You can’t say all grown-up “love” is like that, because it’s not, just like you can’t say all teenage “love” is the crush-of-the-week.

Also, you say the song’s theme is more “universal” than most of hers, with the implicit idea that anything teen-specific is therefore somehow less relatable to the “general population” (and yes, I put that in quotes, as it’s a concept I’m highly skeptical of) and therefore unlikeable by those people.

What about songs about divorce? Lots of people have never got divorced, guess those are niche songs. And songs about kids? Lots of people don’t have kids either. Or even like kids. Niche songs again. Farmer songs? I know it’s country music, but how many of us ACTUALLY live on a farm? So clearly those can’t appeal outside their target demographic of farm people. War and soldier songs? Well, obviously only soldiers/veterans and their families can possibly relate to those.

I think it’s safe to say that most of the above isn’t true. So why do people write off Taylor so quickly? The fact is, anyone over the age of 13 is or was a teenager, so you’d think it would appeal to much MORE of the population than those farm songs. Grown-up snobbery, that’s what it is.

(And apologies for the late post, I’m kind of out of the loop on all but the most major players in current “country” music. I’d heard Swift’s ‘Tim McGraw’ a few times when it came out, but found the song’s handling of its subject so immature that I pointedly ignored her subsequent singles until it became obvious that I was missing out on an artist of some talent.)