Taylor Swift is telling me a story, and when Taylor Swift tells you a story, you listen, because you know it’s going to be good—not only because she’s had an extraordinary life, but because she’s an extraordinary storyteller. This one is about a time she got her heart broken, although not in the way you might expect.

Taylor Swift 正在给我讲一个故事。当 Taylor Swift 给你讲故事时，你会认真听，因为你知道这一定会很精彩——不仅因为她的人生非同寻常，也因为她是位出色的说书人。这个故事讲的是她曾经心碎的一次经历，不过并不是你所预料的那种。

She was 17, she says, and she had booked the biggest opportunity of her life so far—a highly coveted slot opening for country superstar Kenny Chesney on tour. “This was going to change my career,” she remembers. “I was so excited.” But a couple weeks later, Swift arrived home to find her mother Andrea sitting on the front steps of their house. “She was weeping,” Swift says. “Her head was in her hands as if there had been a family emergency.” Through sobs, Andrea told her daughter that Chesney’s tour had been sponsored by a beer company. Taylor was too young to join. “I was devastated,” Swift says.

她说，当时她只有17岁，却拿到了迄今为止人生中最大的机会——在乡村音乐巨星 Kenny Chesney 的巡演中担任开场嘉宾，这个席位一位难求。她回忆说：“这将改变我的事业。我当时激动极了。”但几周后，Swift 回到家，发现母亲 Andrea 坐在家门前台阶上。“她在哭，”Swift 说，“把头埋在手里，像是家里出了什么紧急情况。”Andrea 抽泣着告诉女儿，Chesney 的巡演由一家啤酒公司赞助，而 Taylor 年龄太小，不能加入。“我当时崩溃了，”Swift 说。

But some months later, at Swift’s 18th birthday party, she saw Chesney’s promoter. He handed her a card from Chesney that read, as Swift recalls, “I’m sorry that you couldn’t come on the tour, so I wanted to make it up to you.” With the note was a check. “It was for more money than I’d ever seen in my life,” Swift says. “I was able to pay my band bonuses. I was able to pay for my tour buses. I was able to fuel my dreams.”

但几个月后，在Swift的18岁生日派对上，她看到了Chesney的演出主办人。他递给她一张来自Chesney的卡片，卡片上写着——正如Swift回忆的那样：“很抱歉你没法加入这次巡演，所以我想补偿你。”卡片里还夹着一张支票。“那是我这辈子见过最多的钱，”Swift说。“我因此能给我的乐队发奖金，能支付巡演大巴的费用，也能为我的梦想加一把火。”

Listening to Swift share this, on a clear fall afternoon in her New York City apartment, I’m struck by how satisfying the story is. There are high stakes at the outset; there are details, vivid and sensory; there’s a twist that flips the action on its head; and there’s a happy ending for its hero. It takes her only about 30 seconds to recount this, but those 30 seconds contain an entire narrative world.

在纽约市的公寓里，一个秋日晴朗的下午，听着Swift讲起这段经历，我被这个故事的完整与畅快深深打动。开头就关乎成败、风险很高；细节鲜明，富有感官冲击；还有一个扭转乾坤的反转；最后则是属于主角的圆满结局。她讲述只花了大约30秒，但那30秒里容纳了一个完整的叙事世界。

I’m not surprised. Swift has a preternatural skill for finding the story. Her anecdote about Chesney symbolizes a larger narrative in Swift’s life, one about redemption—where our protagonist discovers new happiness not despite challenges, but because of them. Swift, as we’ll discuss, took a few hits to get here. “I’ve been raised up and down the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years,” she says as we tuck into a cozy den off the kitchen to talk, and she kicks off her shoes and curls up onto the sofa. “I’ve been given a tiara, then had it taken away.” She is seemingly unguarded in conversation, reflective about both where she’s been and where she finds herself now. After all, while she’s long been one of the biggest entertainers in the world, this year is different. “It feels like the breakthrough moment of my career, happening at 33,” she says. “And for the first time in my life, I was mentally tough enough to take what comes with that.” This is her story—even if she’s now so high that it’s hard to believe she was ever low.

我并不惊讶。Swift 拥有近乎超凡的“寻找故事”的本领。她关于 Chesney 的轶事象征着她人生中更大的叙事——关于自我救赎：我们的主人公发现了新的快乐，不是尽管经历了挑战，而是正因为那些挑战。正如我们将要谈到的，Swift 为走到今天挨过不少打击。“在过去的20年里，我在公众舆论的旗杆上被升上去又降下来许多次，”她说。我们在厨房旁边一个温馨的小起居室里聊天，她踢掉鞋子，蜷在沙发上。“我被戴上过王冠，然后又被夺走。”她在谈话中似乎毫无防备，也在反思自己的来路与当下的处境。毕竟，虽然她一直是世界上最具影响力的艺人之一，但今年有所不同。“这感觉像是我职业生涯的突破时刻，而且发生在我33岁的时候，”她说。“而且这是我人生中第一次，我的心理足够强大，能承受随之而来的所有一切。”这就是她的故事——即使她如今高光到让人难以相信她曾经低落过。

Swift’s accomplishments as an artist—culturally, critically, and commercially—are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point. As a pop star, she sits in rarefied company, alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell. As a businesswoman, she has built an empire worth, by some estimates, over $1 billion. And as a celebrity—who by dint of being a woman is scrutinized for everything from whom she dates to what she wears—she has long commanded constant attention and knows how to use it. (“I don’t give Taylor advice about being famous,” Stevie Nicks tells me. “She doesn’t need it.”) But this year, something shifted. To discuss her movements felt like discussing politics or the weather—a language spoken so widely it needed no context. She became the main character of the world.

