What Taylor Swift's Tim McGraw Means to Me

My favorite song of the moment is "Tim McGraw" by Taylor Swift. I'm not usually a fan of country music, or fresh-faced blonde teenage singers, or teenybopper love ballads, but there's something unique about this song, and about Taylor Swift.

The meaning of the song is straightforward and simple. It's the end of a summer romance. The girl is hoping that whenever he hears Tim McGraw's music, or her favorite song, he thinks about her. It's about that bittersweet kind of romantic relationship that usually only happens when you're very young. Taylor Swift is young, and her songs evoke those feelings of being a teenager in a way that only a fresh, raw memory can. There is no superficial polish to her voice. It sounds untrained, brash, and honest.

For me, "Tim McGraw" takes me back twenty years, to that boy that I met one summer when I was very young. It wasn't Tim McGraw in my case. It was Berlin. Instead of a little black dress or faded blue jeans, it was a pair of pink hi-top shoes and a cheap pair of knock-off Wayfarer sunglasses. Yet the emotions are the same.

When I hear "Tim McGraw," I think of that boy, that day, that one summer. I think of Top Gun, Billy Idol, those tart colored candies they sell in vending machines. I think of splashing in the fountain downtown in my hometown. I think of saying goodbye to him on his grandmother's front porch, knowing that I would probably never see him again, and hoping against hope that I would. It was painful saying goodbye, and it was painful missing him, but suddenly the world was such a better place just because I knew he was in it.