The definitive artistic statement of 2021

You can hear it when the chorus hits.

It’s not often that you can hear a singer smiling while singing, but you can hear it in the "Taylor’s Version" of Love Story. The song has come home.

For those not on the frontline, 2020 was largely about turning inward. That could be reassessing what’s important (“why am I commuting two hours a day just to use my laptop in a different building?”), or reassessing what’s not important (“trousers”).

For Taylor Swift, country megastar and planet-eating pop-Galactus, it was to pursue a new musical direction while simultaneously dragging her beginnings into the future with her. It was about navel-gazing to the point of releasing two albums within six months of each other. New year, new pandemic, new you -- she used the time to release something that reflected where she was now musically, a break with the previous pure pop of 2019’s Lover. 

This might, then, seem like a weird time to release your first albums all over again. Most artists would look at their beginnings, especially if they’ve moved entirely out of the genre they started in, with a sense of cringe. But not Swift. She chose to wrap both ends of her career inside a big cardigan and pull them together like the siblings they are.

She chose to record the definitive artistic statement of 2021.

The audacity of following through with it, based purely on principle and 'fuck you'. What once seemed an impossible Goliath to defeat is now slain, like returning to your hometown with superpowers and showing everyone who's boss. The decision to keep the same players as the original. The decision to ever so-slightly turn up the country elements, but otherwise leave it the same.

It's not a remake, it's the song, again, a twin, free from the clutches of an evil money-grubbing bastard. You can hear that in her voice as the chorus takes off, flying away from the grasping claws of Scooter Braun and whichever private equity scumbag he's sold her masters to now. It's off, up, and away, out of here, into its rightful place with its writer and creator and the band playing on it. It's free.

The song feels light under their fingers. A decade of playing it has made it second nature, but the act of re-recording it has awakened that killer instinct, powering home a version of the song like a seasoned pro showing you how it's done. It's muscular, lean, light, forceful, match-fit.

She clearly doesn’t need the money. Both 2020 releases went to number one and sold a million copies each. Her house has a Wikipedia page. And besides -- the royalties would continue to flow in regardless of which faceless private equity firm owned the masters. 

This was about something else, something more important than money. It was about control, about the self, about what you're willing to put with.

This was about bringing something back to where it rightfully belonged, taking something sullied by business and making it pure again.

Bringing it home, again.

Non-Explodey

Jeff Bezos's trip to space has generated a surprising amount of pieces on his safety or lack thereof whilst journeying to the stars. As if space travel is dangerous.

It'll be fine, though, right? 

Take the first fact of this little adventure. A billionaire, going into space. Rich men trying to defy God is a pretty common thread for disaster films, but space travel is no longer seen by God as much of a slight (since we've done it a bit and there hasn't been at least a directly identifiable line of smiting). So this one is fine. It's not like, I dunno, Icarus, or anything. 

Secondly, the name of the ship is New Shepherd. Sounds good, normal, non-explodey. 

His brother is going with him. Which makes it extra safe. Like JFK Jr and Carolyn taking Lauren along for a light aircraft flight. 

Fourthly, and perhaps the most un-worrying of all, is the inclusion of an auction winner in the crew. The chance of a lifetime! Literally?

And then, to cap off how perfectly safe and smooth this will all be: the presence of Wally Funk, a trained astronaut who never got the chance to go into space, but finally will at the narratively handy age of 83. 

If anything, this crew is made up of such unremarkable people that I can't even imagine how the biopic will play out. Who would they even focus on? The billionaire who climbed too high? The mysterious auction winner who turned out to be evil? The hapless, Billy Carter-esque brother? The 83 year old Space Cowboy?

The answer: none of them. Because this trip is so boring and safe and absolutely nothing could possibly go wrong. 

Isles of wonder

 I remember watching it go out live.

We had planned to move but this cemented it. It was like a ripcord being pulled. 

I remember my wife, then girlfriend, crying, as we watched it at some ungodly hour. 

I can't remember which bit finished her off. Was it the NHS beds? Kenneth Branagh watching the satanic mills shoot up out of the countryside? James Bond?

It all sounds a bit silly on paper, but even now it moves me to tears. Even the BBCs opening bit, flying down the Thames, is magic.

It's a sincere outpouring of love for a country. 

A beacon.

I might go watch it now.