A brief analysis of Blank Space using pop culture lenses.

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Kayla Kosak
Dr. Barton
English 306
15 March 2021
Is She a Nightmare Dressed Like a Daydream: An Analysis of “Blank Space” by Taylor Swift
On October 27, 2014 Taylor Swift dropped, what is known today, as her most
commercially successful album, 1989. The second single off that album, “Blank Space”, spent
seven weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and made Swift the first woman to ever
succeed herself at the number one spot on that chart (Atkinson). This essay uses the musical
perspective to analyze how Swift successfully satirizes the media’s portrayal of her and dating
double standards throughout the 2010s in “Blank Space”.
In Chapter 8 of her textbook, Sellnow describes the “musical perspective” and highlights
music’s importance as an “aesthetic expression” and a form of communication (170). James
Chesebro agrees with her and emphasizes the importance of pop music stating, “As a method for
creating socially shared understandings, popular music is appropriately placed within the
tradition of the discipline of communication…While other modes of communication are more
precise when conveying information regarding physical phenomena, the musical form functions
as one of the essential vehicles for sharing highly personal and esoteric experiences; by virtue of
its use of melody, rhythm, chord structure and progression, instrumentation, and so forth, it is
designed to invoke the emotional state, state of consciousness, or mental state as it is experienced
within the self and others” (116-118). Sellnow explains that we can analyze music using two
main categories: virtual experience (lyrics) and virtual time (music) (173).

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During the early 2010s, Taylor Swift’s career was on a rise, especially after winning
Album of the Year at the Grammys in 2010. As her success increased, so did the media’s
obsession with her personal life. In a 2019 interview with Billboard to celebrate “Blank Space”
as one of the songs of the decade Swift said, “I had more fun writing 'Blank Space' than any song
I'd written before. I had, over time, compiled lists of lyrics, zingers, and potential Twitter
comebacks to criticisms and jokes people had made at my expense. When I finally came up with
the chorus and hook for the song, I just went through that list on my phone and one by one
slotted them into the song. It was the first time I had ever used songwriting as a humorous coping
mechanism for an overly harsh depiction of me in the media, but it wouldn’t be the last.” 1989
was also the first all pop album that Swift had released, allowing for “Blank Space” to “naturally
fit right in on top 40 radio without any explanation” and reach a larger audience than ever before.
(Atkinson).
Swift’s lyrics are arguably the strongest part of her work and “Blank Space” is no
exception. Swift uses tragic lyrics, or lyrics that focus on “the protagonist’s self-consummation”
(Sellnow, 175), to paint a picture of the perceived version of herself in relationships. Examples
include lines like “I can make the bad guys good for a weekend” and “Cause, darling, I’m a
nightmare dressed like a daydream”. Swift’s lyrics in the chorus of this song exaggerate and
point out the double standard for women who are dating around, stating “So it's gonna be
forever/ Or it's gonna go down in flames/ You can tell me when it's over/ If the high was worth
the pain/ Got a long list of ex-lovers/ They'll tell you I'm insane/ 'Cause you know I love the
players/ And you love the game/ 'Cause we're young and we're reckless/ We'll take this way too
far/ It'll leave you breathless/ Or with a nasty scar/ Got a long list of ex-lovers/ They'll tell you
I'm insane/ But I've got a blank space, baby/And I'll write your name”. In the same 2019

