Initial thoughts on Lover:
Maybe she’s an image-crafting, shapeshifting genius but it sure does feel like she writes what she knows, and her life right now is obsessively maintaining her valuable brand, living happily, with her bland British blue-eyed boyfriend, and sometimes getting triggered by people tweeting about politics.
I’m glad she’s happy but like
it feels like she’s not even 30, and already her life is what it’s going to be. She can’t be a bigger star than she is, the bigger she gets the more she just attracts haters, she’s slept with all the celebrities worth sleeping with and now her life is about deciding whether to bother taking down the Christmas lights, I mean, it’s only January.
I think her best songs are about longing. Usually for love, but not just that; “someday I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me”; “in your life you’ll do things greater than dating a boy on the football team.”
I know that there’s a time of your life for that longing, and a time of your life for settling down with someone and going to the pub to watch rugby with his school friends. There’s a part of me that thinks that it’s good and right that she’s completed this phase of her evolution, from all-American high school girl all the way to you know, 30-year-old white woman who’s into wine and real estate and engagement rings.
There’s another part of me that’s angry she’s chosen this pastel life over burning red. What happened to screaming, and fighting, and kissing in the rain?
Maybe if you’re still doing that when you’re 30, it’s just sad.