Today (January 31) marks the release of Taylor Swift’s Netflix documentary Miss Americana. Today also brings a new Swift single in conjunction with the film, “Only The Young.” On the upbeat and optimistic song, Swift shares a hopeful message about young people taking control of the political process. She sings on the opening verse, “The game was rigged, the ref got tricked / The wrong ones think they’re right / You were outnumbered — this time.”
Swift spoke about the track in a recent Variety interview, saying:
“I wrote it after the midterm elections, when there were so many young people who rallied for their candidate, whether it was a senator or congressman or congresswoman. It was hard to see so many people feel like they had canvassed and done everything and tried so hard. I saw a lot of young people’s hopes dashed. And I found that to be particularly tragic, because young people are the people who feel the worst effects of gun violence, and student loans and trying to figure out how to start their lives and how to pay their bills, and climate change, and are we going to war — all these horrific situations that we find ourselves facing right now.”
She continued, “I was really upset about Tennessee going the way that it did, obviously. And so I just wanted to write a song about it. I didn’t know where it would end up. But I did think that it would be better for it to come out at a time that it could maybe hopefully stoke some fires politically and maybe engage younger people to form their own views, break away from the pack, and not feel like they need to vote exactly the same way that people in their town are voting.”
Listen to “Only The Young” above.
