What This Over-50 Woman Really Thinks Of Taylor Swift

My daughter played the video for me so I could both hear and visually take in the song. While the “Fifteen” lyrics made me tear up, the words to “Best Day” reduced me to full-blown sobs so intense I couldn't speak for several minutes after the song ended.

“Best Day” narrated special moments Swift spent with her parents, specifically her mother, at ages three, five, and 13. Though it was written from the perspective of her childhood self, it spoke to me as a 44-year-old mother.

She captured what I hope my children will remember about their childhoods and our time together. She sang about afternoons spent doing art projects and in pumpkin patches — those small, almost forgettable moments that create the mosaic of the parent/child relationship. She sang about the love, safety and support her mother had provided. It was all the feelings that I hoped I had given to my children. How could a 20-year-old capture these emotions so powerfully?

From that point on, I became a been a big fan. I listen to her music, follow her career and have attended several concerts. At one of them, it poured rain and even being drenched through to my underwear could not dampen how happy I felt, beside my daughter, listening to Swift together.

I am partial to the old stuff like “Best Day,” “Fifteen,” “Our Song” and “Tear Drops on My Guitar.” But I also love her newer songs like “Cruel Summer” and “Anti-Hero.” At the risk of being “basic,” I admit that songs like “Shake It Off” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” are catchy. While I didn't get to see the Eras concert, I did see the Eras movie that came out in October (and if my husband or kids are reading, tickets to the London 2024 concert would be a great gift).

Beyond her discography, I'm awed by Swift as a person. Many teen idols can't handle the pressure. Swift has bent but never broken. She has grown up in the public eye, continuing to reinvent herself, her sound and her music. Swift has endured criticism of her personal life (particularly her love life) and difficult professional situations with the maturity of someone twice her age.

Throughout her career, she has shown grace and strength, fighting unapologetically for what belongs to her and turning criticism into song. The concert where it poured, Swift was drenched too. But she kept going, giving an incredible performance on what had to be a very slippery stage.

In 2013, New York magazine writer Jody Rosen called Swift the “world's biggest pop star” well before her sold-out Eras world tour. Swift proves you can be a savvy, successful businesswoman and kind, generous person (giving large bonuses to her to our tour crew). And just this week, Swift was named TIME's 2023 person of the year.

Just call me a Swiftie. As an over-50 woman, I know I’m not her target audience. Yet so many of her songs speak directly to me, her lyrics resonating regardless of my age.

Sharing Swift with my two daughters has been a source of joy. She has been the catalyst for great memories — listening to her music together on the radio, attending concerts and sharing how Swift’s words speak to us individually. Our many conversations sparked by Swift run from mundane banter (“Did you listen yet?”) to playful arguments (my daughter is adamant we didn’t first see Taylor at the Jingle Ball, I disagree) to deeper, more complex topics about life, love and resilience.

“Don't forget to look before you fall, but I've found time can heal most anything. And you just might find who you're supposed to be,” Swift sings in “Fifteen.”

Those words are true whether you’re 15 or 57. We all need to keep searching, learning, growing and figuring out who we are supposed to be.

This special issue of The Girlfriend is devoted to music and how it shapes — and strengthens — our memories. For more on this topic from AARP, including videos, events and memory games, visit aarp.org/musicandmemory

Are you a Taylor Swift fan? Let us know in the comments below.