I am not sure how many Taylor Swift concerts my three daughters, combined, have gone to. At least six or seven, I think, and my wife has chaperoned them at most if not all, since these were when the girls were quite a bit younger. So I have been aware of Taylor Swift for a long time.
Swift is now the number one figure in global popular culture. Long an extraordinarily successful songwriter, singer and performer, her Eras tour has catapulted her into a whole new dimension of celebrity. But what impresses me about Swift is not her talent, but her insanely ferocious work ethic. This Wall Street Journal profile is sympathetic in, I think, all the right ways:
She was 10 years old when she decided she was going to be a country-music singer. Before long she was knocking on doors in Nashville with a demo CD of her LeAnn Rimes and The Chicks covers—and a pitch for Music Row.
“Hi, I’m Taylor, I’m 11, and I want a record deal,” she said.
When industry executives made the terrible mistake of not taking her seriously, the girl who described herself as the most competitive person she knew took matters into her own hands.
She returned home to Pennsylvania, learned the 12-string guitar and practiced until her bleeding fingers had to be taped so she could keep playing. She began writing songs after school and before it was time for homework. She scribbled down unforgettable lyrics on the pages of her spiral-bound notebooks and Kleenex tissues. And she came up with the idea for “Tim McGraw,” the first track on her first album, a song that she’ll be playing for the rest of her life, while she was in freshman math class.
But this is the point I want to focus on:
“I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things,” she said last year in her New York University commencement address. “Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it the most are the people I now hire to work for my company.”
Effortlessness is a myth. One of the most important facts about the world is, I think, this: most people who don’t succeed in life have no idea how hard the people who do succeed work. They are eternally puzzled, wondering why others get ahead, and they don’t. And our culture is so sad, so lame, that we don’t tell young people every hour of every day: if you want to get anywhere, in any field whatsoever, you have to work your ass off. Where is Horatio Alger when we need him?
Yes, I know, Taylor has gone along with a few ignorant liberal tropes, although for the most part she has steered admirably clear of politics. But her life–her astonishing ambition, drive and work ethic–is a vivid reproach to the liberal view of the world, in which all people are equally entitled and it is up to government to parcel out goods–equitably! We can only hope that millions of young people, having learned nothing about what it takes to succeed in life in their public schools, will absorb from Taylor Swift the need to work harder than the average person dreams of, if they want to get ahead.
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