The Anatomy of Style: Dissecting Taylor Swift’s Artistic Pinnacle
By: Emerson Rocha
Tags: Style, Taylor Swift

I well remember the High School times when my best companion and daily partner of daunting discoveries and intense first-time emotions was Taylor Swift, and 1989 was my holy shield against the odds of the coming-of-age.

Back in those days, the star that guided me in the nightwalks through my heart was Style: a pop anthem that subtly and almost discreetly made me question my perceptions about love. I remember bewitchingly listening the song on repeat for hours — as well as watching the video and being completely charmed by something I didn’t know what was.

Turns out, that’s intentionally the design of Style. Taylor Swift has a dense methaphorical approach when it comes to expressing what’s floating through her mind and heart, and Style is a museum piece of her artsy collectanea of simbolism.

Actually, that’s essentially what this song is about: an art piece architected to introduce a personal perspective of a feeling Taylor carries on her chest. Artists — specially singers — have a moral responsability to make their art relatable, so their audience identifiy with the material they’re presenting: it’s like giving a voice to things we don’t quite understand the origin of. This specific part plays a fundamental role in defining our collective views on different topics as a society — like how we deal with love, or missing. More than a singer, Taylor Swift is a spokeswoman to all of us.

Style starts evoquing ambivalence in its melody. For the first thirty seconds, like a courtesy introduction (or preparation?), Taylor leaves us with no voice or lyric — only a sequacious riff that establishes a “question and answer” format in its chords transition, following up through the entire song, unwittingly making you wonder: “what is right about this?”, as the guitar asks “where are you?” — and taciturnly answers: “I’m here”.

“I love that the song sounds the way that that feeling felt. […] The song speaks for itself” Taylor for Ryan Seacrest

On the music video, the first scene clearly states that: this is a translation of what’s being on Taylor’s mind.

If you’re into her work, you know Taylor has historically written about her relationships and lovers in the perspective of a hurtten victim — you can tell from All Too Well. In Style, this is different. As Taylor herself stated,

“I say “I’ve heard that you’ve been out and about with some other girl, some other girl”

He says “What you’ve heard is true but I

Can’t stop thinking about you and I”

I said “I’ve been there too a few times” Lyrics of “Style”

Here, Taylor is assuming a position of maturity, still as a vulnerable persona: “I’ve been there too a few times”. In her previous work, she would write about being betrayed and her violated feelings, but here, she takes ’em to a silent walk in the cold of self consciousness.

She deliberately describes a crooked love, but this time from the perspective of an insider — she knows they both share the same feeling, just as both made mistakes.

“I would never have said anything like that on a previous album, my previous albums have always been sort of like “I was right, you were wrong, you did this, it made me feel like this”, kind of a sense of righteous, like right and wrong in a relationship, and what happens when you grow up is that you realize the rules in a relationship are very blurred, and it gets very complicated very quickly, and there’s not always a case of who is right and who is wrong” Taylor for Ryan Seacrest

And here’s where this feeling of ambivalance is intrinsically rooted in the song’s structure. In the first half of the chorus, you hear generally positive chords, matching the lyrical imagery of symbols that perpass the song:

[D Major :)] You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye

[G Major :)] And I got that red lip classic thing that you like

[D Major :)] And when we go crashing down, we come back everytime / Cause we never go out of style

However, in the second half, an oxymoron B Minor introduces you to a conflicting question: “is this really a happy song?”. In Taylor’s language, the question is: “are we really happy about this?”. Spoiler: “no, we are not!”

And when we go [B Minor :(] crashing down, we come back everytime / Cause we never go out of style

More than that, it’s as if Style’s melody pulls you in and asks, “Do you know this feeling?”