by Kevin Burton
I’ve tried twice now, and I won’t be back here again, to “get” the whole Taylor Swift thing.
The first time around came when Swift started dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and started getting mega-coverage by watching Chiefs games from luxury suites.
I said, Oh my God what is this fuss all about? I think I just googled “top Taylor Swift songs” or something, and listened to about 30 of them. That was a less-than-rigorous examination of her music, I admit.
Now, days after the two got married, I tried again. I asked Alexa to play me “The Life of a Showgirl,” Swift’s most recent album. My reaction to this was very similar to my first foray into her music.
I found no songs and very few moments from songs, that made me say “this sucks.” You know, not bad, though there isn’t enough variety of the tempos of the tunes.
But I also found no songs that made me want to play them on repeat, the way I rushed to repeat some of the tunes from the Tedeschi Trucks album that my friend Tracy turned me on to.
I kind of liked “Opalite” which is said to be a song about Kelce. I may look into that some more.
The song I respect the most is the title tune “Life of a Showgirl.” That song works very well as an all-that-glitters-isn’t-gold treatment of the sacrifices and tradeoffs made by big stars. But then in the final verse Swift makes the song about herself and how she got to be a showgirl and says “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
So in the end it’s not something most of us can hold on to. Pity.
So I give up. Millions get her, I don’t. On Wikipedia I read that the album went to number one in about two dozen countries, but not in two.
So this means that in the extremely unlikely, don’t-hold-your-breath chance that the Kevin Burton Orchestra tour ever leaves the basement, It will head to Japan and Nigeria…..
“Why not us?” was the question raised by the USA men’s World Cup soccer team as it opened the tournament it co-hosted with Canada and Mexico. The team answered its own question Monday with a clown-show performance in a 4-1 blowout loss to Belgium.
The third goal conceded was especially embarrassing and emblematic of the whole evening. The BBC called the game a “shambolic end” for the US.
The team and its promoters proved loud, self-congratulatory and hollow, even apart from the red-card fiasco. If I say that’s an apt representation of the country as a whole, as it marked its 250th anniversary, am I right or wrong?……
Actually there is an old Taylor Swift song I like called “You Belong With Me.” It’s about a man of course. It’s a tale-of-the-tape comparison of her, the narrator, and the man’s incumbent girlfriend that includes the lyric “she wears high heels, I wear tennis shoes. She’s a cheer captain, I’m in the bleachers.”
Good song, but I prefer the high heels and cheerleading. So again, I don’t get her…..
On America’s 200th birthday, I stayed up all night, with tremendous pride, watching Walter Cronkite, old iron pants himself, presiding over 16 hours of CBS News bicentennial celebration coverage.
Cronkite was “the most trusted man in America,” the one we watched, to get the straight scoop, the truth. Here is what Cronkite said to end the marathon bicentennial coverage:
“Well, the party’s just about over. We’re 200 years old. It’s a milestone that makes us wonder what will become of us as a nation.”
“We’re not sure of the future. No one can be. We don’t know what’s behind the doors that we must open. We only know the keys we have, keys cut in Independence Hall, which became our ideals, liberty, justice, equality.”
“Our people have suffered and died for those ideals. We have as a nation written a remarkable history, certainly, but we should remember that we have not fulfilled our ideals, even after 200 years.”
“Correcting wrongs will be part of our future. It will demand courage. But correcting wrongs has been a dramatic part of our history. Courage is a remarkable part of our heritage. It can open the doors to justice for everyone.”
“We’ll be all right, if we keep in our hearts the story of America. If we do, well then, 100 years from now our country’s heart s will still be host to those ideals that we gave the world, on July 4, 1776.
“And that’s the way it is, July 4 1976, This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News, good night and happy birthday.
We’re half way through the 100 years Cronkite spoke of. How are we doing?
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Never was a “Swifty” but then I’m not really against her either. Liked her earliest music but not so much these days. I do admire her generosity though. She’s done a lot to pay all the people involved with working her tours and things and she’s given generously to charities and in my mind that is commendable. That’s especially true when so many seem to be all about self these days and often seem to believe they are better than those around them. I know the attitude is still here, somewhere, so cry out America. Stand for what is right and stand for being able to work hard and realize the “American dream.” We need journalism that’s more about reporting the facts and less about reporting the opinions of the ones who own the network, radio station, tv studio… In sort, be proud of who you are but don’t ever think you are high above the rest of the population. We are meant to work together and to love one another.
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