This song came out right around the time when the tide of Taylor Swift was turning for me – I love everything about it. Prickly, defiant, and slightly-psycho – all the things that I once embodied, and reserve the right to embody again – on beautiful display in revenge fantasy form. Behind the glittering curtain we go, into the Blank Space we’ve all occupied or created for someone, the expanse of insanity involved in investing so wholly in someone else, going all-in and giving it all up.
Nice to meet you, where you been?
I could show you incredible things
Magic, madness, heaven, sin
Saw you there and I thought
“Oh, my God, look at that face”
“You look like my next mistake”
Love’s a game, wanna play?
I CAN MAKE THE BAD GUYS GOOD FOR A WEEKEND…
Loves makes people do crazy things. That which we sometimes confuse as love sometimes makes people do worse. Lust, obsession, and those insensible crushes of our youth – they bring out the worst impulses, turning us into people we wouldn’t recognize in times of peace and reason. This song reminds me of those lovely emotional roller-coasters, and I look back at them almost fondly, in the distance and rare instance of some semblance of personal growth. It’s good to keep such memories filed away so as to ward off any future dips in sanity. We’re all just a few bad decisions away from falling back into the abyss, or slipping into the madness of rage touched on in this piece of pop perfection.
So it’s gonna be forever
Or it’s gonna go down in flames
You can tell me when it’s over
If the high was worth the pain
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They’ll tell you I’m insane
‘Cause you know I love the players
And you love the game
‘Cause we’re young and we’re reckless
We’ll take this way too far
It’ll leave you breathless
Or with a nasty scar
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They’ll tell you I’m insane
But I’ve got a blank space, baby
And I’ll write your name
The video’s a masterpiece, the kind of thing Madonna once did best – stylized and nuanced, pretty yet packed with considerable punch – and I’ve always been a sucker for those times when beautiful clothes and gorgeous settings provide the backdrop and wardrobe for some serious fucking-over of those who dared to do one wrong. These days I don’t think about such revenge tactics – there are better ways to deal with being wronged. But it’s still fun to fantasize…
Darling I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream…
