Taylor Swift talks love, gossip and her 'reputation' in new concert exclusive

Singing sensation talks fans, reputation and the power of gossip in Netflix concert film


Entertainment Desk January 01, 2019
PHOTO:FILE

If you’re a Taylor Swift fan, this one’s for you. The music megastar has dropped her very first concert special on Netflix and what’s more, it features a whole of extra stuff about Swift and well, her ‘reputation.’

The film opens with clips of Swift and people reading headlines about the Grammy-winner, as she performs Ready for It? and I Did Something Bad in Dallas, Texas, reported E! News. Swift reveals this was the 30th show in the area and thanked everyone for coming out.

"You may have heard this little-known fact…tonight is the last night of the US tour and so you decided not only to spend your Saturday night with us but to come here to commemorate the last night of our tour that has meant so much to me," she tells the crowd. "That is such a beautiful thing. I would even say something even more beautiful, it's above beautiful!"

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During a break in performances, Swift reveals the reason why all the audience members are wearing light-up bracelets. "One thing I do know about stadiums is they're just massive places to play and so I wanted to make sure that no matter what, I can see every one of you. So if you're on the top, top deck, last row, and you think I can't see you, that would be incorrect," she says.

"I can see absolutely every person in this stadium and I can see you dancing, I can see you throwing your hands in the air and on top of that, I can hear…it really seems like every single person in this crowd has every word to the songs and is not just singing them but like screaming.”

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She continues, “If I had to take a guess and say the one thing that everyone here has in common, I think it would be that we all like the feeling of finding something real; a real friendship or real love or somebody who really gets you or is really honest with you. That's what we're all looking for in life and what can scare us the most in life.”

Swift then finally addresses her reputation in the music industry which, according to many, could be better. "Having a bad reputation could get in the way of finding real friendship, real love, real acceptance or people you really fit in with. You think, ‘What if they have heard something about me that isn't true, what if they've got these preconceived notions about me that they heard from gossip and then they never want to meet me,” she adds. "And I think that's why some of us, meaning if not most or all of us, are sort of afraid of having a bad reputation because we're so scared of something fake, like gossip, or a rumor.  And so, when it comes down to that fear and, it's just all really delicate, don't you think Dallas?" And so stars the performance of Delicate.

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Later in the show, Swift talks about her songwriting process. "When I write, it's usually me just trying to get past and understand. That was definitely the case when I wrote the next song All Too Well." She also tells the crowd she started playing her older songs at the request of fans. "It's super fun going back and playing songs I haven't played in forever."

All Too Well has two lives in her brain. "One is where this song was born out of catharsis and venting and trying to get over something, understand it and process it," Swift says. "And then there's the life where it went out to the world and you turned it into something completely different. You turned this song into a collage of memories of watching you scream the words to this song or seeing pictures that you post to me of you having written the words of the song in your diary or you showing me your wrist and you have a tattoo of the lyrics to this song underneath your skin..."

Towards the end of the two-hour film, Swift once again addresses and admits, "I don't think we ever imagined we'd be on a stage this big with crowds this incredible. I think this exceeds any kind of daydream."

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