Taylor Swift’s Love Song to New York Proves She Must Actually Hate It

The buzz surrounding Taylor Swift’s forthcoming fifth album, 1989 (obviously named after the year she was born), has only increased as the release date approaches. And so Swift has made something of an egregious error in the promotion of her album with what is already the third single to be revealed, “Welcome to New York.”

As far as the creation of New York anthems go, of which there are many, it’s almost like making a bad pizza: nearly impossible. So when a person fucks up a song about New York, it completely takes away any of their credibility, proving them to be forever designed for suburbia. With the repetition of “Welcome to New York, welcome to New York/it’s been waiting for ya,” Swift shows off her ability as a cult leader beckoning Midwesterners to join her in her easy journey to the city. Co-written and co-produced by Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, whose had his hand in the much better current musical offering, “Baby Don’t Lie” by Gwen Stefani, “Welcome to New York” has the sort of unfathomable optimism that might have only been suited to the city in the 1950s or in the pre-9/11 months.

As for strange allusions to identity in which Swift states, “Everybody here was someone else before,” one can say that about essentially any location. Reinvention isn’t New York-exclusive, after all. Apart from that, the only real variance in the lyrics, “Welcome to New York, welcome to New York” is when she insists, “Like any true love, it drives you crazy.” But the only thing about New York that truly drives one crazy is when someone makes a shitty anthem about it. Gone are the days, apparently, of crisp, lush poeticism of songs like “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra–worthy exaltations of a city that once attracted the likes of pre-fame Bob Dylan, Patti Smith and Madonna, not those who were already celebrities and thought it would be “cool” to live here without understanding the struggle behind it. But I’m sure it will make a great song to play for Midwesterners as they arrive at JFK.