--- title: Why Taylor Swift's Music Makes Us So Emotional description: If you're feeling overly emotional about 'The Tortured Poets Department,' neuroscientists and psychologists say there are plenty of reasons. canonical: https://time.com/6968864/why-music-makes-us-emotional-taylor-swift/ author: Angela Haupt article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-04-19T10:30:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:47.629Z article:section: Health og:title: Why Taylor Swift's Music Makes Us So Emotional og:description: She makes girls and women, in particular, feel seen. og:url: https://time.com/6968864/why-music-makes-us-emotional-taylor-swift/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb95c574dd6b25384/698a55c2e6e84aa6332b2d2d/sol-cotti-TIME-Taylor-Swift.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4800 og:image:height: 2700 og:image:alt: Why Taylor Swift's Music Makes Us So Emotional og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Taylor Swift's Music Makes Us So Emotional twitter:description: She makes girls and women, in particular, feel seen. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb95c574dd6b25384/698a55c2e6e84aa6332b2d2d/sol-cotti-TIME-Taylor-Swift.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Taylor Swift's Music Makes Us So Emotional > Sponsored content. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=f4b41a6e-1acf-4cfe-b3f2-f72fb8b826a5&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Swifties Who Turned Their Fandom Into a Career [Watch (HLS stream): The Swifties Who Turned Their Fandom Into a Career](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/FYwMBbYR.m3u8) (8:22)  _Published 2024-04-18. Bonny Barker and Emily Hunt have gained an online following making videos about Taylor Swift, turning a fun side hobby to a full-time career. They discuss the community their channel has fostered, why Swift and her music mean so much to them and their supporters, and what it was like to get noticed by Taylor herself._  by [Angela Haupt](https://time.com/author/angela-haupt/)  ## Angela Haupt Apr 19, 2024 10:30 AM UTC  Illustration by Sol Cotti for TIME  by [Angela Haupt](https://time.com/author/angela-haupt/)  ## Angela Haupt Apr 19, 2024 10:30 AM UTC A suggestion for the masses: Now would be a good time to check in on your favorite Taylor Swift fan. After months of feverish anticipation, the superstar delivered her 11th studio album, _The Tortured Poets Department_, on Friday—and Swifties everywhere are losing their minds. From a neuroscience perspective, the response makes sense. Research suggests that music[ activates the brain’s reward system](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15687-5), triggering the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. “We know that music is highly tied to emotion for a variety of reasons,” says Lindsay Halladay, an associate professor in neuroscience and psychology at Santa Clara University. “The tempo of music can actually modulate neural oscillations, which are sometimes called brain waves. It can alter the way the whole brain is communicating.” That’s why you might feel more energized after listening to upbeat music, for example, or relaxed after an evening of Beethoven. But what is it about Swift’s music, in particular, that resonates so deeply? We asked a fewpsychologists who moonlight as Swifties. ## **She sings about things we all experience** Last year, when millions of people were trying to snag Eras Tour tickets, students at Texas Christian University were working just as hard to get into "Psychology (Taylor’s Version)," a new class offered by developmental psychologist Naomi Ekas. “We take different topics and themes from her music or her life and apply a developmental perspective to it,” she says. Classes have centered, for example, on infidelity, revenge, attraction, and breakups. During one recent class, Ekas played _Marjorie_, the devastating _Evermore_ tune that pays tribute to Swift’s grandmother. (_I should've asked you questions, I should've asked you how to be_, she sings.) Many of the 120 students started crying and asked if they could have a few minutes to text their grandmother or their mom or their dad. “We were all like, ‘Do we continue with class today? Because we’re very sad,’” Ekas recalls. **Read More**: [_Taylor Swift Is Embracing the 5 Stages of Grief. Should You?_](https://time.com/6965213/taylor-swift-grief-the-tortured-poets-department/) That speaks to the universality of the themes Swift spotlights. “We all experience loss,” she says. “We all experience friends that hurt us, and we want to get back at them and get revenge on them. We all fall in love, we all fall out of love.” Knowing that Swift feels what we feel validates our emotions, Ekas says—letting you know it’s OK to lean into that heartbreak or joy. ## **Her lyrics get imprinted on our brain** When music evokes an emotion—maybe anger if you’ve just listened to _Bad Blood_, or longing if you have _Dress_ on repeat—you’ll likely experience stronger memories, Halladay says. “Strong emotions have an ability to alter the way memories are processed,” she says. “Whether it’s positive or negative emotions, they can affect the way our brain stores information.” That’s why we don’t remember mundane events, like what we had for lunch two weeks ago, but more thrilling or traumatic situations are [burned into](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01483-5) our memory. “We want to hold on to that information, and our brain is very good at doing that when given a cue that it should,” Halladay says. So if you’re already finding it hard to get _So Long London_ out of your head_,_ blame the stirring lyrics: _My spine split from carrying us up the hill … You swore that you loved me but where were the clues?