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Fearless Love: An Existentialist Analysis of Taylor Swift’s Fearless

Phillip Kong, Pomona ’24

I. Introduction

        Taylor Swift is a household name in Western pop music, taking the industry by storm for most of the twenty-first century with recognizable melodies about heartbreak and romance. A decorated artist, Swift won her first Grammy Album of the Year in 2010 with Fearless, making her the youngest recipient of the award. The album was touted by critics for its nostalgic reflections on her younger self.1 Additionally, Swift’s lyrics convey intimate confessions about her experience with love.2 Among her reflections are life lessons she learned about freedom and defining herself in relationships. A close reading of Swift's debut album Fearless reveals prominent existentialist undertones. In this paper, I will examine the album through a Sartrean existentialist lens to dissect Swift’s reflections on her romantic life. In Fearless, Swift addresses how one might live in bad faith as a young person in a romantic relationship and the possibility of transitioning to living authentically, offering a positive outlook on overcoming existential anxiety.
        Existentialism, broadly speaking, is an ontological theory concerned with human existence that emphasizes freedom as integral to the human condition.3 French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the first thinkers to adopt explicitly the term in their philosophy.4 In his lecture Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre describes existentialism as “a doctrine that… render[s] human life possible.”5 The foundational premise in Sartre’s lecture is the absence of a predetermined purpose for human existence. That is, unlike a designed artifact such as a spoon – which was made with the intention for it to serve the function of transporting food while eating – human existence was not manufactured with a purpose in mind.6 Further, Sartre argues that humans determine what it means to be human through their own will—by conceiving of themselves after existing—a concept he terms “subjectivity.”7 The combination of these two principles is summarized by Sartre’s motto “existence precedes essence,” as the invention of oneself comes only after their existence.
        However, Sartre recognizes the difficulties of existing subjectively—namely, there is a profound experience of anguish associated with freedom. The feeling of anguish is founded upon a sense of “complete and profound responsibility” on the part of the individual.8 Faced with an infinity of choices, we become overwrought by our own transcendent agency. Coupled with the fact that there is no one but ourselves who is able to choose, we therefore also face inescapable responsibility. Anguish has the potential to manifest whenever humans make a decision. In everyday life, we often follow routines and seek the comfort of objects or concepts that act as “guardrails against anguish.”9 For instance, we initiate and cease our actions based on the temporal movement of a rod on a disc with numbers. For Sartre, it is not uncommon for one to attempt to ignore the feeling of anguish by evading it.10 He termed this phenomenon “bad faith,” when one lives inauthentically and succumbs to societal pressures to deceive themselves of the fact that they are, indeed, free.11
        In this paper, I present a close-reading analysis of the lyrics in Fearless in relation to Sartre’s existentialism.12 In particular, I will focus on the manifestation of existential ideas in romantic relationships of young people—a common theme in Swift’s music beyond Fearless.  Swift models the human journey from anguish to authenticity as it plays out on the micro level in one individual’s journey from adolescence to late early adulthood. Only textual lyrics will be subject to analysis, though the exclusion of visual and musical elements is not intended to suggest that such a perspective cannot be adopted to also examine non-lyrical aspects of the album.

