Taylor Swift – on a Trumpian never-my-fault roll

 

 

Taylor Swift having retrieved her reputation over the DJ groping court case has now brewed up a storm of agitated comment over her latest musical offering ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ that scored a record-breaking 28 million views in its first 24 hours. Described by one commentator as ‘an amazing tour de force of deflective petulance: It’s essentially a catalogue of every public feud she’s had that, without naming them, manages to extend, mock, and, most important, commodify them.’ It hits the Trumpian mood of the moment – I’m never to blame, it’s always someone else’s fault.

The cynical view is that controversy creates cash, and the much-hyped feuds between Taylor and sundry other high-rollers in the music business is as much fake rage as the Mayweather/McGregor boxing brouhaha which rolled in $700 million.

Though a combination of factors in her chart might suggest it also fits her temperament. What dominates her chart is an opposition between Moon Jupiter in self-defensive Cancer opposition Uranus, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn. Oppositions often set up an internal tug of war between competing forces and this is most often lived out by projecting the less favored end of the opposition onto AN Other. This way the inner turmoil of trying to hold opposing needs together is lessened. Except it doesn’t work. Blaming the Other for what she dislikes about herself is self-defeating.

She also has an unaspected Sun, which tends to produce an overdose of pride and high self-regard; and less need of others’ approbation, so intensely self-centred.

Add into this zodiac soup, a vengeful Mars in Scorpio, which is sparsely aspected with only an out of sign sextile to Venus – and that adds to the self-centredness or lack of awareness of the effects of her aggression. It will also make her hyper-active.

Her birth time is questionable but on 8.36am it gives her an influential and highly controlling Pluto in the 10th, which does like to invade the space of others, especially rivals, in order to mark the territory as her power domain.

She’s on her Nodal Half Return with the August Lunar Eclipse falling conjunct her Aquarius Node. This lesson here is to abandon pride (Leo South Node), stop looking condescendingly down on others and to learn to walk lightly. Might not be as lucrative, so unlikely.

(See also post Aug 12 2017)

22 thoughts on “Taylor Swift – on a Trumpian never-my-fault roll”

  2. Thank you Marjorie.

    Libby it is more ‘fed up’ with plausibility and spin and not giving due (any) credit. (The girl has talent – ask any reputed songwriter, they all acknowledge her skill/range). And it is a question of mirrors – am I seeing clearly, are you? Does the critical commentary know anything about Taylor a part from what the media has said (the DM has a KK bias? for example).

    And with regard to astrological interpretation – any aspect will bring a sliding scale of positive developments for one person and negative for another depending on their chart and orientation until maybe you are working with your chart and the cycles and themes in it and surf the waves at best. Marjorie sees this Trumpian interpretation, and the unaspected sun. I know that there are 12 keys (12 houses?) on the piano and how if you are fluent in them this could give a platform other than just an atrological one and maybe impinge on it.

    I know how musicality (and playing an instrument – perhaps playing both a string and piano instrument especially – gives balance and flexibility and acute ‘meeting’ skills – you play what you hear, you feel the music and the live distance, maybe make the distance live with your playing/accompaniment. The physicality – left and right hand independent, rhythm, cadence, tempo, mood, key, major and minor, etc etc all give sensitivity and bearing and acuity. All I’m saying is that there is more to this than meets the eye, and if making assumptions, it is as well to factor in things which are important. Everyone speaks of Taylor as tho she is the devil incarnate because the demand is 1000% and she delivers and the response is disappointment o but she is… or isn’t… (things outside this 1000% which already is astonishing). My Mother was a great musician I see, Taylor too – this is already somethign amazing to appalud isn’t it. No one on SM gives her any credit/applause – just negativity and hate. Why not acknowledge first of all her qualities.

