Taylor Swift, who was born in Pennsylvania, became a Nashville country-pop sensation, and owns a Rhode Island beach house, has been named an “ambassador” for New York City by NYCGO, the city’s marketing and tourism organization. Now, before you endlessly mock this waste of money that could have gone to something important, like adding another giant M&M to M&M’s World in Times Square, know that T-Swift is hip to the lingo of the Big Apple.
Swift: “A corner store that’s open pretty much 24 hours most of the time.”
Translation: A place to buy loosies and stare at gross cats.
Swift: “When you get here…you’ll think, ‘Houston, Texas. Houston Street.’ Incorrect.”
Translation: You can’t afford it, so don’t even bother.
Swift: “The part of your house that’s in front of your door is a lot of time called a porch. Not in New York. Anything that’s basically a stairway entry to a dwelling…”
Translation: You’re not going to feel safe from murderers and rapists until you’re off your stoop and into your crummy apartment building…where a murderer or rapist is waiting for you.
Feel like a NEW F*CKING YORKER yet? You shouldn’t, unless you know the official state song.
Walking through a crowd, the village is aglow
Kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats
Everybody here wanted something more
Searching for a sound we hadn’t heard before
And it saidWelcome to New York!
It’s been waiting for you
Welcome to New York
Welcome to New York
Welcome to New York!
It’s been waiting for you
Yes, the same New York that waited for Swift, she of the $20 million penthouse in Tribeca, where her neighbors include Bethenny Frankel and Gwyneth Paltrow, is there for you, too.
When we first dropped our bags on apartment floors
Unless the next line involves rats or cockroaches the size of bagels, it’s wrong.
Took our broken hearts, put them in a drawer
Everybody here was someone else before
And you can want who you want
Boys and boys and girls and girls
One thing you’re not going to want: bedbugs. But you’re probably going to get it. (A brief aside: Swift’s new album, 1989, is full of songs that you’ll find yourself shame-humming when you’re in the car by yourself, especially “Out of the Woods” and “I Wish You Would,” but “Welcome to New York” is just the worst. It’s a rich person’s fantasy of what New York should be, not what it actually is, a “concrete bung hole where dreams are made up,” to quote Liz Lemon.)
Anyway, congratulations, now you’re an official New Yorker. I’ll see you at the social event of the season, Ryan Seacrest’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with headliner…Taylor Swift.
