Wicklow Has A Swift One

That’s Bray, right…?

aving somehow morphed from a teenage Shania Twain into a modern-day Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift is one of today’s biggest music stars.

And her latest album, Midnights, just went and broke Spotify’s record for most streams in one day to prove it.

Annoyingly, Spotify refuse to put a number to how many streams that was, but, let’s say it was at least 2.6 gazillion. Which, for an album all about “13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”, means Taylor’s 13th album is far from a sleeper hit.

That this “journey through terrors and sweet dreams” contains a reference to Wicklow is what grabbed our attention though.

Currently dating English actor (and now co-songwriter) Joe Alwyns, in the album’s penultimate track, Sweet Nothing, Taylor laments…

I spy with my little tired eye
Tiny as a firefly, a pebble
That we picked up last July
Down deep inside your pocket
We almost forgot it
Does it ever miss Wicklow sometimes?

Bada-BOOM! The woman has stolen a pebble from one of our beaches. We have a court case. If everyone can just go check their nearest beach for any missing pebbles, we’ll get our ambience-chasing lawyers locked and loaded.

Co-written largely with her “co-pilot” Jack Antonoff (of so-so band Bleachers), Midnights is a step away from the indie folk of Swift’s last wo albums, Folklore and Evermore, to the more traditional electronica and synth-pop sound that peaked for Swift with 2014’s 1989. Meanwhile, a very public ownership dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun over the masters of her back catalog, resulted in the singer re-recording that back catalog from November 2020 onwards, adding the tag ‘Taylor’s Version’ to the titles.

Which is a pretty ballsy move.

Is it any wonder the woman keeps breaking all kinds of records all over the globe, and winning all kinds of awards.

But none of those glittering gongs are likely to mean as much as that pebble from a Wicklow beach.

Which means the court case is going to be electric…