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Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Earworm Weekly: Taylor Swift's “Shake It Off” Is My Divorce Anthem

Posted By on Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 3:01 PM

CHRISTOPHER VICTORIO
  • Christopher Victorio
I'm in the middle of getting a divorce. The details aren't important; they manage to be simultaneously lurid and boring to anyone not immediately affected (hint: taxes are involved). But I know I am not alone in having a tendency to construct “soundtracks” for major life events. And so it is that Taylor Swift's “Shake It Off” has become my official divorce anthem. For a while, I deliberately inoculated myself with the song's mildly manic peppiness whenever I got annoyed at one of the endless tiny snags that come with carefully unraveling a 25-year relationship. After a while, I didn't have to actually queue it up on my musical device of choice; my inner ear radio would do it for me. After every mediation session, the ridiculously catchy chorus would repeat itself in my head for hours at a time. Which should have been annoying after a while, but it wasn't. If “Shake It Off” was a person I could date, we would be in rebound relationship heaven right now.

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