My wife runs an annual talent show at the high school where she teaches and watching it every year is a very stirring experience. It’s wonderful to sit in an auditorium full of 500 screaming kids going absolutely nuts over something my lady put together.
I’m also impressed by the talent onstage, especially the dancers, who perform acrobatic moves and come up with some very clever choreography. The music is mostly hip hop and the crowd knows every song, erupting each time a new beat kicks in. During the most popular songs, the whole room moves like a living thing as hundreds of bodies bounce up and down in unison.
The other thing that strikes me at these shows is how little race seems to matter to today’s kids. Interracial couples are not just accepted; they seem to be the norm. These kids share a culture and couldn’t care less that they don’t share the same color skin.
Still, I found myself cringing in advance when a heavy-set strawberry blond girl walked on stage to sing Taylor Swift’s ‘Fifteen.’ Sure, this crowd seemed more or less color blind, but how would they react to a country pop song sandwiched in between rap acts?
Beautifully, that’s how. And by singing along to the chorus.
That says a lot about those kids, and a lot about Taylor Swift’s song, which captures the innocence and uncertainty of adolescence. It’s funny that she sings so wisely about that long ago time when she herself just turned 20 yesterday. Of course the difference between 15 and 20 is a lifetime, one of many you have to pass through as a kid.
It’s the morning of your very first day
You say hi to your friends you ain’t seen in a while
Try and stay out of everybody’s way
It’s your freshman year and you’re gonna be here
For the next four years in this town
Hoping one of those senior boys will wink at you and say
You know I haven’t seen you around, before
(Chorus)
‘Cause when you’re fifteen and
Somebody tells you they love you
You’re gonna believe them
And when you’re fifteen feeling like
There’s nothing to figure out
But count to ten, take it in
This is life before you know
Who you’re gonna be
Fifteen
You sit in a class next to a redheaded Abigail
And soon enough you’re best friends
Laughing at the others girls
Who think they’re so cool
We’ll be out of here as soon as we can
And then you’re on you’re very first date
And he’s got a car and you’re feeling like flying
And your mamma’s waiting up and you’re thinking he’s the one
And you’re dancing ’round your room when the night ends
When the night ends
(Chorus)
‘Cause when you’re fifteen and
Somebody tells you they love you
You’re gonna believe them
When you’re fifteen and your first kiss
Makes you head spin ’round but
In your life you’ll do things greater
Than dating the boy on the football team
But I didn’t know it at fifteen
When all you wanted
Was to be wanted
Wish you could go back
And tell yourself what you know now
Back then I swore I was gonna
Marry him someday
But I realized some bigger dreams of mine
And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy
Who changed his mind
And we both cried
(Chorus)
‘Cause when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You’re gonna believe them
And when you’re fifteen, don’t forget to look before you fall
I’ve found time can heal most anything
And you just might find who you’re supposed to be
I didn’t know who I was supposed to be
At fifteen
Your very first day
Take a deep breath girl
Take a deep breath as you walk through the doors
Meet Me In Montauk 
This is one of a dozen of her songs that impress the hell out of me. She likely wrote it when she was the wise old age of 16, as this young woman has been cranking out songs like these for years. Rolling Stone dubbed her a “songwriting savant,” and that is just about perfect (though she seems more well-adjusted than a savant might otherwise be).
As a mom to a 14 year old and a teacher to scores of 15 and 16 year olds, I find this song particularly poignant. Of course, the one thing that drives me nuts about it is that Taylor had to set the pronoun/antecedent movement back another hundred years. Maddie regularly gets annoyed when I sing out LOUD, “when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you HE loves you you’re gonna believe HIM,” cause, I mean, come on, Taylor. How many somebodys must be declaring their love to you at once?! 😉
Other than that, I adore the song, which I heard for the first time when she played it live with MIley Cyrus on some award show or another. Watching the two of them up on that stage, both just on the other side of 15, was something to see. I bet seeing some anonymous 15 year old take a high school stage to perform it is even more powerful.
Yeah, I’ve just about given up on the pronoun/antecedent problem in popular music… it’s rampant. The other one that bothers me the the use of “that” instead of “who”… imagine if Carly Simon had sung about “the spy that loved me” — I hear that sort of thing all the time.
Taylor is a truly wonderful songwriter and this is a wise beyond her years song, grammatical faux pas and all.
Incidentally, she is hardly the first, nor will she be the last artist, to incorporate such linguistic errors into music. I’m sure some English teachers in the 40’s cringed over lyrics like “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?” or in the 60’s with the Doors singing “till the stars fall from the sky for you and I” Or in the 80’s with Mellancamp singing in “Small Town” “and I cannot forget from where it is that I come from.”.
Anyway, here is the performance Amy referenced from the Grammy’s
Maybe she meant “They” as in gender ambiguity?
Unless the sexually ambiguous young manwoman has morphed into two people, heshe simply canNOT be referred to as “they.” Nice try, though 😉 (I’d opt for using “when somebody tells you he loves you/ You’re gonna believe her” to convery the sexual ambiguity you’re suggesting)