Taylor Swift Poetic Devices

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Taylor Swift moved to Nashville to peruse her music career. Taylor Swift is a seven-time Grammy winner, who has sold many albums and has been number one on the iTunes charts many times. She is one of country music’s top recording artists but she has recently crossed over to pop and is still winning many awards. Taylor Swift writes her own music, which mainly based on her personal perspective. The instruments she plays are guitar, piano, banjo, ukulele and vocals. The label that signed Taylor Swift is Big Machine, which is located in Nashville, Tennessee. She has been in recording music since 2004 and is still. She completed her first album in 2006 and was recognized as a

country singer.

However, she is still recording with Big Machine whom recently released her new single in August 2014. Ever since her first album she has been doing many others, which have made her become very famous throughout the world. The song I chose was Mean by Taylor Swift. The music video had many different performers, which consisted of five men and two women playing different types of instruments. Throughout the music video it showed how teenagers are getting bullied outside and during school. The instruments that are being playing throughout the song are two banjo players, violin, hand clappers, drums and cymbals. Taylor Swift wrote the song Mean and Nathan Chapman produced the song. The song Mean was in her third album Speak Now that was released in 2010 by Big Machine.

Taylor Swift style of music has turned over to pop with her new album coming out in October; however the song I chose was an old country song, which is called

Mean. I chose this song because I can relate to the message in the song. Taylor Swift has been a hero for many of her fans including myself through her music. The style of music on this recording starts off with the dynamic, which is progressing as the song progresses. The rhythm and the beat make you want to move as soon as the introduction of the song starts. The melody uses a lot of phrases throughout the song. The song is in duple meters, which means it has two beats throughout the song. She is playing a consonant harmony because the song does come to a stop at certain times throughout the song. Through the song there are many times when Taylor Swift is singing and in the harmony you can hear the banjo, violin, hand clappers, drums and cymbals underneath her voice. The texture in the song is homophonic texture because the melody has chords underneath, for instance the song starts off with Taylor Swift playing the banjo and her singing to the lyrics. Throughout the whole song there is a medium tempo. In an E! News interview with Taylor Swift she states, “Mean is a response to people who criticize whatever she does. The music is expressed on how people can be so mean and not even care about it. The beginning of Mean it says, “You, with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me” shows how people all over the world can be so mean and Taylor Swift does not care about what others think. The song is sending out a message to all the people who have been bullied and for those who have been mean to others.
The song starts off by Taylor Swift playing the banjo and singing. As the song progresses the instruments starts joining in as she keeps singing. At this point she has brought in hand clappers, which is very unique for this style of music. In verse two, the violin is playing along side the melody of the banjo for a few notes. There are certain points that she stops singing but the instruments do not stop playing. When the song gets to around two minutes and forty seconds the tempo starts to slow down a bit along which her singing which gets softer. In around the same time, the banjo also has a solo while the drums are playing softly in the background. However, the tempo is faster and each of the instruments is disappearing into a crescendo. The music jumps back to playing the drums very quickly, which bring the banjo back in playing the melody softly in the background. The violin is in more frequently now and is using recurrence in the song. All of the instruments have stopped playing at this moment leaving the hand clappers keep the beat and rhythm going at an average pace. The cymbals are used occasionally to fade out the song very smoothly. As the song comes to an end it leaves the singer singing monophonically for a few beats. The instruments that end the last note are the banjo and cymbals. The singer throughout the song does feel as she was expressing her anger on how people are so mean and can hurt other people’s feelings.