Taylor Swift song "Florida!!!" glamorizes state beauty rather than political ugliness.
Taylor Swift blew it. I’m talking about her song, “Florida!!!” on her new album, The Tortured Poets Department.
I had high hopes that this would be something more than another angst-ridden breakup postmortem. I imagined that it would define our state in a similar way that Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville” defined the Florida Keys.
I didn’t expect Swift to be excessively jolly or carefree. Rhapsodizing about blowing out a flip-flop is not her vibe.
But she led us on with those three exclamation points. Swift is not an abuser of exclamation points in the naming of her song. So, three exclamation points hinted at something special, only to end up like this:
I need to forget, so take me to Florida
I've got some regrets, I'll bury them in Florida
Tell me I'm despicable, say it's unforgivable
What a crush, what a rush, f— me up Florida
Oh, no. Another breakup song.
Also, that end-of-the-line motif for Florida has been flogged to death. At this point, calling Florida a haven for people running away from something is like complaining about the snowbirds.
It’s about as overworked as the proverbial alligator in the swimming pool, or the road-rage driver on I-95. She might as well have written a song called “It’s the Humidity” or “Too Many Bugs on the Windshield.”
The song has the obligatory hurricane reference, which serves as yet another opportunity for morose self-reflection.
A hurricane with my name, when it came
I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away
Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine
Well, me and my ghosts, we had a hell of a time
There are some lines about cheating husbands, and “friends who smell like weed or little babies.”
But there’s nothing authentically Florida here. There are no Waffle Houses in this song. And there’s no line about too many mangoes and not enough pickleball courts.
And the affordability crisis in Florida just gets one verse:
Little did you know
Your home's really only a town you're just a guest in
So you work your life away
Just to pay for a timeshare down in Destin
When the song titles of this new album were released in February, I wrote a column wondering if the song “Florida!!!” would be one about the state’s importance in the coming national election.
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Florida is generally considered a Republican-leaning state now because there are about 5.1 million registered Republicans and 4.3 million registered Democrats.
But the state also has 3.5 million registered voters with no party affiliation and millions, particularly young adults, who are eligible to vote but don’t. Nearly one in four registered voters in Florida didn’t vote in the last presidential election.
And issues, in particular the state’s new six-week abortion ban, and an abortion amendment on the November ballot, could scramble the political order in November.
I wondered if maybe Swift would be telling her 354 million social media followers how Florida could be a pivotal state in the presidential election.
All they had to do was take the time to vote. That’s why Florida Democrats decided to have voter registration drives this month to coincide with the release of the album.
But now that “Florida!!!” is out, it’s anything but a call to action.
“Florida, is one hell of a drug,” Swift sings. “Florida, go on, f— me up.”
Oh, well. Nevermind.
Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the Gannett Newspapers chain.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Taylor Swift song "Florida!!!" is an ode to paradise, not the polls.
