drop no.8 ~ november 2023
On YouTube milestones and how I started making my own music thanks to Taylor Swift.
2023 is the year that I finally committed to putting out regular content on YouTube. And there were some returns! Yeah, I didn’t get thousands of new subscribers but I was stalling around 150 for years (I started my channel in 2012) and right now, I’m about 10 away from 500. It will be wonderful if I can get there by the end of the year. More importantly, I now have a small group of regular commenters. “Words of affirmation” is my love language so I cherish these supportive comments. They motivate me to continue uploading on an almost weekly basis.
I’m dedicating this post to Miss Americana because it’s undoubtedly my Taylor Swift covers that have helped grow my channel. Not only that, if it weren’t for Taylor, I probably wouldn’t have started writing my own songs.
I first heard “Love Story” when I was 11. It was nighttime, I don’t remember the reason why but I was feeling hopeless and was crying myself to sleep while listening to the radio. Then this song came on and something about the bridge filled me with hope. I was further inspired when I looked up the artist who sang the song and found out she also wrote it.
At that point, I didn’t think that writing your own music was something a young girl could do. I started writing all my feelings into poems. A few months later, my first poem was published in a major national newspaper.
I have since written more poems. Some of those poems became lyrics for songs, some of those songs got recorded, some of those recordings are now out in the world.
Earlier this month, I watched The Eras Tour at the cinema with a couple of friends, one of whom was a casual fan. Between the many tweens screaming out the lyrics and dancing along to the choreography and that friend saying watching Taylor perform opened up her worldview, it’s incredible to see how far Taylor has come and how much she continues to inspire the world.
{ 3 drops of golden sound }
This was going to be a “favourite Taylor Swift songs” segment but she doesn’t need the extra publicity so instead, I’m going to share the 3 covers that I’m proudest of. (I’ve covered over 50 of her songs at this point.)
“august”
Album: folklore (2020)
More favourite tracks: “the last great american dynasty”, “seven”, “my tears ricochet”, “exile”
I should do more loop covers, especially now that I have a new octave pedal. This is the only song I’ve covered from folklore so far but I do intend to cover more from this album and evermore one day. The lyric “live for the hope of it all” has become a positive mantra for me recently.
“Sweet Nothing”
Album: Midnights (2022)
More favourite tracks: “Lavender Haze”, “Anti-Hero”, “You’re On Your Own, Kid”, “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”
I do love this album, it somehow feels like an older, wiser version of 1989. I’m quite proud of the build-up in this arrangement. Similar to the original, I started off minimal and intimate, then layering more harmonies before ending it similar to how we started.
“The Lucky One”
Album: Red (Taylor’s Version) (2021)
More favourite tracks: “Nothing New”, “Begin Again”, “Starlight”, “Holy Ground”
The year is 2021 and I finally created a TikTok account so that I can do “research for work”. It was also the year Taylor started releasing her re-recordings and I decided it would be cool to put my music and newly developed video editing skills to the test by posting 13 songs from Red every day until the release of Taylor’s Version (I’ve made it my mission to cover 13 songs from each album she’s released since). I’d been having fun dressing up to film these covers and had been inspired by transitions I saw on TikTok. The storytelling in this song is incredible and I think it’s criminal it doesn’t have a music video. So I made my own.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading and I hope you’ll be here again at the end of the year. Spot Taylor in this blurry picture I took at the 2014 RED Tour in Kuala Lumpur! 17-year-old me took the “no video recording” rule on her ticket very seriously and also blogged very enthusiastically about the whole experience.
LoL (Lots of Love),
rae