Girls Like Us: Taylor Swift

Anyone who knows me knew that Taylor Swift was going to be one my modern day Girls Like Us. Despite being just 21, Taylor has been telling the stories of every young woman's life.

Bursting onto the country scene in 2006 with an debut album co-written by Swift with Lisa Rose. The album featured plenty of songs about young loves won and lost. Her first single, despite being named after country superstar Tim McGraw, is a universal tale of music transporting people back to place of romance.

But it was the follow up single, "Teardrops On My Guitar" that really took her onto the mainstream radar. A tragic tale of unrequited love, "Teardrops" tells the story of Taylor's crush on Drew. What could have been sappy and immature was instead, once again, universal and heart wrenching. Even as a 24-year-old man I knew exactly what she was talking about. "He says he's so in love, he's finally got it right. I wonder if he knows he's all I think about at night." Who among us hasn't felt the sting of nonreciprocated emotion and knows that place Taylor is coming from.

Of Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us, Taylor reminds me most of Carly Simon. Not just because she has dated a series of Hollywood hotties like Taylor Lautner, Jake Gyllenhal and Joe Jonas, but because she's not afraid to use her back story to create art. When her heart is broken, she writes angry songs like "Should've Said No" and "Forever And Always" or sad ones like "You're Not Sorry." When she's in love, beautiful emotion rolls off songs like "Love Story" and "Our Song." When she's secretly crushing, songs like "Teardrops" or "You Belong With Me" she speaks the same language as the rest of us - hurt, disbelief, hope and fear.

But even though she is so young, songs like "Back To December" show a mature woman realizing the mistakes she's made in a relationship, "White Horse" has her rejecting old stirrings brought on by a careless ex-lover in a startling grownup way and "Fifteen" finds Taylor counseling a young person to anticipate that things are not always what they seem in your youth - "in your life you'll do greater things than dating the boy on the football team, I didn't know it at fifteen."

I've said it before somewhat facetiously, but I actually mean it. Taylor Swift sings our lives. Like Loretta Lynn or Dolly Parton before, Taylor embodies what country music can do greatly - tell true stories about real life that we all know.

These are the songs of a Girl Like Us:
"White Horse" (from Fearless)


"Teardrops On My Guitar" (from Taylor Swift)


"Back To December" (from Speak Now)