When Taylor Swift sings about love (when she sings) cars inevitably enter the picture. On her first album cars are happiness, comfort, nostalgia. In Tim McGraw she reminisces about being in the passenger’s seat of an old Chevy truck; in Our Song she contentedly rides shotgun with her hair undone in the front seat of his car; in the similarly idyllic Mary’s Song she sings, “2 am riding in your truck, and all I need is you next to me.”
(On a tangential note, Taylor really likes the time 2 am, this is one of like five references in her work, more if you count 2:30 am and 1:58 am. Also note the trucks, this is the only album that mentions trucks afaik. In her most recent work, the model of the car is not usually specified, but you get the feeling it’s expensive.)
The other cars on this album are in Teardrops on My Guitar (“I drive home alone,” symbolizing that she’s alone. Not much to say about that) and Picture to Burn. In the latter she sings, “I hate that stupid old pickup truck you never let me drive,” which is interesting because in all the happy car references she is clearly riding shotgun and doesn’t seem unhappy about that, while the one instance of her driving is clearly unhappy. Does this to some extent undermine the happy songs on this album? Is riding shotgun a sort of illusory happiness, one that doesn’t actually bring her fulfillment? Is this line expressing an intent to exercise more agency, in relationships and/or in life? We’ll come back to this.
The role of cars and driving doesn’t change much on Fearless and Speak Now. The former’s title song features more happy shotgun riding: she sings, “So baby drive slow … I wanna stay right here in this passenger’s seat.” Same in Back to December: “I think about summer, all the beautiful times I watched you laughing from the passenger’s side.” Fifteen twists this trope slightly with the self-awareness that she shows more of on every album; she feels like flying at the prospect of going on her very first date, with a ~senior boy~ who has a ~car~, and ends up getting her heart broken when he tells her he loves her and she believes him.
Now Red is where the role of cars really changes. There’s no awareness up to this point that 30,000 Americans die in cars every year, often from doing stupid shit like putting their hands on their girlfriends’ hearts instead of on the steering wheel where they’re supposed to be. On Red, cars are dangerous and love ends in heartbreak. In All Too Well, she and her love interest of the moment get lost driving, and he almost runs a red light because he’s looking at her. In Red, another devastated post-breakup song, she sings, “loving you was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street.” She’s become aware of the dangers of love now, but she’s not doing the smart/cautious thing: she still has hope. This is most obvious in Treacherous, when she considers the danger, but decides that “nothing safe is worth the drive.”
On 1989 cars are still dangerous, but she’s not surprised or saddened by that fact anymore; she seeks out and embraces the danger. In Style her paramour drives without headlights and “can’t keep his wild eyes on the road”: she knows “exactly where it leads” but gets in the car with him anyway. In Wildest Dreams, driving, like her short-lived fling, is about adventure: she sings, “let’s get out of this town, drive out of the city, away from the crowds, heaven can’t help me now.” She can see the end (of the ride, of the relationship) as it begins, but doesn’t let that stop her. In Out of the Woods, a snowmobile accident (I’m counting it as a car ok) leads to “twenty stitches in a hospital room,” but the song isn’t about regret or mistakes. It’s about inevitability, the way they were “built to fall apart and fall back together.” In a world of black and white, how can you regret finding screaming color?
And getting back to the Picture to Burn issue I said I’d get back to … she still doesn’t drive on this album. It’s “you come and pick me up,” “remember when you hit the brakes too soon,” “you drove us off the road,” “in your car, windows down, you pass my street.” I’m conflicted about the fact that she never drives. On the one hand, yay traditional gender roles practiced between consenting adults, and (at least in my opinion) Taylor has always been about being true to herself rather than being a Strong Woman, and that’s part of why I like her. 2015 Feminist Taylor is a stronger, better person than 2006 Taylor, but I think she’s grown in an authentic way, while still being open about her vulnerabilities.
On the other hand, 2006 Taylor said she wanted to drive the truck! Why doesn’t she just drive the truck?
When I was researching this I came across this cover on Youtube which … idk how much relevance it has because she didn’t write it but I’m just really interested in her choice to cover it. It’s all about the excitement of driving! Which she never does! Also in this song her father is the one teaching her to drive, and she is able to drive only because her father “lets” her which is another whole thing.
Also, she’s always been into cars (clearly) but there are especially a lot of cars on her most recent album. Doesn’t she know real New Yorkers take the subway?