A leading expert on Taylor Swift and her music has rejected the suggestion from some critics that marriage will negatively affect her songwriting, as the pop megastar prepares to wed her NFL star partner Travis Kelce.
Professor Stephanie Burt, who made headlines in 2024 when she launched a seminar on Swift at Harvard University, also published a book last year titled Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift.
Speaking to The Independent, Professor Burt said Swift was too “inventive” to let being happily in love deprive her of inspiration.
“I think that having the time and space to write the next album on her own terms will positively affect her songwriting – last time she thought she was happily in love, she wrote Lover!, which was a mixed bag but had some great songs, including both love songs and triple helpings of angst,” she pointed out.
“I worry about many things, but not about a decline in her powers. I do think she'd benefit from finding new collaborators and co-writers – finding Aaron Dessner helped so much [on Swift’s albums Folklore and Evermore]. Space and time are what she needs.”
Offering her predictions for the wedding ceremony, which is believed to be taking place on Friday 3 July, Professor Burt said she expected the wedding would be “big and fun”, and that there would be several live performances.
She also responded to the controversy over Swift and Kelce having their wedding at Madison Square Garden on the busiest weekend in one of the most bustling cities in the world.
The decision has raised eyebrows from some, as streets around the venue are closed and a former city official estimated the wedding could cost New Yorkers millions in policing and cleanup expenses.
“She's marrying a guy who wants to go back to the NFL in September, which means he has to be in training in August… which means if she wants a honeymoon, she’s got a fairly short window to do a big wedding,” Professor Burt pointed out.
“I think she had to do it in early July. I also think she really likes [the holiday] 4 July – before the first Trump term, she threw annual July 4th parties at her place in Westerly!”
Burt admitted she was surprised to learn the wedding was being held at Madison Square Garden until she learned about “how good the facilities are at MSG for practical things like crowd control, tunnels, security, and getting people and things in and out of the building without getting mobbed by paparazzi and irrational fans”.
“Given the initial decision to do a big ceremony, MSG seems like a good choice,” she said. “Also a lot of her friends live in NYC: imagine the carbon footprint if 100 of her pals decided to fly to a remote location. I’m glad she’s not doing a destination wedding!”
As for what Swift’s songwriting reveals about her feelings towards love and romance, Professor Burt observed that there was one particular throughline in her work: “Throw yourself into romance if you like, but don't let your romantic partner separate you from the other things that give your life meaning.”
“[Her ideas] have changed over time as she's grown and observed, although she had a good sense of herself from her debut album onwards,” she said. “She's written wonderful songs about how it feels to be in a romance that's a bad idea; superb songs about how and when to get out of that romance; and [others] about how it feels to get seriously romantically involved with a hot guy you can also trust to support you.”
She concluded: “There are greater things to do and more important things to do, for her and for anyone else, than marrying the guy on the football team. Even if you are, literally, marrying the guy on the football team.”