斯威夫特作为一名艺术家的成就——在文化、评论界与商业层面——多到数不胜数，几乎无需一一细数。作为流行巨星，她与Elvis Presley（埃尔维斯·普雷斯利）、Michael Jackson（迈克尔·杰克逊）和Madonna（麦当娜）比肩；作为词曲作者，人们常把她与Bob Dylan（鲍勃·迪伦）、Paul McCartney（保罗·麦卡特尼）和Joni Mitchell（琼妮·米切尔）相提并论。作为商人，她打造了一个按一些估算价值超过10亿美元的帝国。而作为名人——且因她是女性，从约会对象到穿什么都要被放大审视——她长期处在聚光灯下，也深知如何运用这种关注。（“我不会就如何当名人去给Taylor提建议，”Stevie Nicks〔史蒂薇·尼克斯〕对我说。“她不需要。”）但今年，一切发生了变化。谈论她的动向仿佛在谈论政治或天气——一种无需背景、人人会说的共同语言。她成了这个世界的主角。

If you’re skeptical, consider it: How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year? How many times did you see a photo of her while scrolling on your phone? Were you one of the people who made a pilgrimage to a city where she played? Did you buy a ticket to her concert film? Did you double-tap an Instagram post, or laugh at a tweet, or click on a headline about her? Did you find yourself humming “Cruel Summer” while waiting in line at the grocery store? Did a friend confess that they watched clips of the Eras Tour night after night on TikTok? Or did you?

如果你还半信半疑，不妨想想：今年你有过多少次关于 Taylor Swift 的谈话？刷手机时又有多少次看到她的照片？你是否也是那些为看她演出而“朝圣”到她巡演城市的人之一？你有没有买她那部演唱会电影的票？你是否在 Instagram 上点过两下点赞她的帖子，或为一条推文笑出声，或者点开过一条关于她的新闻标题？你是否在超市排队时不自觉哼起了“Cruel Summer”（《残酷夏天》）？有没有朋友承认他们在 TikTok 上夜复一夜刷《Eras Tour》（“时代”巡演）的片段？或者，说的就是你自己？

Her epic career-retrospective tour recounting her artistic “eras,” which played 66 dates across the Americas this year, is projected to become the biggest of all time and the first to gross over a billion dollars; analysts talked about the “Taylor effect,” as politicians from Thailand, Hungary, and Chile implored her to play their countries. Cities, stadiums, and streets were renamed for her. Every time she came to a new place, a mini economic boom took place as hotels and restaurants saw a surge of visitors. In releasing her concert movie, Swift bypassed studios and streamers, instead forging an unusual pact with AMC, giving the theater chain its highest single-day ticket sales in history. There are at least 10 college classes devoted to her, including one at Harvard; the professor, Stephanie Burt, tells TIME she plans to compare Swift’s work to that of the poet William Wordsworth. Friendship bracelets traded by her fans at concerts became a hot accessory, with one line in a song causing as much as a 500% increase in sales at craft stores. When Swift started dating Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chief and two-time Super Bowl champion, his games saw a massive increase in viewership. (Yes, she somehow made one of America’s most popular things—football—even more popular.) And then there’s her critically hailed songbook—a catalog so beloved that as she rereleases it, she’s often breaking chart records she herself set. She’s the last monoculture left in our stratified world.

她那场回顾职业生涯、串联其创作各个“时代（eras）”的史诗级巡演，今年在美洲各地开了66场，被预测将成为史上规模最大、并且首个总收入突破10亿美元的巡演；分析人士谈到“Taylor effect（泰勒效应）”，来自泰国、匈牙利和智利的政界人士都恳请她到本国演出。为迎接她，一些城市、球场乃至街道都被临时改名。她每到一地，都会带动当地出现“小型经济繁荣”，酒店和餐馆的访客激增。发行演唱会电影时，Swift绕过传统制片厂和流媒体平台，直接与AMC院线达成非常规合作，使该院线创下历史最高的单日票房。至少有10门大学课程专门研究她，其中包括哈佛的一门；任课教授Stephanie Burt对TIME表示，她计划把Swift的作品与诗人William Wordsworth进行比较。她演唱会现场粉丝互换的“friendship bracelets（友谊手链）”成了热门配饰，一句歌词甚至让手工店相关商品销量暴增多达500%。当Swift开始与Travis Kelce（Kansas City Chiefs堪萨斯城酋长队球员、两届Super Bowl超级碗冠军）约会后，他的比赛收视率大幅上升。（没错，她居然让美国最受欢迎的事物之一——美式橄榄球——变得更火。）再加上她那备受好评的曲库——这一目录之受爱戴，以至于她在重发时常常打破自己创下的榜单纪录。她是我们这个分层世界中最后的“monoculture（单一大众文化现象）”。

It’s hard to see history when you’re in the middle of it, harder still to distinguish Swift’s impact on the culture from her celebrity, which emits so much light it can be blinding. But something unusual is happening with Swift, without a contemporary precedent. She deploys the most efficient medium of the day—the pop song—to tell her story. Yet over time, she has harnessed the power of the media, both traditional and new, to create something wholly unique—a narrative world, in which her music is just one piece in an interactive, shape-shifting story. Swift is that story’s architect and hero, protagonist and narrator.

当你正置身其中时，历史很难看清；而要把Swift对文化的影响与她自身的名人效应区分开来就更难了——她的光芒如此耀眼，几乎让人目眩。但在Swift身上正发生着不同寻常、没有当代先例的事。她运用当下最高效的媒介——流行歌曲——来讲述自己的故事。同时，随着时间推移，她驾驭了传统与新兴媒体的力量，创造出一种独一无二的事物——一个叙事世界；在这个世界里，她的音乐只是那部可互动、不断变形的故事中的一环。Swift既是这个故事的建筑师与英雄，也是主角与叙述者。