"Style" Song Meaning

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of the song "Style" from her album 1989.

This song it sounds like two different songs, the chorus and the verses have a different and distinct sound.  This first part of the song sounds like you are driving around with just a drum and synthesizer playing an ostinato, the same musical phrase over and over.  The chorus has a fuller sound incorporating a lot more instruments and a lot more confident tone. It all makes it sound amazing and really defines the two moods of the song.  The verses focus on the story and Taylor's uneasiness in the romance.  The guy comes picks her up at "midnight" and she knows that last time things didn't end well. But her reasoning is ignored, because their relationship is just that good.

Photo courtesy of Taylor Swift

Taylor said at her livestream secret session October 27, 2014 "When I wrote this next song I was thinking about how we have these kind of fashion staples that never quite, we never quite throw them out of our closet, right? No one's going to be like, why are you wearing a little black dress, no on wears that, that was so two years ago. Everybody has that perfect little black dress or for a guy that great white t-shirt that fits you perfect. You may not necessarily wear them all the time, but they're always there in the back of your closet in case you need to go to your old standby, that classic thing that always works.  I was thinking about that, and I then I was thinking about how there are feelings like that, how there are trends that never go out of style and how there are feelings that never go out of style.  Do you see where I'm going with this?"

She compares the love to classic looks like "red lip classic", "long hair/slicked back
White t-shirt" and a "James Dean daydream look in your eye", who coincidentally make the white t shirt famous.

Who was this romance with that never went out of style?

James Dean in a white t-shirt

Just take a look at the name of the song, Style.  It was Harry Styles. 

Taylor Swift told On the Air with Ryan Seacrest, on October 31, 2014, "Well it's basically kind of one of those relationships that's always a bit off. I talk about in another song on the record, a crooked love, which is kind of like never quite synced up right.  The two people are trying to forget each other and they've both been out with other people and they've both tried to forget the other.  It's like, I heard you went out went off with her and you came back and well I've done that too so... I would never have said anything like that on a previous album.  My previous albums have always been sort of like, I was right you were wrong, you did this, it made me feel like this, kind of a sense of sense of right and wrong in a relationship.  What happens when you grow up is you realize that the rules in a relationship are very blurred, and that it gets very complicated very quickly. There's not always a case of who was right and who was wrong."

Taylor Swift and Harry Styles recreating a classic pose 12/11/2012
from Dirty Dancing.  Harry has his white t-shirt on :)

This is exactly how their story went down.  Taylor met Harry at the 2012 Nickelodeon Kids Awards in March 2012.  Then she saw him in the news with other girls, hence the lines, "I say I heard -Oh
That you been out and about/With some other girl".  But while he'd been out with other girls, she'd been out with other guys, Conor Kennedy.   Hence the lines, "I said I've been there too a/Few times".  This happens all the time.  I had friends in high school that liked each other, but never at the same time. They were always dating other people usually at opposite times. They finally got in sync when they went to college.  When they decided they wanted to get married, they waited for a few years, because one of them was out of the country always doing something.  It took a long time, but their love is solid.  There are some things in life that are just classic and will never go out of style, sounds like they had a great time together!

Interestingly enough he wrote a song about Taylor in rebuttal to her album, "Perfect".  Click here for the meaning of that song.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Style".

PS This was the last song written for the record on February 19, 2014.