Poisoned Souls Start With "That Song"

Do you remember where you were the moment you discovered Rock? Wait! Let's don't categorize it with NASCAR sponsored labels! Rock isn't a sticker. Rock isn't poster. Rock is an attitude. It's what you feel, see or pull from the core of raw earth set on fire by Marshall Amps bathed under six rows of extremely hot stage lights. Rock doesn't just happen...you're pulled in, then expected to find enough air to survive a lifelong journey overtaken by vines eternally connected to Alice In Wonderland style guitar keys and tuners dipped in sweat like a dog marks its territory. So, where were you when you first heard "That Song?" The sliver of soul that can't be easily erased from your rat race. You've become a prisoner to its hook that which scrapes the unprotected inner skin of your throat, thrashing it every time it mysteriously pops onto a set of speakers. For me? I can't shake Hotel California. My "First Time" was outside an IGA store in Billings, Montana. Two girls invited me to an outdoor movie. Terri and Linda grasped those guitar licks like an out of season addiction. That van was Rockin like Cheech and Chong going up in smoke. As did my Teenage dream; sitting in the center of two girls and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I fell asleep on them! I've had my share of "Dumb Luck" tunes as well. Those are the songs only you react to. It doesn't matter how hard you plead to the massive amounts of music fans around you, their reaction is always, "Never heard of it." I love the group April Wine! I pop on Say Hello and the excitement fades to a buzz kill. So I gotta ask... this Taylor Swift that's pretty much taken over your kids reasons for loving music. She writes, plays and sells out arenas like a legend of Rock. What if the whiff of metal one day tore up her insides like yours and mine and without the approval of her legions of fans Taylor Swift located a monkey wrench and tightened down the ship with a full dose of Rock? Would you hang out long enough or has your search for drum thumps and feedback been satisfied by sunsets and sunrises from a different time? The greatest thing about Taylor...she's made Social Media her connection. If Elvis had a Smart Phone or an IPod he would've fired Tom Parker. RollingStone Magazine reports on the evening of the release of her fourth album, Red, Taylor Swift pit-stopped at Manhattan's Skylight West to celebrate her partnership with Target for an exclusive deluxe edition that features three bonus studio cuts, two original demos and an acoustic version of album opener "State of Grace." Throngs of select teenage fans and corporate types mulled about the red-and-white hued space inspecting a dozen booths of Swift's "favorite things," including a candy buffet, photo stations and a CoverGirl makeup bar. Attendees convened at the lip of the main stage in anticipation of the country-pop princess' arrival listening to Red jams, including the sprightly "22" and the Nashville-cured "All Too Well." Following a brief introduction from TV personality Ross Matthews, the milk-voiced star emerged to greet fans who traveled from as far as Australia and Arizona. Sporting a sharp black cocktail dress and a severe fringe, Swift explained that she settled on the title for Red – which is saturated in tales from the romantic brink, including lead single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" – because it captures the breadth of feelings she experienced during the two years she recorded it. "Red, to me, is symbolic of really bold emotions, whether they be love emotions or hurt, anger, frustration, jealousy emotions. On either side, you're feeling the most intense amount of emotion," explained Swift, who wrote 30 to 35 songs for the project. "So these are really intense emotions for my songs, and I thought that would be the perfect title for it. I went to my record label and I was like, 'I want to call my album Red.' They shook their heads and said, 'Target's going to love this.' And here we are!" In the spirit of corporate cozying, Swift fielded questions from Twitter followers, including "What's the one word to describe how you're feeling today?" (Answer: "mystified.") The 22-year-old bopped along to the crunch-pop anthem "Girl at Home" and shed some insight into one of her patented John Doe breakup ballads, "The Moment I Knew." "That song is about the worst birthday party I ever had," she said. "My boyfriend just decided not to show up. And then we broke up. That's the story! It's going to be fine, I'll be OK." Referring to songwriting as her at-home therapy, the bubbly blonde waxed melancholy with the bonus track "Come Back . . . Be Here," a lesson in failing to take your own romantic advice. "It's a song I wrote about a guy that I met, and then you meet someone and then they kind of have to go away, and it's long distance all of a sudden," says Swift, who bemoans her intercontinental fling on the mid-tempo cut. "You're like, come back! Be here! It's something I face constantly." With upcoming appearances on The View and The Late Show with David Letterman, Swift capped the evening with a moment of gratitude. "I didn't think I had a shot at this," she admitted. "But the thing about a song is that it's a little message in a bottle, and you write something and you send it out into the world and maybe, someday, the person that you wrote that about, the person that you feel that about, might hear it. It's kind of romantic."