New York Series: Symbolizing Change in Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York”

Taylor Swift is unquestionably one of the biggest artists in the world. Her most recent album, Midnights, sold over 1 million units in its first week and tickets to her Eras Tour are virtually impossible to get. One fact that even the most casual Swiftie knows, however, is Swift’s love for New York City, which she shows in her song “Welcome to New York.”

Transition to Pop

Swift cited her move to the city as the inspiration behind her 2014 album 1989. This is seen with the opening track. The upbeat song is the introduction to Swift’s first completely pop album. 1989 came after only experimenting with pop music in her previous country albums.

“With my last album Red, I kind of had one foot in pop and one foot in country, and that’s really no way to walk and get anywhere,” Swift said in a 2014 interview. “If you want to continue to evolve, I think eventually you have to pick a lane, and I just picked the one that felt more natural to me at this point in my life.”

While the pop singles from Red were a success, 1989 was Swift completely jumping into pop music, a big risk. At the time, very few artists successfully transitioned to a completely different genre. Thus, the opening track was incredibly important and needed to match the tone of the album. Swift explained that she chose “Welcome to New York” because the city is such an important part of her life. 

“The inspiration that I found in that city is kind of hard to describe and hard to compare to any other force of inspiration I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Swift said about the song. “It’s like an electric city and I approached moving there with such wide-eyed optimism and sort of saw it as a place of endless potential and possibilities and you can kind of hear that reflected in this music and in this first song especially.”

“Welcome to New York” and Change

Although the song has been criticized for its relatively simple and repetitive lyrics, many listeners fail to realize the more metaphorical meaning behind the song. While it is literally about how great New York City is, Swift also uses the location to symbolize change. 

In the first verse, Swift sings, “Everybody here wanted something more/Searching for a sound we hadn’t heard before.” Here, she observes how New York City is known for being where people move to follow their dreams. One of those people is Swift herself, who previously spoke about how she dreamed about living in the city.

The beginning of the chorus is the repetition of the line, “Welcome to New York, it’s been waitin’ for you.” This invokes the imagery of someone arriving and taking in the view of the city. Moving to New York to chase their dreams can also be seen as a turning point in a person’s life. This parallels Swift’s own turning point in her music career by transitioning from country to pop, something she previously only dreamed about which she also demonstrates in the chorus with the line, “It’s a new soundtrack, I could dance to this beat, beat forevermore.”

Swift additionally uses New York City to symbolize change in her life in the second verse. She sings, “When we first dropped our bags on apartment floors/Took our broken hearts, put them in a drawer.”  In this line, she’s talking about how when she got to the city she left her past behind. In this context, the baggage she’s dropping off is her past country music about old heartbreaks. New York allows Swift to feel free from all of her previous issues.

Juxtaposition of the Bridge

This song is also an example of why Swift is known for her iconic bridges. While it doesn’t have the complicated lyrcism of the bridge of “cardigan,” Swift is able to embody the message of the entire song in four lines: “Like any great love, it keeps you guessing/Like any real love, it’s ever-changing/Like any true love, it drives you crazy/But you know you wouldn’t change anything, anything, anything.” This is the epitome of how Swift uses New York to represent change. However, it also spins the entire idea on its head at the same time.

New York is a great love of her life. Swift personifies the city by describing how, like a person, it can be unpredictable and is always changing. However, while it symbolizes change in the song, the city itself is also a constant because it can’t leave her like a person can. Therefore, Swift is able to write lyrics that show how the city can both symbolize change and be a comforting constant in someone’s life.