II. Barriers Against Living Authentically

        In the songs “Fifteen” and “You Belong With Me,” Swift discusses common pitfalls in romantic relationships or the pursuit of them. In “Fifteen,” Swift addresses the comfort one can find in narratives of love to evade anguish. In “You Belong With Me,” Swift focuses on how being attached to an individual can lead to feelings of envy and jealousy, which in turn prevent one from living authentically.
        “Fifteen” is centered around the experience of a young student in high school who has an idealized view of romantic relationships. On the track, Swift sings “Hopin' one of those senior boys will wink at you and say / ‘You know, I haven't seen you around before.’” In these lines, Swift addresses an individual’s desire to be noticed by someone else, affirming their existence and importance to them. This mindset is an example of a particular narrative that can act as a guardrail against anguish. In other words, it provides a sense of certainty and identity when “you walk through the doors / … [on] the mornin’ of your very first day.” However, it is not possible to live authentically while simultaneously holding on to this idea as it implies that the essence of one’s high school experience is dependent on others – being noticed by “senior boys.” Furthermore, it relies on the illusion that there is a predetermined facticity surrounding who she is, or ought to be, that requires external recognition. Swift’s lyrics indicate that this predetermined essence was already set before her time in high school even began, rather than freely shaped through her actions.
        Fortunately, though, Swift later suggests a way to shed this way of living in the lines “I've found time can heal most anything…  I didn't know who I was supposed to be / At fifteen.” She affirms the potential for one to feel uncertain at this point in their life, therefore validating the feeling of anguish that is founded upon the encounter of nothingness – that there is not a mode of existence prescribed for humans. There is no sense in which she’s “supposed to be” anyone at all; she is ultimately free to create her own essence through time. She begins the song hiding from the anguishing uncertainty of human life, feeling “like there’s nothing to figure out.” By the end of the song, she realizes that it is only by honestly facing this uncertainty, admitting all that “I didn’t know,” that she can attain authenticity. Additionally, she proposes optimistically that authenticity is achievable with time and maturity and that one’s transcendent freedom is not reliant on others; “but in your life you’ll do things greater than / Dating the boy on the football team.”
        “You Belong With Me” taps into the pervasive feeling of jealousy one experiences in the development toward authenticity. Beauvoir succinctly explains this experience:

A young man wills himself free… This spontaneous liberality which casts him ardently into the world can ally itself to what is commonly called egoism. Often the young man perceives only that aspect of his relationship to others whereby others appear as enemies…The first movement is to hate them.13

On this track, Swift vividly explores this egoism and hatred of the Other through describing a relationship between a person she is romantically interested in and their current partner.14 Some examples include “she's going off about something that you said,” “she doesn't get your humor like I do,” and “she'll never know your story like I do,” revealing that Swift does not believe her love interest should remain in their current relationship. Instead, she believes that they belong with her. This track exemplifies Swift’s feeling of romantic jealousy—that the ability for her existence to be affirmed by the attention of a love interest is under threat by a rival.15 Indeed, Swift behaves as Beauvoir’s metaphorical young man: she “sees in every other…and particularly in those whose existence is asserted with most brilliance, a limit, a condemnation of” herself. The occupation of this individual by a partner that seemingly mistreats them prevents Swift from entering into a relationship with them herself. She feels that “indeed at every moment others are stealing the whole world away from [her].”
        One can see the connection between the emotion of jealousy and existentialism in how one conceives of self-value. McMullin argues that when one feels jealous, believing that they are entitled to the affirmations found in a romantic relationship, they are defining their identity based on the freedom of others – that is, one loses the ability to determine their own self-value – and is hence living inauthentically.16 Indeed, Swift’s lyrics in this track imply that she stands to gain self-value when her love interest notices her in the lines “Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find / That what you're looking for has been here the whole time.”