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interview with Billboard, Swift states "In reality, I was a 24-year-old young woman who was
meeting people and dating the way everyone should be allowed to, but because I’m also a
songwriter and in the public eye (and because this was five years ago when the conversation
around double standards against women was less of a mainstream argument), people were
allowed to shame me, joke about me, and make me feel like I was doing something wrong. I
used 'Blank Space' as a way to show people that I knew what they were saying, and that the way
they were portraying me (a serial man eater, volatile, dramatic, petulant, immature) wasn’t
breaking me...it was actually an inspiring character they had drawn up.”
According to Alexa Paynter, “Double standards occur when values regarding appropriate
behavior are applied differently to groups based on their status. With regards to gender, double
standards have usually been discussed in relation to the different standards regarding sexuality
applied to women and men. Whereas sexual initiative and sexual activity have traditionally been
disapproved in women, who risk being labeled as ‘sluts’, these same behaviors have been
considered acceptable or even desirable in men, who might be praised as ‘studs’” (393). The
portrayal of women being crazy, ruthless, or less desirable for dating around is very common in
our society as those are commonly tied to the idea of a woman being a “slut”. “An irony of
dominant constructions of female sexuality is that even though women are supposed to have
relatively insignificant sexual drives, their sexual behavior carries significant weight in
assessments of their character and worth. The imagined virtue of virgins and deviance of sluts
are assumed to be proxies for qualities beyond the sexual domain. Gendered sexual statuses are
also thoroughly raced and classed, meant to reflect and reinforce one’s location in existing social
hierarches” (Bay-Cheng, 700). Swift’s exaggeration in “Blank Space” is meant to make listeners
realize how ridiculous they sound by describing women that way.

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Swift not only masters the lyrical satire, but also applies congruity within the virtual time
and virtual experience in “Blank Space”. Mark Booth argues how important it is to fit lyrics to
music stating, “Lyrics are of course subject to the pressure of their accompaniment all the time.
They are reinforced, accented, blurred, belied, inspired to declare meanings not entirely their
own, and the interplay of the two arts makes the life of a song” (242). The production of the
music for “Blank Space” draws inspiration from 80s synth-pop and has an over-the-top drum
beat to match the over-the-top nature of the lyrics. There is a sound of a golf club hitting a metal
pole sampled into the piece, which was highlighted during Swift’s 1989 World Tour when she
would sample it live herself during every performance of “Blank Space”, to add to the oddity of
the music. Swift even adds the sound of a pen clicking during the last line of the song, to tie into
the lyrics, “I’ve got a blank space, baby/And I’ll write your name”.
While media outlets at the time insisted that “Blank Space” was Swift’s way of “being in
on the joke”, Billboard writer Katie Atkinson points out, “in hindsight, it feels like ‘Blank Space’
rewrote the joke entirely, making clear how ludicrous the pop star's public persona was and re-
routing the focus back to her music.” It is well accepted throughout pop culture, especially in the
Taylor Swift fandom, that Swift was completely successful in satirizing what the media was
saying about her and her dating life. The musical perspective perfectly shows how Swift’s virtual
experience and time work together to provide the congruity of a satirical hit. Swift describes
“Blank Space” as “turning a scarlet letter into a fashion accessory” and insisted “…if you don’t
get the joke, you don’t deserve to get the joke." This essay was written so you can get the joke.

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Works Cited
Atkinson, Katie. “Songs That Defined the Decade: Taylor Swift's 'Blank Space'.” Billboard,
Billboard, 21 Nov. 2019, www.billboard.com/articles/news/songs-that-defined-the-
decade/8544243/taylor-swift-blank-space-songs-that-defined-the-decade.
Bay-Cheng, Laina Y., et al. “Agents, Virgins, Sluts, and Losers: The Sexual Typecasting of
Young Heterosexual Women.” Sex Roles, vol. 79, no. 11, Springer US, 2018, pp. 699–714,
doi:10.1007/s11199-018-0907-7.
Booth, Mark W. “The Art of Words in Songs.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 62, no. 3,
Taylor & Francis Group, 1976, pp. 242–49, doi:10.1080/00335637609383338.
Chesebro, James W., et al. “Popular Music as a Mode of Communication, 1955-1982.” Critical
Studies in Mass Communication, vol. 2, no. 2, Taylor & Francis Group, 1985, pp. 115–35,
doi:10.1080/15295038509360071.
Paynter, Alexa, and Campbell Leaper. “Heterosexual Dating Double Standards in
Undergraduate Women and Men.” Sex Roles, vol. 75, no. 7-8, Springer, 2016, pp. 393–
406, doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0628-8.
Sellnow, Deanna D. “A Musical Perspective: The Illusion of Life.” The Rhetorical Power of
Popular Culture: Considering Mediated Texts, by Deanna D. Sellnow, SAGE, 2014, pp.
169–199.
Swift, Taylor. “Blank Space”. 1989. Big Machine Records. 2014. CD.