The Taylor Collab // what can I say? she’s GORGEOUS!

Hello friends!

I hope you’re doing well, and having a lovely day. Today, I’m bringing you a post I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time! Welcome to the biggest blogger collab on Wishing Upon a Star thus far, where many incredible bloggers have come together to celebrate the Queen Taylor Swift’s re-recording of Fearless. Fearless is Taylor’s sophomore album and has boasted such tracks as the legendary Love Story and the childhood favorite You Belong With Me.

You Belong With Me will always have a special place in my heart 😀

I reached out to around 13 bloggers (13 is Taylor’s lucky number and she uses it a lot when it comes to releasing new projects! As you can see, April 9th is 4 + 9 = 13) who I knew were fans of Taylor, and invited them to feature on this post! I asked them to choose one of their favorite Taylor songs, match it with a book, character, or their WIP (writing in progress), give us background info on why they love the song, and why they decided to make the match. Not everyone was able to send in a feature, which is completely understandable—we all have different schedules and time demands. But I’m so grateful to everyone who sent in their piece, I really enjoyed reading them ❤

But enough of my rambling! LET’S GO.

Olivia @ Purely Olivia:

Hi! I’m Olivia, and I’m so happy to be a part of this post- thank you so much to Eleanor for asking me to take part in this. I love Taylor and her music with everything in me, so this is very on brand for me. :’) 

My favorite Taylor Swift song is You Are in Love from 1989, and I deeply correlate this song with Foolish Hearts, by Emma Mills. (It’s only fitting because Foolish Hearts is one of my very favorite books). Listening to YAIL is a beautiful, lyrical, magical experience that explores both falling in love and the mystery and questioning that goes along with that. Similarly, this novel has a lovely slow-burn romance and I consider it to be magical, too. Both Foolish Hearts and You Are in Love are reasons that I believe in love, so my hopeless romantic heart is fulfilled thanks to their existence.

Diamond @ Build a Bears Furever:

The song I chose was Wonderland, off of the 1989 bonus tracks. I feel that this matches with the Caraval series by Stephanie Garber. In the book series, sisters Scarlett and Tella enter a magical place known as Caraval. In Caraval, they find love, but also have to battle to stay sane amongst the illusions. Whenever I was reading Caraval, I found myself thinking of Wonderland a lot, seeing as the song deals with similar topics of finding love amidst madness. Ultimately, I just love both of these pieces of entertainment. 

Ash @ Starlight Strands:

One of my favorite Taylor Swift songs is mirrorball: it’s so beautifully written and heartbreaking! The bridge makes me want to cry every time I listen to it, especially the lyric “All I do is try, try, try.” A book that pairs perfectly with this song is When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert. In this novel, the main character Beth feels like she has to constantly give more of herself to others than she takes to prove her worth, and mirrorball perfectly conveys those feelings. It also captures the poignant yet hopeful mood of the book!

Ruby @ Ruby Reads and Reviews:

It was a very hard decision to choose my favorite Taylor Swift song because she has such a large library of stuff and I’m super indecisive. Right now I’m going to say that my favorite Taylor Swift song is coney island (feat. The National). This song is so heartbreaking and I love the way it explores the end of a relationship. The National is also one of my favorite bands and I was super excited once I knew they would be collaborating with Taylor, and the song did not disappoint! 

For this book, I’m pairing it with When You Were Everything by Ashley Woodfolk, a book that explores a friendship loss, which can sometimes be much more heartbreaking than the breakup of a romantic relationship. This book explored the aftermath of the breakup of Cleo and Layla’s friendship, and described how lost Cleo felt without her best friend. This book also explored how both people can contribute to the splintering of a friendship. I felt like the lyrics of coney island really relate to the events in the book, even if they discuss the loss of a different kind of relationship.

Introverted Thoughts @ Random Specific Thoughts:

“I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is the leaving you all. I’m not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven.”

I’m going to go with marjorie from Taylor’s evermore and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott for my book choice. I remember listening to Taylor Swift’s marjorie, a song penned in tribute to her grandmother, and being in absolute awe of the age-old message it conveyed of humility and familial love.  Reading Little Women any day, always sheds a strong and bright light of heartfelt magic and beautiful understanding on my senses. Louisa May Alcott’s use of language to capture the warmth and comfort family offers, the innocent brilliance of the companionship sisters offer, all the while emphasising on life’s intricacies and portraying every tiny aspect of existence in the brightest possible light; Little Women was in short, a deeply enlightening read. And somehow it seems fitting to me to combine these two pieces of art that seem to venerate family above all.

Margaret @ Weird Zeal:

Every time “evermore” starts playing, I feel the need to lie down and let myself feel sad for the next five minutes…which is also how I feel when I think about Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour. The book follows a girl confronting the (literal) ghosts from her past and grieving the childhood that she lost while finding a home and a family for the first time, and it has the same aching, melancholy, yet ultimately hopeful feel as the song. I don’t think anything represents the book’s emotional journey more perfectly than “evermore”’s turn into “this pain wouldn’t be for evermore.” Essentially, both the book and the song make my heart hurt, so they’re a natural fit. 

Abby (only one of MY VERY BEST FRIENDS):

Hi!! I’m Abby, and I’ve been granted the wonderful opportunity to participate in this post! This has been very fun, since I’m a Taylor Swift fan and a Wishing Upon a Star fan, of course. 😁 (Insert from Eleanor: AWWW I LOVE YOU 💕)

The rich melody of “Enchanted” by Taylor Swift is, well, enchanting — and it feels as though it was written for Tessa Gray, our heroine of The Infernal Devices. This song starts off softly, and then passionately elevates, tracing the way Tessa’s emotional story did. In this manner, “Enchanted” magically captures the beauty of the romantic aspects of The Infernal Devices. Also, our fair heroine is an ardent lover of literature; I could easily imagine her quoting Taylor’s “Enchanted” lyrics in this era. 