III. Transition Towards Authenticity

        As the album progresses, Swift turns her attention toward her own experiences with anguish and anxiety—the negative feelings one has when transitioning towards living authentically. In “Tell Me Why” and “That’s the Way I Loved You,” she sings about the moment she discovered that she was condemned to be free, while in “White Horse,” “Breathe,” and “Forever & Always,” she addresses the mood of anxiety and its manifestations in her life.
        Swift discovers that she has ultimate responsibility for her own life in “That’s the Way I Loved You.” She describes an internal conflict over her feelings regarding a past relationship compared to her current one. Her current partner fits every societal standard of a conventionally good partner. They “say everything [she] needs to hear,” “respects [her] space,” and “never makes [her] wait.” Yet, Swift feels torn over the fact that she misses her imperfect yet passionate relationship with her former partner. In particular, she misses “screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain.” Swift is conflicted between her feelings toward her current partner, with whom she is socially expected to feel happy, and her desires for her past relationship. This internal tension is indicative of her awareness that her own desires are distinct from the desires prescribed by societal standards. On a Satresian reading, Swift is experiencing anguish—the frightening feeling that she is free to choose between the two and solely responsible for her choice.
        In “Tell Me Why,” Swift subsequently struggles with the consequences of her decisions as a human with ultimate responsibility. Her transition to authenticity is not linear. According to Sartre, our transcendent freedom entails that we are also painfully responsible for how we fashion ourselves—with no essence preceding our existence.17 In his terms, we are “abandoned,” left to create ourselves and our experiences in life.18 In the beginning of the track, Swift sings “I took a chance, I took a shot,” emphasizing her own responsibility, but shortly launches into a polemic on an individual from a past romantic relationship. When Swift repeats the line “tell me why” in the chorus, she seems to be seeking some form of explanation from that individual so that she can rationalize her painful experience as a consequence of their choices, not her own. She begs “Why do you have to make me feel small / So you can feel whole inside? / Why do you have to put down my dreams / So you're the only thing on my mind?” Here, she attempts to flee from her own freedom, preferring inauthenticity to bearing the full responsibility of her actions.
        In “White Horse,” “Forever & Always,” and “Breathe,” Swift details her experience with anxiety, an encounter with the absurd that is a characteristic experience of the human condition.19 Heidegger describes encountering the absurd as a moment when “beings as a whole become superfluous.”20 In other words, commonplace experiences, from the way we pronounce words to  the organization of sidewalks, are transfigured in our view; we become aware that they are  strikingly contingent, superfluous, absurd. For Sartre, this encounter with absurdity, with all its accompanying anxiety, is precisely an experience of freedom that can propel one towards authenticity. Swift’s account of anxiety surrounds the painful endings of her past relationships. First, in “White Horse,” she sings “That [she’s] not a princess / this ain't a fairytale.” These lines suggest a rejection of idealized romantic narratives that she might have believed in previously. Swift’s preconception of herself in romantic relationships begins to fade away, socially prescribed essences giving way to the nothingness of subjective existence. Secondly, in “Forever & Always,” her expectations of her partner likewise appear absurd. In the lines “Thought I knew you for a minute / now I'm not so sure,” she indicates that despite her partner promising to love her for “forever & always,” their words become meaningless as the relationship fades away.21 Finally, in “Breathe,” Swift acknowledges the fact that anxiety is often not a pleasant feeling, but one that she will be able to move past and grow from. At first, she clings to bad faith, shirking her own absolute freedom and insisting that others define her: “Now I don't know what to be without you around.”  But ultimately, she arrives at an epiphany: there is “no one here to save [her]”; she is ultimately free and responsible to shape her own essence. She repeats that “[she] can’t can't breathe without you, but [she has] to.” While “you” likely refers to a partner in a romantic relationship, it also implicitly symbolizes the feeling of stability and order that comes with being defined by other beings in the world, which is taken away in the mood of anxiety.

