerful versions of ourselves,
(28:14):
because that's exactly what we are.
We don't grow old, we grow up.
I hope you found this contentinsightful, and if you did, you're
gonna love what's coming next.
We'll be diving even deeper intoTaylor's writing techniques and.
What makes her one of thegreatest storytellers of our time.
So if you haven't already, pleasehit subscribe so you don't miss the
(28:36):
next chapter of swiftly sung stories.
And just a reminder, I have allof this content on my website,
swiftly sung stories.com,that's linked in the show notes.
But before I go, I wanna hear from you.
Why does Taylor Swift matter to you?
When did you find her?
How have you connected with her musicand how have you grown alongside her?
That is the most important part of all ofthis is what she means to you, not what
(29:00):
she means to me, not what she means toall the swifties, what she means to you.
Drop it in the comments.
I would love to hear from you.
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.