I have decided to do my Celebrity/Entertainment section in epistolary form addressed directly to the offending celebrity, who will, of course, never read it. I hereby dub this segment “Missives to the Misguided”. Today’s addressee is teen Pop/Country sensation, Taylor Swift, whose song “Love Story” has caused me countless seconds of grief.
Dear Miss Swift,
I recognise that American public schools are probably more concerned with reducing astronomically high drop-out rates and trying to stop adolescents from reproducing like bunnies than requiring that high school students read Shakespeare, or even, apparently, summaries of Shakespeare. That said, while our crummy education system may be to blame for your apparent failure to read the most famous work of one of the most famous authors of all time, there is no excuse for penning a song invoking the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet without even taking the time to Google the original story. If you had, perhaps you would have read the very first sentence of the Wikipedia article on Romeo and Juliet and realised that they fucking died. Maybe then you would have also realised that your little Love Story has less in common with those famous lovers than you seem to believe, and maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t have written the song (ah, Fates, how you tease me!). This frustrating discrepancy notwithstanding, there are definitely some other major issues with your illiterate lyricism.
“[Y]ou were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles
And my daddy said stay away from Juliet
And I was crying on the staircase
Begging you please don’t go
[Blah, blah, blah...]
So I sneak out to the garden to see you
We keep quiet ’cause we’re dead if they knew”
Although every adolescent in the throes of bunny-love believes that parental disapproval of her tattooed, drug-running boyfriend means THE END OF THE WORLD and, omigod, I will DIE if I cannot see him, the hyperbolic invocation of death in that last line seems especially absurd when juxtaposed with the actual threat of death the famous lovers faced from their beloved’s relatives. Your father is not going to murder your punkass boyfriend. Your virginity is a pretty cheap commodity these days and you’re really not worth the jail time, so quit worrying about it and go back to fucking like the fuzzy little mammals you are.
“‘Cause you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter”
I may have to rescind my harsh words about the public school system, since it appears that they at least presented the titles of famous works to you. I feel obligated to point out that, even if you are averse to actually opening a book, often times the back cover will hold some sort of clue about the contents, which you may want to peruse. Now for a brief quiz. Please check the box if any of the following apply: you are (a) a young, adulterous wife (b) living in a 17th century Puritan Boston village who (c) banged the local pastor and (d) spawned a she-devil child. No? Not sounding familiar? I’m not surprised. I realise that you probably think that likening yourself to a scarlet letter is some sort of highly literary way of drilling in your point that all the universe is conspiring against your pimply, hormone-driven romance with your crack-addicted Romeo, but really it just makes me wish I could spontaneously combust every time your song comes on the radio.
“Romeo save me, they try to tell me how to feel
This love is difficult, but it’s real”
So tell me, what was it like to fuck a Jonas Brother? Did he take his purity ring off first? I’m genuinely curious.
“He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring
And said, marry me Juliet
You’ll never have to be alone
I love you and that’s all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It’s a love story baby just say yes”
Silly Romeo, why didn’t you just ASK Mr. Capulet if you could marry Juliet? Think of all the unnecessary drama you could have saved.
In closing, Miss Swift, I know that reading actual books can be both time-consuming and headache-inducing, but before you pen another atrocious song (set to surprisingly catchy music), please, do me a favour and use Google. Having a second-grade reading comprehension level can hurt: Wikipedia and SparkNotes can help.
Sincerely,
Megan
