Tag Archives: please understand me

Taylor Swift took home three trophies at the 39th Annual American Music Awards including the top honor Artist of the Year.  I know, right?  What a bunch of idiots.  It was the second time in three years she had been given the AMA’s top honor, and the fourth year in a row she’s won Favorite Country Album.  Taylor emphasized the fact that she did not expect to win the Artist of the Year Award and I think it’s safe to say that nobody did.  There was obviously some sort of huge mix-up and they just rolled with it.  Nicki Minaj was also a big winner, while Katy Perry was honored with a special award for being the first woman in history to have five #1 singles from the same album (Teenage Dream).  David Hasselhoff brang his idiocy to the table with an appearance in the finale performance by LMFAO.  On winning Taylor commented “this is just crazy” and “I really can’t believe that it happened”.  Neither can we Taylor.  Neither can we.  The “award darling” went three for three at the AMA’s and is starting to be the target of criticism for continually acting overwhelmingly surprised during her acceptance speeches.  We get it Taylor.  You’re a good songwriter.  Get over it.  Joking aside Taylor Swift is a very talented and humble artist so let’s go ahead and take a look at T Swizzle a.k.a. Tay Tay fo Shay Shay.

Taylor Alison Swift was born on a christmas-tree farm in an obscure town in Pennsylvania, and since early childhood has showed an exceptional talent for poetry, music, and writing.  Her artistic talents blossomed quite early, as she won a national poetry contest in the fourth grade, and wrote a 350-page novel at the age of 12.  After learning to play the guitar, Taylor had found her passion and started devoting most of her time to singing and songwriting.  Taylor admittedly got picked on in school, and used songwriting to express her emotions as an outlet for the pain of not fitting in.  After her family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, Taylor was able to display her talents and quickly became recognized.  Her breakout single “Tim Mcgraw” was the first of many hits, while “Love Story” subsequently shoved her into the national spotlight.  Highly emotional, musically harmonic, adorably sensitive and gracefully timid Taylor Swift is undoubtedly a Composer Artisan.  Composers (like Taylor) “prefer to have their fingers on their compositional tools and through them feel the pulse of life”.  Indeed Taylor speaks almost exclusively through her music, as when Composers “find a medium of expression, some art form, then they will express their character quite eloquently via that medium”.

“Although Composers often put long, lonely hours into their compositions, we must not assume that they are working on their art in the sense of careful planning and dutiful execution.  On close observation, ISFPs prove to be just as impulsive as other Artisans.  Indeed, they covet their impulses and see them as the center of their lives.  They do not wait to act or to consider their moves, for to wait is to see their impulse wither and die; rather, they live intensely in the here and now, and as gracefully as possible, with little or no planning or preparation.  Submergence in their artistry is not preparation for something later, and neither is it artful play, such as Crafters engage in with their tools.  Composers are seized by the act of artistic composition, as if caught up in a whirlwind.  The act is their master, not the reverse, and, in a sense, the doing is elicited by the action itself.  ISFPs paint or sculpt, they dance or skate, they write melodies or recipes—or whatever—simply because they must.  They climb the mountain because it is there.”  Please Understand Me II, p. 73

Taylor‘s newest album Speak Now was released October 25th and is available on iTunes.

 People haven’t always been there for me but music always has.

–Taylor Swift