Love Story

What is, I believe, the biggest hit from America's currently most unavoidable country music wrecker.

We were both young
When I first saw you
I close my eyes
And the flashback starts
I’m standing there
On a balcony in summer air

Amazing songwriting! I feel like I'm right there, on a balcony in summer air.

‘Cause you were Romeo,
I was a scarlet letter
And my daddy said stay away from Juliet
But you were everything to me
I was begging you please don’t go

Does Taylor Swift know what a scarlet letter is? Because aside from making no sense in that context, she randomly mixes in a single reference to another piece of classical literature with her Romeo and Juleit theme. It's like doing a production of MacBeth wherein every character stops for 5 minutes to kill a giant whale. OK< crappy analogy, but I'm still a better writer than Taylor Swift.

Oh, ah, oh
Oh, ah, ah, oh

Easily the most well written part of the song.

Sadly? The most tolerable of the 16 Taylor Swift songs currently on the radio.

That's A Man

Saw a story on the local news last night
About one more struggling single mother
She was talking about how hard it is getting by
With no help, no money, no nothing from the baby's father
Made me think about this guy I know with a wife and a child
Who's working two jobs just to get by

"I heard about this woman who was having a tough time, and it made me think of this man who was having a tough time. What? This song isn't called 'That's A Woman'.

Good Directions

I was sittin' there sellin' turnips on a flatbed truck
Crunchin' on a pork rind when she pulled up
She had to be thinkin' "This is where the rednecks come from"

"This is where rednecks come from" implies that said rednecks go anywhere Miss Hollywood would otherwise see them. I imagine most of the narrators neighbors are born, live and die of congestive heart failure at the age of 43 all within the same zip code.

I knew my old Ford couldn't run her down
She probably didn't like me anyhow
So I watched her disappear in a cloud of dust.

I'm guessing the narrator has a lot of experience in 'running down' out of town women in his pickup, so I'll take his word on this.

She went way up yonder past the caution light
Don't know why, but somethin' felt right
When she stopped in and asked Miss Bell for some of her sweet tea
Mama gave her a big 'ol glass and sent her right back here to me

I knew Mama would giver her a big glass of sweet tea laced with barbiturates...and send her right back here to me!

Thank God for good directions...and turnip greens

And mah skinnin' knife.

Waiting On a Woman

OK, but if I were singing this song, the opening would probably go thusly-

Sittin' on a bench at West Town Mall
He sat down in his overalls and asked me
''You waitin' on a woman?''
I nodded yeah
And then I moved to another bench where random old guys weren't talking to me

I'll unleash it as soon as the Misanthropic Country sub-genre takes off.

Before He Cheats

While justifying utterly ruining all her boyfriends expensive stuff, Carrie Underwood mentions this-

Right now, he's probably buying her some fruity little drink/
cause she can't shoot whiskey...

Oh God yes, the horrid bitch can't drink as much as you. That's the worst thing going on this song. Man, I can't imagine why this guy is cheating on you, you alcoholic psycho.