    It is the same with TH’s GG speech. Quite unexceptional and a furore over nothing, blown up out of all proportion. Taylor is not Donald Trump – Todrick is one of her best friends, so is Gigi, so is Joseph Kahn. I am not a Trumpette either. It is as JK said – if he does something he is appaluded, Taylor is either ‘manipulative’ or playing the ‘victim’. The woman is a singer songwriter, a normal decent person (look at her and her family background), who has a talent and business savvy. That is not a cult, or trumpesque, the negative criticism is largely sent to her unasked (like the video of the snake who ‘broke up’ on reception (KP, Kanye’s Ima let you finish, Kim’s whole snake thing, the revenge porn)). This is not stuff she is putting out. Taylor puts out music, which is ‘inspired’/wells up from things that have touched her experience (as with all songwriters). As Todrick said in that interview ‘she has made some mistakes along the way’ (but seriously not that many for a young person under the glare of fame and not catastrophic mistakes either, and she can play to a crowd of 70 000, has been in business meeting since she was a teenager, youngest person to ever be given a songwriting contract by sony which she broke because she wanted to write her teenage years and sony wanted her to wait until she was 18. She said she wrote songs all the time at school so that she had something good to offer, Liz Rose who used to help her with her songs in the beginning said it was incredible – just a matter of sorting through the words, the music was already complete down to the punctuation of pauses etc. Her presentation is so finished that people take it for ‘gloss’ like most of the ‘image’ conscious people out there – in her case she is the ‘real deal’, ‘a rainbow in a swamp’. Or more of that than not. Surely. Remember when you were a young woman – imagine if you lived under the scrutiny she does. Look into it a bit and look for the real picture. I’ll be surprised it it differs much from mine. I came to her songs after my Mother died when I took up the piano again because I heard it in every piece of music, and I was looking for songs to play on youtube. I love Taylor’s music. I was brought up by a Jesuit style father ie rigorous scholarship and verity and integrity before everything – does that make me a trumpette? I may be mistaken. It is always possible: but then I update my view rather than vilify other people to shore up my prejudice. Mercury retrograde remember. i could be mistaken, but the negative view could be too. LWYMMD is written in A minor? That is already amazing to write such an upbeat song in a minor key. Sparks fly (D Minor) too – more turning double negative to triple positive I’d say, than shading people?

    Please just entertain the possibility that Taylor is more sane than ‘broken’, ‘flawed’. What if that were true. Why choose an very cynical worldweary view when the music in the mind says everything is going to be alright and doesn’t gloss over the dark notes but records them and digests them. That is what I hear. Red is an album (musically) for me where she was very close to the edge and managed to hold it all together somehow perhaps as she said ‘for the fans’. Again you have to dig below the glossy presentation, the complete form of the music and hear the threads that make up the whole. Again the double negative to triple positive.

    I’m with still got scars. i see an Ugly Duckling pecked and chased by the other farmyard animals. And we all know what happened when s/he fell in with some swans and saw his/her own reflection? I hope she’s there already.

    xxxooo

  5. Miss Swift released “Reputation” on the 10th anniversary of the death of Kanye West’s mother, and she uses the Pablo font throughout.

      • And Big Machine Records issued a statement straight away denying the anniversary was chosen for that. These are the sorts of things which are so horrible – spin and inaccurate statements that after a while become ‘fact’ in the public mind and sometimes the spin is misleading – if I say often enough n when the real point is x hopefully no one will get to x.

        • You can’t “spin” the fact that it was the 10th anniversary of the death of KW’s mother when TS released her thing. And its you versus the rest of the web about the font.

  6. Wow Marjorie! Have you not seen the satire, and also the Taylor who cuts off the wing of her ‘vehicle’ that doesn’t ‘work’ and replaces it. Or that Look what you made me do (in your imagination) could be the manifestation of the films in others minds.

    Also the single being released during mercury retrograde – it could be received differently than intended.

    And aside – Revenge porn is ok? Katy Perry with the dancers is ok? Kim posting selected receipts (I’m getting receipts I’ll edit them later!), a guy groping you at a meet and greet (this is a woman who has extremely sensitive touch and can translate emotions and conversation to music. A guy groping you like meat in that context is like the roar of a jet plane? etc etc What about them!!!! How is it revenge to stand up and say ‘Enough!’ ?

    I liked both the following posts alot

    it-feels-like-a-perfect-night
    None of the real taylors had any snakes around them or associated with them, have people noticed this?

    The ‘real’ taylors werent near snakes or wearing snake jewelry/clothes. Of course Taylor knew that the talented @taylorswiftstyle would ID her clothes and jewelry for us, right down the to the pieces that have snake in the name.

