MINNEAPOLIS — Taylor Swift's Eras Tour coming to town this week is the biggest, best, most awesome thing to happen to the area since maybe the advent of electricity.
If you don't believe me, just ask any family that feels indebted to Taylor for getting them through the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many of us.
A little context: Remember when families used to consume home entertainment together? Not by choice, of course. There was only one television in the house, and it only had three or four channels to watch. There was only one stereo, too — which only played music you had to physically buy. So kids often had to listen to Mom's or Dad's albums and cassettes or nada.
For this reason, most Gen-Xers can still sing you John Denver songs and discuss various episodes of "The Waltons," even though as kids we were as interested in those entertainment options as Laverne was into Squiggy.
These days, if it weren't for Taylor Swift, my own daughters (now ages 15 and 12) might have trouble remembering who I am.
They wear headphones more often than I wear pants with zippers. They have their own streaming devices for music, movies, shows and games. As much as they can, they consume their entertainment all by themselves when they're home.
So what a godsend it was to have two Taylor Swift documentaries hit the streaming airwaves and bring families together during the COVID pandemic, when we couldn't be anywhere but home.
Even better, with her tour plans put on hold, the pop queen had time to put out two new albums within the span of the quarantine, "Folklore" and "Evermore." She also put out the "Taylor's Version" remakes of two of her best-loved older albums, "Fearless" and "Red" — which she rerecorded as her way of sticking it to a man in the music industry who took advantage of her trust in him. Oh, fer fun!
All these releases spawned listening parties in households where families were exhausted from listening to each other. No one else but Taylor could have done this. Not in this era.
Those TV events were especially bonding. The first one, the Netflix documentary "Miss Americana," was the nearest thing to the Beatles' Ed Sullivan moment for COVID-bound families.
We all sat around the TV — one TV! — and watched it several times. We delighted in the insight into her home life. We sympathized with her struggles for privacy, albeit via the camera that was willingly in her face. We almost got a cat, too, because hers were such rock stars in that movie. And I hate cats.
Oh, and we talked about all the rampant sexism that even a powerhouse megastar like her somehow still faces in the entertainment industry. Or rather, I listened quietly and proudly to the rest of them discussing this (to avoid the oft-heard barb, "I don't need a man to teach me about feminism, Dad!").
Her second TV special, "Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions," wasn't as good but became even more appreciated, probably just because it came later in the pandemic when even "Cobra Kai" passed for quality TV. Or maybe just because it was largely about her music and nothing else.
About that music: Those two all-new albums issued during lockdown, "Folklore" and "Evermore," didn't exactly serve to cheer everyone up. But that turned out to be OK.
We were all hoping for another "1989," an album so upbeat and chipper it could turn a Proud Boy into a Pride parade participant. Instead, in both cases we got Taylor's answer to a Bon Iver record — moody, melancholy, sometimes even mopey, but still with magical melodies.
"Folklore" even included an appearance by Justin "Bon Iver" Vernon himself, whose proximity to the Twin Cities from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, has teenagers and tweens unexpectedly hoping "that weird beard guy" will show up at this week's Eras Tour stops at U.S. Bank Stadium. I know some adult male musicheads who are equally into Taylor and Bon Iver and are hoping for the same thing (shoutout to Kyle and Andy!).
In hindsight, those COVID-era albums' more somber tone probably added to their impact.
My daughters learned what I wouldn't pick up until my 20s, courtesy of miserable sad sacks like Kurt Cobain and Townes Van Zandt: The sadder music somehow lifts you up out of the muck better than the happy stuff.
Obviously, no parent wishes heartache upon their kid. Any parent, however, would gush at the sheer beauty of witnessing their child sing along beautifully to "August," their eyebrows furrowing sadly as they sing about lost moments:
"I can see us lost in the memory / August slipped away into a moment in time / 'Cause it was never mine"
My younger daughter now has a shiny poster in her room emblazoned with one of the lines from the "Folklore" track "Mirrorball," which might be my personal fave:
"I'll show you every version of yourself tonight."
It's a perfect line to hang in our house.
Families experienced every version of each other during the pandemic, the good and the bad. Thanks to Taylor, I got to fully experience the music-fan version of my daughters — and all the creative thinking, the empathy, the drama, the laughter, the cattiness, the gossiping, the poetry, the feminism and the Jake Gyllenhaal trashing that went along with listening to her music together during those trying months.
Maybe now you can see why singing these songs with Swift in person this weekend is such a big deal for some of us. And why some parents are shelling out big money so the whole family can attend (yours truly included; no press comps for me).
The Eras Tour at once signals the end of what will hopefully be the hardest era of our children's lives, what with Taylor being able to perform to 50,000 people again and all. But it's also a testament and payoff to the good that happens when families hang out together and stick together.
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