This week’s letter looks at the power of a global phenomenon.
Dear Don,
A couple of weekends ago (6th-8th June), Edinburgh played host to the start of the European leg of Taylor Swift’s ERAS Tour. In case you’ve just emerged from a chrysalis, Taylor Swift is the hottest pop music act on the planet. Everywhere she goes, she fills stadiums. Murrayfield, around a mile from where I live, is Scotland’s international rugby stadium and holds 67,000 spectators – increased to 72,000 for the three successive nights she played here. Over 200,000 tickets sold out in minutes for at least £100 a throw, often more.
I might never see 70 again, but I have a lot of time for Taylor Swift. She comes from a musical family – she was named after one my favourite performers, James Taylor – and began as a teenage country singer before morphing into a pop icon. But Swift’s greatest strength is her ability to play in several different genres, and a Swift concert contains something for everyone. Maybe not a string quartet, but you know what I mean.
Her lyrics speak to the real feelings, highs and lows, of the youngsters who like her music: teenage angst; romantic exploration and rejection, and – above all – girl-empowerment. Taylor Swift is her own woman, that’s for sure, and exudes every inch of it onstage.
Most of my own family were there. Swift fans – or “Swifites” as they like to be known – like to dress up and get in the mood for concerts. Taylor herself works a crowd brilliantly, managing to make each audience feel just a little bit special. And, putting on a three-and-a-half hour show, she gives good value, too.
The ERAS tour is thought likely to generate a staggering £1 billion for the UK economy – Edinburgh alone is understood to have benefited to the tune of £75 million. Taylor Swift’s presence creates an impact everywhere she goes. A few days after she’d moved on, it emerged that her concerts had even registered on the earthquake Richter Scale, the result of audiences jumping up and down at certain points in the show. It was only a small tremor, nothing up at 7 on the scale or anything, but it still demonstrates the young woman’s power.
It’s apparently not an unknown for rock and pop stars to shake the earth. Last year in Rome, the rapper Travis Scott managed to create a tremor of 1.3 on the Richter Scale, reportedly damaging a roof somewhere in the city. It would be interesting to see a court case where the owner sued a performer for damages – literally.
Meantime, here’s a song of Taylor Swift’s that I really like, from the 2020 album Folklore. Unusually, Betty is told from the point of view of a (rather pathetic) teenage boy.
Till the next time,
Gordon
Tales from the Heart of the City 