搬運(yùn)自：微信公眾號(hào)【評(píng)論搬一堆】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語(yǔ)原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：Joonly EC

審譯：Emma.Z

排版：SpencerC

Taylor Swift’s self-titled 2006 debut arrived at a fortuitous moment for young women in country music, particularly those with crossover ambitions. The beers-and-trucks bro-country grip of Florida Georgia Line and their ilk was a few years away from fully tightening; Carrie Underwood had won the 2005 season of?American Idol; and?the Dixie Chicks’ defiant “Not Ready to Make Nice” and?Sugarland?member Jennifer Nettles’ syrupy?Bon Jovi?duet “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” were making inroads into Top 40 radio (the Chicks’ anti-George W. Bush stance had gotten them kicked out of country rotation).

2006年泰勒發(fā)布了自己的同名首專(zhuān)，盡管那時(shí)還年紀(jì)輕輕，但這個(gè)時(shí)候恰巧對(duì)于鄉(xiāng)村音樂(lè)的年輕女性來(lái)說(shuō)是個(gè)充滿(mǎn)機(jī)遇的一年，特別是對(duì)那些有跨界野心的音樂(lè)人來(lái)說(shuō)。喜歡啤酒卡車(chē)的兄弟鄉(xiāng)村組合Florida Georgia Line在這時(shí)候還差幾年才出道；Carrie Underwood 才在2005年奪得了美國(guó)偶像的桂冠；Dixie Chicks的“Not Ready to Make Nice（還沒(méi)準(zhǔn)備示好）”和Sugarland的成員Jennifer Nettle甜膩的Bon Jovi的個(gè)人首支單曲“Who Says You Can ' t Go Home（誰(shuí)說(shuō)你不能回家）”進(jìn)入了前40名電臺(tái)( Dixie Chicks 反對(duì)George W. Bush的立場(chǎng)讓他們被淘汰出了國(guó)家電臺(tái))。

The 16-year-old Swift crash-landed into this landscape with “Tim McGraw,” a?saudade-drenched mid-tempo ballad that’s as much a love letter to music’s power as it is to a soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend leaving for college. Swift’s quivering low soprano made the lyrical details—her “l(fā)ittle black dress,” the stalled-out Chevy truck, “the moon like a spotlight on the lake”—hit harder, and showcased her ability to make diaristic songs universally relatable. You can track the song’s quiet hope (“When you think Tim McGraw/I hope you think my favorite song”) all the way to?Reputation?closer “New Year’s Day,” while its clear-eyed view of time’s passage is reflected in?1989’s “Clean.” “I love writing songs because I love preserving memories, like putting a picture frame around a feeling you once had,” she?wrote in?Elle?earlier this year, and “McGraw” shows how essential that ideal has been to her work since the beginning.

16歲的Swift 隨著Tim McGraw闖入了這片樂(lè)土，這是一首充滿(mǎn)saudad風(fēng)格的中速民謠，既是一封寫(xiě)給音樂(lè)力量的情書(shū)，也是寫(xiě)給她即將上大學(xué)的前男友的。Swift 顫顫巍巍的低沉女高音使她的抒情細(xì)節(jié)——她的“小黑裙”、堆疊的雪佛蘭卡車(chē)、“月亮像湖上的聚光燈”——更受歡迎，并展示了她的能力，使日記歌曲普遍相關(guān)。你可以追蹤這首歌安靜的希望(“當(dāng)你想起Tim McGraw/我希望你想起我最喜歡的那首歌”)，一路到“New Year’s Day(除夕夜)”，而它對(duì)時(shí)間流逝的清晰看法反映在《1989》的“Clean”中。“我喜歡寫(xiě)歌，因?yàn)槲蚁矚g保留記憶，就像在你曾經(jīng)有過(guò)的感悟周?chē)乓粋€(gè)相框，”她今年早些時(shí)候在《Elle》雜志上寫(xiě)道。

Two years earlier, her family had left Wyomissing, Pennsylvania and moved to Nashville in support of their firstborn child's teenage country-star dreams.?Taylor Swift?showed someone who had been honing her craft since her preteen years, meticulously turning her experiences with boys and with her girlfriends into country songs that reflected the lives of her peers, whom she connected with via MySpace. (“Every single one of the guys that I’ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans,” she told?The New York Times?in 2008.) MySpace would morph into?Tumblr?and?Instagram Live, but the impulse would remain the same.

兩年前，她的家人離開(kāi)了賓夕法尼亞州的懷奧米辛，搬到了納什維爾，以支持他們第一個(gè)孩子的青春鄉(xiāng)村明星夢(mèng)。Taylor Swift展示了一個(gè)從青春期前就開(kāi)始磨練技藝的形象，她一絲不茍地將自己與男孩和女友的經(jīng)歷變成了反映同齡人生活的鄉(xiāng)村歌曲，她通過(guò)MySpace與這些同齡人建立了聯(lián)系。(2008年，她對(duì)《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》說(shuō)，“被我寫(xiě)過(guò)歌的每一個(gè)人都被我的粉絲在MySpace上找到了?！?霉霉與粉絲交流的方式從MySpace演變成了Tumblr和Instagram Live，但她的創(chuàng)作動(dòng)力從沒(méi)改變。

The album turned out to be a solid, spunky-yet-reflective country record told squarely from the teenage perspective, as opposed to the “can you believe someone so young sounds like?that” packaging that weighed down former teen sensations like LeAnn Rimes. While?Taylor Swift’s chief genre signifiers, like fiddles and vocal twang, are rooted in ’00s Nashville tropes, the influence of millennial teen pop bubbles up in the bouncy music and in ripped-from-the-LiveJournal lyrics like the cheerily insouciant chorus of “Our Song” (“Our song is the slamming screen door/Sneakin’ out late, tapping on your window”). “Picture to Burn” is a descendant of JoJo’s “Leave (Get Out),” given a Southern-fried twist by Swift’s drawled asides (“alla yer best freeends”), her mockery of the dude’s “stupid old pickup truck you never let me drive,” and the plunking banjo. (“Picture to Burn” also showed that she was learning to hone her poison pen: In the original version’s first verse, she threatened to tell her friends the guy who’d wronged her was gay, a line she dropped from live performances shortly after?Taylor Swift’s release. The album version followed suit.)