_ ## **She’s vulnerable—so we are too** Swift is unusually open about her life, penning raw lyrics about her personal challenges and triumphs. (In the first seconds of new tune _Fortnight_, she declares: _I was a functioning alcoholic ’til nobody noticed my new aesthetic_.) That vulnerability can have a profound effect on listeners, says Naomi Torres-Mackie, a psychologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Torres-Mackie’s clients bring Swift up in sessions more often than you might expect, serving as a catalyst for deeper introspection. “I’ve had a few people come to me and they’re like, ‘I was just listening to this Taylor music, or revisiting this album, and all of a sudden I was able to emote all these feelings that were really hard to express,’” she says. As Torres-Mackie notes, Swift refers or alludes to themes like eating disorders, depression, and self-doubt in her music—and that can grant permission for some people to feel like they're able to do the same. ## **She makes girls and women, in particular, feel seen** Gender plays a role in the emotions that Swift’s music sparks. Societal norms continue to restrict and dismiss girls and women, Torres-Mackie points out—especially their experiences, interests, and feelings, all of which can be deemed silly or irrelevant. Yet one of our basic psychological needs is feeling seen and understood. Swift’s songs “really give listeners the feeling that girls are, in fact, allowed to be sad, angry, lost,” Torres-Mackie says. “Any emotional experience is important, and it’s worth singing about.” **Read More**: [_Why You Can’t Remember That Taylor Swift Concert All Too Well_](https://time.com/6282468/taylor-swift-concert-memory/) Plus, Swift’s songs probe nuances of life that are often unique to women. Take _Tolerate It_, in which she croons: _I wait by the door like I'm just a kid / Use my best colors for your portrait / Lay the table with the fancy shit / And watch you tolerate it_. “What she's talking about is doing emotional labor for a man and having it not be appreciated,” says Kerry McBroome, a psychologist in Brooklyn. “She’s touching on that unique specific feminine experience of having all this emotional work being expected of you, and then not being recognized or acknowledged or praised or rewarded for it.” McBroome recalls feeling a gut punch when she first heard the song and thinking, “Oh my God, Taylor, get out of my diary.” ## **She helps us feel connected to others** Swift excels at making personal experiences feel universal—and when we connect with an experience she describes lyrically, we feel like we’re part of “the larger community of the heartbroken or the jubilant,” McBroome says. “We realize other people have been through the same experiences, and it’s a sense of oneness with a million fans.” Take the infamous scarf Swift describes leaving behind at her ex’s sister’s house in _All Too Well_. McBroome expects many listeners love the song because they, too, have left a scarf or some other sentimental item behind at someone’s house, understanding it’s lost forever. “It’s easy to put your own stamp on it, and then realize that the world is full of people who have left scars on each other’s lives. And I think she does this by using such specific imagery.” **Read More**: [_Love Languages Actually Do Improve Your Relationship_](https://time.com/6189958/love-languages-improve-relationship/) Plus, there’s the army of Swifties who have banded around the star—and each other. Ekas, who’s 45, recently got a call from a 79-year-old friend who listened to Swift for the first time and loved what she heard. Her class helped brainstorm birthday gift ideas for an 8-year-old Swiftie. And one of her few male students told her he had enrolled in the class because he wanted to be able to connect with his sisters, who are fans. When Ekas went to Swift’s Eras Tour alone last year, she spent hours having fun with a group of strangers. Swift “is so positive and uplifting,” she says—which bleeds through to her community of fans and helps cultivate an emotional attachment to her work. ## **She enjoys messing with us** In the days leading up to _The Tortured Poets Department_’s release, Ekas and her students fell down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of theories and speculation about the new album. Swift—who famously loves dropping [Easter eggs](https://time.com/6342985/taylor-swift-easter-eggs-artist-portrait/)—unveiled a library pop-up installation packed full of clues to decipher. All the puzzling “feeds into the relationship we think we have with her,” Ekas says. “We think, ‘Oh, she’s giving _me_ this clue.’” That strengthens the bond we feel with her and her music. Plus, trying to uncover hidden messagesheightens anticipation, whipping fans into a frenzy—which means our emotions were already in a heightened state going into the new