To further appreciate the remarkable connection between Tessa and “Enchanted”, here are 6 lines from the song with brief interpretations! (Contains no major plot spoilers from The Infernal Devices).

1. “The playful conversation starts / Counter all your quick remarks”

Could this describe Tessa and Will’s banter better?!! No. 😁

2. “This night is sparkling, don’t you let it go”

Tessa and Jem on Blackfriars Bridge that evening was a definition of a sparkling night. (the peaceful half of that night, that is. 🤭)

3. “Now I’m pacing back and forth, wishing you were at my door / I’d open up and you would say, hey”

Except Tessa doesn’t need to wish for her love to be at her door. He’s already there! ️💖

4. “This is me praying that this was the very first page / Not where the story line ends”

Will to Tessa: “Life is a book and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read.” So, Taylor, to answer your prayers, this is definitely not where it ends. 

5. “My thoughts will echo your name, until I see you again / These are the words I held back, as I was leaving too soon”

IF THERE WAS ONE LINE TO DESCRIBE THE *SITUATION* WITH TESSA & BROTHER ZACHARIAH THEN OMG THIS IS IT — THE ACCURACYYY 😖

6. “I was enchanted to meet you”

Such a simple yet elegant phrase to describe Tessa’s feelingsss 🥰

Here’s a 30-second-video featuring our goddess Taylor herself, with “Enchanted” playing in the background. (It’s actually a commercial for her perfume 😂 )

Music and books are timeless, which is how Enchanted, a 2010 song, manages to be the perfect fit for Tessa Gray, a girl whose adventurous days begin in the late 1800s.

Now I must go reread The Infernal Devices with Enchanted playing on loop, haha! Thanks for reading 🙂

I LOVE EVERYONE’S ENTRIES!!!

But before we end, to get the number closer to 13, here are two of the matches I made 😉

Mine:

I love so many of the songs on Taylor Swift’s Reputation album, including “So It Goes…” And one of my favorite bookish ships is Kanej, Inej and Kaz, from Six of Crows. (Look, Goes and Crows rhyme!) I feel like so many lyrics from “So It Goes…” match Kanej, especially “You make everyone disappear, and // Cut me into pieces // Gold cage, hostage to my feelings”, “I’m yours to keep // And I’m yours to lose”, “You know I’m not a bad girl // But I do bad things with you”, “You did a number on me // But honestly, baby, who’s counting? // I did a number on you // But honestly, baby, who’s counting?”, “Come here, dressed in black now”, and “Scratches down your back now”. I feel like the lyrics really capture the angst, longing, pain, and camaraderie of Kanej. Not only the lyrics, but the mood and production of “So It Goes…” and the way Taylor sings it, completely embody the spirit of Kanej.

Mine:

Taylor has said herself that one of her biggest strengths lies in her storytelling, and I agree. Her songs are full of imagery, emotion, and honestly, I hope she will consider writing poetry or fiction in the future!

“the lakes” is one of the songs that represents Taylor’s lyricism at her best. It just makes me feel so at peace and want to move to a cottage by the sea! And you know what book does that for me…Anne of Green Gables.

Both “the lakes” and Anne of Green Gables whisk you away on waves of escapism. They are also heavily centered around location—the Windermere peaks and Avonlea. They both also possess the power of words—L.M. Montgomery’s prose is gorgeous and so unique to her + one of my favorite writing styles, and Taylor is of course a queen at songwriting.

But going a little deeper, I think Anne Shirley would love “the lakes”! When she was younger, she adored big words, so I think she’d really enjoy the lyrics “Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me?” and “While I bathe in cliffside pools // With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief”! Anne is known for her imagination and creativity, and “the lakes” highlights the muse. I think “the lakes” also has a very mature sound, with Taylor’s dreamy and longing vocals. It reminds me of how Anne was always in tune with youth yet possessed a grand sense of maturity. Take these quotes for examples.

—-

“Did you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?” sighed Jane. “They were simply dazzling. Wouldn’t you just love to be rich, girls?”

“We are rich,” said Anne staunchly. “Why, we have sixteen years to our credit, and we’re happy as queens, and we’ve all got imaginations, more or less. Look at that sea, girls–all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”

—-

“That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie,” laughed Anne, “but just now I honestly feel that as long as I know the violets are coming out all purple down in the hollow below Green Gables and that little ferns are poking their heads up in Lovers’ Lane, it’s not a great deal of difference whether I win the Avery or not. I’ve done my best and I begin to understand what is meant by the ‘joy of the strife.’ Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing. Girls, don’t talk about exams! Look at that arch of pale green sky over those houses and picture to yourself what it must look like over the purply-dark beech-woods back of Avonlea.”

I just love her, okay? ☺️

Wow…I think we did it!

A big, big thank you to Olivia, Diamond, Ash, Ruby, Introverted Thoughts, Margaret, and Abby for participating—I’ll remember this all too well!

And thank YOU for reading. In the comments below, tell me: What are YOUR favorite Taylor Swift songs? What book or character would YOU match with them? What FEARLESS song were YOU most excited to hear re-recorded? (Mine was You Belong With Me…when I listened to Taylor’s Version I got nostalgic 😌).

And…that’s a wrap! Thank you again for reading…

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