    The fake-taylors (viewed as part of her reputation) all had some association with snakes. So hilarious:

    Diva / car crash taylor (snake print balmain dress, snakes on car, snake hairclip)
    red balmain dress snake taylor (snakes all around her throne, snake rings, snake bracelets, she hisses),
    jailbird taylor (only one- a tattoo)
    cult leader taylor (snake wrist cuff and snake earrings).
    And while in-control dance dominatrix taylor is used to mock untrue portrayals of her (snapping her men into attention, e.g.) i think the lack of snakes in this scene tells us that there is very much a part of taylor who is in control of the situations and can definitely get down and dance. So there is a part of that taylor persona that is accurate.

    Notice reputation taylor isn’t wearing snake stuff. Because even though that taylor has the reflection hair (part is on wrong side), in a twisted way, she is her reputation so she seems to be owning that.

    Man i love this video.

    Still got Scars posted such a lovely piece ‘… this simultaneously alludes to how she¿s found a way to reclaim her fourteen past selves, and she¿ll courageously fly onwards and upwards, far beyond what¿s been perceived by the media and public as wreckage. she¿s rising above all of the caricatures and harsh, ¿shut up¿ remarks she¿s endured for years, and she¿ll finally have the chance to illuminate her own narrative. it¿s only a matter of time before her voice will come to light powerfully, and something tells me that she¿ll be an unstoppable force to be reckoned with.’

    re the song itself – I still have to work out the music on the piano – LWYMMD is like a funeral dirge, sombre and like a bell tolling interspersed with morse code piping. Played up to speed it is like this fast forward mad helter skelter out of control ride. (Amazing songwriting)

    • ‘…then the world moves on, but one thing’s for sure Maybe I got mine, but you’ll all get yours’ (‘I got mine’ she is taking responsibility for herself, and raising her game (aeroplane wing)

      • Also ‘actions create reactions’. If Taylor is acting (ie actions) truly and not reacting then if others are finding that difficult (ie reacting) that is the theme of LWYMMD isn’t it – the frustration of reactions to a true act because the true act stands and the reactions fall away all over the place?

      • And this line is sung when they are robbing the streaming company so it also pertains to small artists getting their royalties. (Taylor loves to surprise and make puzzles and entertain if you are thinking that the video is just pictures: again not just image with Taylor…)

    • If you look at the Vogue 73 Questions video on Youtube she says at some point ‘karma is real’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnbCSboujF4

      (there is a difference between standing up for yourself and being bullied/taken advantage of – people may hate you for it but it is different to bullying and taking advantage of people.

      It may be that Taylor had decided on the VMA date well before Katy Perry was signed up to host it – then that is KP’s karma, not Taylor being vengeful. (We don’t know, but given that Taylor knows karma is real my guess is she doesn’t set out to eclipse Katy Perry and probably until KP says yes I could have called taylor and said you know I am going to start practicing for my tour in the middle of yours if you are going to hire my dancers, or to her dancers you need to choose between Taylor’s tour and mine, this sort of coincidence will continue to happen for her. Kanye too apparently.)

      • I walked down a road and fell in a hole. It wasn’t my fault and I struggled to get out

        I walked down a street and fell in a hole – it wasn’t my fault but I’ve been in a hole before and I managed to get out quicker

        I walked down a street and fell in a hole – it was my fault and I got out immediately

        I walked down a street and and around the hole

        I choose a different street

      • “Artists as big as Taylor Swift don’t work in a vacuum,” said David Philp, a professor of music and entertainment industries at William Paterson University. “Everything we see has been in the planning stages, probably for many months.”

      • Seems like Taylor’s fans are exactly like the Trumpsters too–it’s like it’s a giant cult of personality around a single, not too terribly talented person…..

          • Aren’t we talking about deliberate character assassination in the press and on SM? Just look at it – where is there praise for Taylor Swift – TS gives (it is PR), TS gets multiple sales (it is fake) TS writes a song (she’s playing the victim or not taking responsibility or is shading someone), TS goes to court (she’s attention seeking), TS is papped (she called them) – these sorts of things

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