IV. Positive Outlook

        Up to this point, Fearless does not appear very optimistic, with glorified ideas about love that sound dangerously naïve and sad heartbreaks that leave Swift unable to breathe. However, the essence of the album is anything but a tragedy. Rather, Swift provides positive messages about overcoming anguish and anxiety in order to live an authentic life. In “You’re Not Sorry” and “Change,” she welcomes her newfound freedom and everything that comes with it. Then, in the title track “Fearless,” she offers a mantra for living authentically.
        Swift conveys a sense of excitement for the future; celebrating the end of her past life and optimistically embracing a world of the unknown. In “You’re Not Sorry,” Swift sings “But you don't have to call anymore / I won't pick up the phone” and “You can tell me that you're sorry / But I don't believe you, baby, like I did before.” These lines stand in stark contrast to her sentiments before, where now she seems much more certain about moving on from external definors of her essence and freeing herself from societally imposed romantic narratives that shackled her in the past. In “Change,” the lines “Because these things will change / These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down” suggest a positive view of anxiety as opposed to the negative one she held before. She sees the shattering of “guardrails” against anguish as an opportunity and the established norms and customs as restraints that preceded her existence. In particular, in the second verse and bridge of the track, she sees it as an opportunity for triumph, singing about fighting and winning against an unnamed challenge. Overall, Swift relays an optimistic message about overcoming anxiety. Echoing the philosophy of Sartre, she suggests that the experience of anxiety provides a chance for reinventing oneself, more than merely an uncomfortable feeling. 
        Finally, in “Fearless,” Swift applies her newfound concept to romantic relationships, giving advice for how one should search for and enter them. On the track, she recounts her feelings during the beginning of a relationship.22 In the bridge, she sings “Well, you stood there with me in the doorway / My hands shake,” suggesting that she still has fears about entering this relationship. These fears may include the mismatch of the relationship to a romantic narrative or the inevitable painful feeling of anxiety that may accompany its ending. However, in the chorus, she sings “And I don't know why, but with you I'd dance / In a storm in my best dress, fearless,” telling the world that although she has fears and reservations, she is able to overcome them and live freely.23 This line is the epitome of a Sartresian mindset—facing the nothingness and accompanying anxiety of existence head-on and taking full responsibility for one’s transcendent freedom. Importantly, she does not say that she is acting from sort of passion or “right feeling.” For Sartre, acting so would actually be living inauthentically because it appeals to some formula that tells the individual how to act.24 Instead, she honors her own freedom, and does not appeal to any external guide for her actions. Swift, in this track, becomes truly existentialist.

V. Conclusion

        Swift’s debut album Fearlesscontends with various issues in existentialism such as anxiety, anguish, and freedom in the context of romantic relationships. She identifies potential obstacles to living authentically, recounts her personal experiences with anguish and anxiety, and offers an optimistic message about how one can overcome challenges towards authentic living. Swift’s appeal to common experiences in romance is one of many reasons why she achieved superstardom status at the beginning of her career, with catchy and melodic music accompanied by lyrics that anyone can find refuge in. Her core message captures her view on how one should find love—by being “Fearless.”

Endnotes
  1. Alexis Petridis, “Pop Review: Taylor Swift: Fearless,” The Guardian, March 6, 2009.
  2. Jody Rosen, “Fearless,” Rolling Stone, October 25, 2019.
  3. Steven Crowell, “Existentialism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, June 9, 2020.
  4. Crowell, “Existentialism.”
  5. Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufmann, (New York, NY: Meridian Books, Inc.: 1956), 288.
  6. Sartre, 290.
  7. Sartre, 291.
  8. Sartre, 292.
  9. Jack Reynolds, Understanding Existentialism(Stocksfield, UK: Acumen, 2007), 72.
  10. Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” 292.
  11. Thomas Flynn, “Jean-Paul Sartre,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, December 5, 2011.
  12. “Fearless by Taylor Swift,” Genius, accessed December 18, 2021, https://genius.com/albums/Taylor-swift/Fearless.
  13. Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity (New York, NY: Open Road Integrated Media, 2018), 36.
  14. The inclusion of an excerpt from Beauvoir is intended to support the Satresian view of existentialism. Sartre’s parallel concept introduces a state of “being-for-others,” where one treats themselves as an object, defined by how the Other looks at them.
  15. Gregory L. White, “A Model of Romantic Jealousy,” Motivation and Emotion 5, no. 4 (1981): 295-310.
  16. Irene Mcmullin, “Love and Entitlement: Sartre and Beauvoir on the Nature of Jealousy,” Hypatia 26, no. 1 (2011): 102-122.
  17. Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” 290.
  18. Sartre, 298.
  19. Crowell, “Existentialism.”
  20. Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to the Task of Thinking (1964) (New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Thought, 2008), 102.
  21. Randy Lewis, “She's Writing Her Future,” Los Angeles Times, October 26, 2008.
  22. Genius, “Fearless by Taylor Swift.”
  23. Genius, “Fearless by Taylor Swift.”
  24. Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” 308.