album. That almost guarantees a visceral reaction. “I think she genuinely loves it and has fun messing with us,” Ekas says. “I feel like she’s just sitting back this week with her cats and Travis going, ‘Ha ha ha.’” ## Transcript Taylor Swift song about Taylor Swift's most recent we decided to start a channel call me when you're about 5 months after the lover album came out and then the pandemic hitch and you just decided that you know, not only will wait needing something to say to fill out time with it. Also that people just we felt that people would not so understanding what we should have felt Taylor Swift was doing at the time and so we decided not moment that we wanted to be starting a YouTube channel so that we could just talk about the album's and should have shared why we think she's so incredible then a couple of months later. It just so happened that she surprised. Bike lure adding that was Alpha a big reaction to a brand new album is that was the video that really took off and I think so to put us on the the YouTube map stream. wildest dreams amazing When we put it all people really loved it, and I guess people want there. So just keep doing it. We had no idea that it would turn into what it has now. Like, we really just thought it would be a fun little side project prior to doing this full-time. I was actually working in banking. It wasn't something at the time that I was feeling super passionate about Taylor Swift is always be my number one. The definitely was no part of me. That's what that I could be making a job out of it patreon. He's the only way that we make money currently I doing this he took us less than a year to get to the point where a lot about subscribers on YouTube should have came over to the patreon platform with and wanted to support us in that way. I was able to quit my previous job and Bonnie was able to do to stop doing the the solar YouTube stuff that she was doing for fun up until that point. There's nothing better than being able to talk about Taylor Swift as a full-time jobs like I'm getting tired, even for a phoenix always rising from the ashes mending all her gashes. You might just have dealt the final blow. Sorry perfectly metaphorical for everything that she doesn't have a life Taylor Swift fans all such die-hard fans. And so I think it really makes them feel seen and understood when they're able to say to people who love Taylor Swift to the same level, but they do I can't express that excitement and joy of listening to her music. baby to sit up I think it's easy for people to feel like they can connect with us. And we feel the same by like reading the comments and all of them messages. Yeah over the years. A lot of people have told us that it feels like that just went on Facebook request friend and you know, a lot of them stay as well that they don't have a lot of people in their own lives. Love Taylor Swift's the way that they do so I think that can really mean a lot of people to feel like they've got like 2 online best friends who just get it at it's the same level that they do the community that we've managed to build from this YouTube channel has been just overwhelming like meeting people in real life and reading comments as well. Everyone is just so supportive and Give so much love and honestly, we always look at each other. We like I don't know what we did. Just get a negative comment. It just it's honestly a lot to say we try to just practice gratitude everyday cuz we like we can't believe how lucky we are to have such an awesome community. And I think it's just because they get so much joy from watching aljoy is this this is Joy Inception, I think in this day and age even though we're more connected than ever with the internet. I think a lot of people are also experiencing a lot of loneliness and isolation, especially after the pain. And so I think that being a pot of this community being a swiftie knowing that there's so many millions of people who were also a part of that community and who relate to her music in the way that we do it does really make you feel like you're not alone. She just is really great at making you feel connected and understanding are no martians and you are an experience in life in the same way. That some of our subscribers feel about us we feel about Taylor that she's able to so perfectly articulate the way that we feel that we feel like she's another one of our best friends when she's when we listen to Hillsong and she's asleep like the world's biggest Super-Sod the same time extremely fortunate to be able to go to five of the seven shows that he had tickets to the first two nights in Melbourne and the very last night. We were sitting around all day on the couch. It was quarter past 6 p.m. And we got a GM from Taylor nation, which is Taylor staying in and actually you were the one that are open today. This is why I like to invite you guys back for tonight show we can make it. Please let it snow. we rushed to the stadium through on an outfit and when we got there we were greeted by Taylor's dad's Scott and he delivered us a handwritten letters b a love True Lies Holiday Valley No. just coffee hand written letter Emily hot Sending my love Kayla to know that she loves out reaction videos and does feel supported by them. It just means the world to me. 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