Taylor Swift's power reaches even those who are imprisoned -- especially those who have some romantic woes going on in their lives.
According to Joe Garcia, in his essay for the New Yorker, Taylor Swift's song helped him survive his prison experience.
He shared that his prison experience was made easier by Taylor Swift's discography.
Before an impending parole hearing, Joe Garcia claimed that Swift's most recent album, "Midnights," gave him some time to think.
Garcia stated in the open essay that he was incarcerated for more than ten years due to murder.
Taylor Swift's admirers have always said that her songs have supported them during both minor and major hardships.
He writes in The New Yorker on Saturday that he first learned about Swift while he was inside, just before Swift was given a life sentence for murder in 2009. He wasn't really impressed at the moment, liking Prince and other artists more.
Because of his exemplary behavior, he was moved to a reduced security prison in 2013, where he and his cellmate enjoyed top 40 music on a pocket radio.
"During that time, I heard tracks from 'Red,' Swift's fourth studio album, virtually every hour. I was starting to enjoy them. Laying on the top bunk, I would listen to my cellmate's snores and wait for 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' to come around again," Garcia wrote in his essay.
Garcia wrote that the songs brought back memories of his previous relationships, one of which was with a jail visitor. "Daylight," a song by Swift from 2019, has him thinking back on his history as well. In it, she sings that she has "been sleeping so long in a twenty-year dark night, and now I see daylight."
"In his essay, Garcia stated that there was something in her voice that implied happiness or at least the possibility of happiness-something that was intuitively pleasant, genuine, and good."
"I felt like I was still a part of the world I had left behind when I listened to her music."
Over the years, Garcia listened to Swift's music and discovered tracks he enjoyed on the albums "1989," "Lover," and most recently, "Midnights."
When Swift sings that she's the problem in the song "Anti-Hero," he recognized himself in it.
In the upcoming months, Garcia will go before a parole board, and he mentioned that Swift's discography caused him to consider related issues.
"In 'Karma,' Swift sings, 'Ask me what I learned from all those years / Ask me what I earned from all those tears,'" Garcia wrote.
"A few months from now, California's Board of Parole Hearings will ask me questions like that. What have I learned? What do I have to show for my twenty years of incarceration?"
Here's to hoping the songs transform more people for the better!
© 2024 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