事實(shí)證明，這張專(zhuān)輯是一個(gè)堅(jiān)定的、充滿(mǎn)活力且值得回味的鄉(xiāng)村唱片，直接從青少年的角度講述，而不是“你能相信一個(gè)如此年輕的人唱出這種歌嗎”的早熟包裝、壓下了像LeAnn Rimes的少年感。同時(shí)Taylor Swift 的主要特征:小提琴和直言不諱的鼻音，扎根于00年代納什維爾的比喻，千禧年的青少年流行樂(lè)正在崛起，這種音樂(lè)的影響是脫離LiveJournal（交友網(wǎng)站）的，快活的音樂(lè)和歌詞一樣漫不經(jīng)心地合唱著“Our Song ”(“我們的歌是拉上紗門(mén)/半夜溜出房門(mén)/輕敲你的窗子”)?！癙icture to Burn”是JoJo的“Leave (Get Out)”的后續(xù)，Swift慢吞吞吐露的旁白以及模仿南方的口音(“真主安拉你最好的自由”)，用來(lái)嘲笑“你從來(lái)不讓我開(kāi)的那輛愚蠢的舊皮卡”中的“你”，以及砰砰作響的班卓聲。(“Picture to Burn”也顯示出她正在學(xué)習(xí)磨練自己的毒舌:在原版的第一節(jié)中，她威脅對(duì)方說(shuō)要向朋友們告密——那個(gè)曾經(jīng)傷害過(guò)她的男人是同性戀，這句話是她在專(zhuān)輯發(fā)布后不久的現(xiàn)場(chǎng)表演中說(shuō)的。專(zhuān)輯的版本也是如此。)

“Teardrops on My Guitar,” a longing ballad about an out-of-reach crush, presaged Swift’s eventual embrace of pop; in early 2008, her now-former label Big Machine released a “pop version” that added echo to her voice and a mid-tempo beat, dropping the weepy slide guitar that doubled as a realization of the song’s title. While Swift was hardly alone in reworking country songs for the “hits you can play at work” crowd, the ease with which “Teardrops” translated to straight pop showed that her deft melodic touch and conversational way with deeply felt emotions could scale to the widest possible audience. Today, her production takes its cue from current trends, and her subjects don’t need to be identified via online fishing expeditions, but her detailed lyrics and canny worldview were there from the start.

“Teardrops on My Guitar（淚滴琴弦)”是一首充滿(mǎn)渴望的民謠，講述的是一個(gè)遙不可及的迷戀，也預(yù)示著Swift最終會(huì)擁抱流行;2008年初，她的前廠牌Big Machine發(fā)布了一個(gè)“流行版”的TMG，增加了她的聲音和中速節(jié)拍，放棄了哭泣的滑蓋吉他，這首歌的名字也變成了現(xiàn)實(shí)。雖然霉霉并不是唯一一個(gè)為“你可以在工作中播放熱門(mén)歌曲”群體翻唱鄉(xiāng)村歌曲的人，但“Teardrops”翻譯成通俗易懂的流行歌曲所表現(xiàn)出的輕松自如表明：她嫻熟的旋律觸感和飽含深情的對(duì)話方式能夠吸引盡可能多的觀眾。如今，她的作品從當(dāng)前的流行趨勢(shì)中尋找靈感，她的主題不需要通過(guò)網(wǎng)上釣魚(yú)來(lái)確定，但她細(xì)膩的歌詞和敏銳的世界觀從一開(kāi)始就存在。

Back then, though,?she had doubters. An Associated Press report on her early success opened with sneering from a Nashville bigwig: “Tell her to get back in school and come back and see me when she’s 18, and bring her parents,” manager and promoter Jerry Bentley scoffed. That his biggest client was Lee Greenwood, the man behind the hoary “God Bless the USA,” is almost too delicious; that the piece quoting him found his dismissals worthy of the story’s opening lines is?depressing. But Swift showed—and her songs’ subjects learned over and over again—that she’d always get the last word.

盡管在那個(gè)時(shí)候，也有人不相信她。美聯(lián)社(Associated Press)一篇關(guān)于她早期成功的報(bào)道以納什維爾一位大人物的冷嘲熱諷開(kāi)場(chǎng):“告訴她回到學(xué)校，18歲時(shí)再來(lái)看我，帶她的父母來(lái)” 經(jīng)理兼推廣人Jerry Bentley如此嘲笑道。他最大的客戶(hù)是老歌“God Bless the USA(天佑美利堅(jiān))”背后的Lee Greenwood，也是因此他才敢如此狂妄自大；引用他的話的那篇文章認(rèn)為他被解雇的原因與故事開(kāi)頭的幾句話十分匹配。但是Swift用歌曲的成就一次又一次地證明了——最后還得她說(shuō)了算。