the lyrics are easily read in two conditions, and, infrequently for me, but still from a third. in the first and second perspective it is easy to find a position to identify with. with others, i have had trouble really placing myself in the first or second and must concede to the third perspective.
all of the positions depend on memory, obviously; this is art and its amenable nature is what makes it an object of sentiment regardless of how much sentiment is carried through the voice and music to me. however the memories required to filter the sediment for precious moments are memories that depend on a relationship with another subject-object. though some songs are portrayals of loneliness, they are a loneliness from lost love and they require a specific figure to fill the gap. when the lyrics are read and looked at from the third person i believe it is because of the inability to find an emotionally adequate memory of a relation to another person to match the words, phonetic structures, or rhythms within the poetry.
positions of the reader get tangled up with one another and i believe that is vital to locating the sentiment in Taylor Swift’s lyric-poems, or the lack thereof. there are songs that sometimes are being sung at me; they put me in the second perspective and each “you” is a descriptor of the place i am standing from as the “i” removes the voice of Swift and is replaced by a figure from memory. the second perspective relies on me having had related to a person in the way that the lyrics feel like they are being sung or spoken to me, and my parts of conversation fitting somewhere in the spaces between words and in the breaths i take when i read it aloud. in the second perspective it’s often the character of the ex-boyfriend that is assumed here, which is easy because that’s who is often being addressed in the first place by the writer. it’s not always a good feeling to be there and it’s more common to find instances where i feel guilty for something i may not have done; substituting sins that may not even be memorable to the sinned-against but have lingered in my memory for longer than they should, which is an assurance that guilt really has no standards for its own tastes and its longevity can be fairly arbitrary.
in the first-person i am put in the even stranger position of feeling like what is recounted to me comes from my own experience. perhaps wrongfully but likely within the intents of the writer in any case, I take the place of Taylor Swift and instead of being addressed by a figure, my position becomes one where i say words that feel like my own even though they are far too coordinated to be held in an improvised and ordinary conversation with the memory-figure. the conversation is fragmented. i rarely go off on tirades and sometimes these lyrics that feel like they’re in the first person are fantastical and stand in for other conversations that i wish had gone another way. it’s a wish-fulfillment when the words feel like ones i didn’t say in any form. in both rephrased recounting and fantasy-edits of memory it is a flipped position from the former perspective entirely: in this case i am the “i” in the poem. again, i have a place in it and the sentiment seems to be in the mediation between internal memories and the amenable object. this is in common with the former perspective and would be content to call that the location of the sentiment if it weren’t for the change that happens in the third. the third person becomes complicated because neither of the positions are ones i can occupy. there is no place where i feel like i am addressed or am addressing another. poem-lyrics like Shake It Off are like that: there is the possibility for an emotional connection but it isn’t made; it still feels away from me and the characters are either Swift alone or a pair that do not match memory. that is not to say that they lack sentiment though. they do not exist in a space of an empathetic feeling but a sympathetic one. that is when they do lack sentiment to me and the reading is as that of the student who may have enjoyed Salinger and Hemingway but is instead too engrossed in analysis to find sentiment. the student can admire structural precision. perhaps that is a sentiment all in its own, but i am thinking here of romanticized sentiments. the third person provides a platform for observation on two quasi-fictional figures who can be sympathized with and their story, though un-relatable to me, can be beautiful enough to stir an emotion like admiration or pity.
but where does the sentiment emerge from all this? the sentiment is not any of the above which is broken down into:
- the text
- my self
- the imagined figures
- the imagined figure’s relationship to myself
- the imagined figures’ relationship to myself
- the way that relationship makes me feel
- memory, which is to say the customized and false past
- my relationship with that memory, or memories compiled
easily, the above could be divided into a venn diagram that isolates internal factors, external factors, and internalized external factors. this leaves a formulaic place to put the sentiment: the externalized internal. a new question arises to replace where is the sentiment in Taylor Swift’s lyrics, and is replaced with is a tear a sentiment? a sentiment is not an emotion but that which is produced from an emotion. sentiment guides decisions and is related to the decision but is not entirely the decision itself. this means it is the internal feeling made external by decision. we do not choose to cry though. we cry when we are overwhelmed by emotion but the tear is not the feeling it is a reaction to it and a reaction is not a decision, it is instinct. if a decision is guided by feeling though, and changed from its natural state, which is the place of survival and self-advancement, because of a feeling that is not chosen, but imposed or found, it is a sentiment, or is where the sentiment is held. a tear is not a sentiment unless you keep it and use it for something that is not crying. the lyrics themselves therefore are the sentiment, the text though and not the work.
the gift and the grain 