Tong Family

Thanks to the incredible Walt Mossberg, he’s on Thread and reminded me that I guess I’m a true Swiftie:

My five favorite Taylor Swift albums:

1. Red
2. Speak Now
3. Evermore
4. Folklore
5. 1989

Favorite song: All Too Well (10 minute version)

But there are excellent songs on every one of her albums, since she’s a truly great songwriter.

Walt Mossberg, Thread.net, 2023-07-20

Since Taylor Swift is in town, it got me to thinking about how much music reminds me of the exact time and place when I first heard it. And I have to say I really love Folklore and Evermore because they were done during the Pandemic. It was an incredible time for the planet and my heart goes out to the families of the nearly 7M people who lost their lives (especially to the many people I know who have lost someone).

I will be eternally grateful to the folks at Restart.us, kidmasks.org and covidwa.com who helped me find a way to help people the best I could. You know who you are ????

Song and Images of the Era: long pod studio sessions

There are quite a few things that remind me, particularly of 2020 when it was just so unclear what was going on, but some samples are from the amazing documentaries of Taylor Swift’s folklore: the long and studio sessions. If you haven’t yet, check the whole thing out on Disney Plus. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver starts, the mask, and the whole thing reminds me of how artists, creators, and researchers around the world had to find a way in that long isolation. I don’t know if the story is true, but she started this song with an ex-boyfriend who wrote the piano melody, Joe Alwyn. And of course, folklore won Album of the Year which is well deserved as did Fearless (2008) and 1989 (2014). And it is incredible the entire collaboration was done remotely and she built a home studio to do the recording. Geez and enough for those non-music nerds. But one last note, it is so cool she sent autographed CDs to indie record shops to support them!

As an aside, the first live version ever is pretty incredible and special. Two years later and touring begins again. So amazing

Isolation and what it means

For those of us lucky enough to find a way to isolate and find beauty at the same time, this photo although taken in 2023, at least for me is all about finding some tranquility despite all the chaos

More Music: Bruce Springsteen

Well, what can I say, for some reason, Taylor-time reminds me of the Boss. He’s of course in a different part of the journey in life. More towards the end than the beginning, but after 45 years, I just loved this album which was documented on Apple TV+ in Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You. The film itself is just beautiful with drone shots, the staging and in black and white was just right and the band’s reunion was so poignant. And for me, my favorite was Letter to You which is all about remembering what is important. We were lucky enough to see him and Patti just before the pandemic and got to treasure that memory too.

Crazy Journey: Seattle to Salt Lake City and Back in 48 hours

And finally, the crazy trip in December 2021, get into an electric car, drive 14 hours through three snowstorms and eight charging sessions to finally get to Salt Lake City, meet the incomparable Mayor Erin, the EDCUtah folks at the National Guard Armory to be part of the donation of millions of masks to kids thanks to Jason at FLTR and the many people at DHL who invested so much in people’s safety

Sometimes even in a frozen stop, you just have to stop and suck in the incredible beauty that is all around if you have time to stop and look. Here we are 12 hours into the journey, I think it was -3C, the charger wasn’t working well and then you just turn around and even at a truck stop, the most incredible view…

Final Note: Taylor’s All Too Well

I can’t remember when I heard All Too Well, but Walt is right it is such an amazing song that was re-released in 2022. What an amazing lyricist and 10 minutes feels well just too short…

And for those of you who want the Music Video version, it’s pretty great too

Final Ruminations

Well, a strange post for this blog, but what the heck, better than putting it on some social media site and then having someone else own it? Now back to regular geekdom. Enjoy the day wherever you are.

JetPack AI answers are ok too…

Well, the block below is using the new JetPack AI Assistant, answering “What are the best Taylor Swift albums, and what is her best song?, amazingly it is pretty close to Walt, so maybe he is an AI. Note the JetPack AI has its own block type, so don’t type accept otherwise you will lose the ability to change the tone, etc, but not counting evermore and folklore is the main miss, although I would bet this is the most popular opinion