Opinion: Taylor Swift’s engagement signals end of an era

Taylor Swift just got engaged to NFL star Travis Kelce. Photo / @taylorswift, @killatrav

It’s been a long road for Taylor Swift but she’s finally found her happily ever after. Following a series of tortured relationships, and 11 studio albums to accompany them, the singer is settling down. On Tuesday night, meetings across the world were interrupted by the news that Travis Kelce, her all-American NFL sweetheart, had popped the question in his back garden in Kansas.

It’s impossible not to be happy for Swift, who has been longing for her John Hughes moment since she first moved to Nashville to break into the country music scene. Since then, she’s experienced success beyond that of any solo artist. The Eras tour alone generated over $2 billion in ticket sales alone, making it the highest revenue concert tour in history. But one thing has always eluded her: finding “somebody really, really great who’s right for me”.

Even Donald Trump, who once described Swift as a “woke singer” who is “NO LONGER HOT” seemed moved by news of the impending nuptials. Shortly after the Instagram announcement dropped, sitting on 29 million likes at the time of writing, Trump told reporters at his cabinet that “I wish them a lot of luck. I think he’s a great player and a great guy, and I think she’s a terrific person”.

Donald Trump congratulates Taylor Swift on engagement with Travis Kelce. Photo / Getty Images

But one can’t quite help but wonder: is this the end of the road for Swift? The girl got the guy. But that doesn’t leave her much to write about. The truth is, Swift doesn’t write about love. She never has. She writes about breakups. About the idea of love and the pain of its pursuit. She speaks to a generation battling a relationship recession, who aren’t getting married, and for whom happy endings seem far off.

There was something reassuring about Swift. If someone that pretty, that wealthy, and that successful can’t find Mr Right then no wonder the rest of us are struggling. She’s at her best on this theme, musing that “every breath feels like rarest air / When you’re not sure if he wants to be there”. If Taylor can’t get a boy to commit then what hope do the rest of us have?

Her music has always been about how life isn’t quite enough for her: “they tell you that you’re lucky, but you’re so confused / Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used”, or of the giddy limerence of a love affair doomed to fail: “nothing lasts forever / But this is gonna take me down”.

We love her because she bares her pain to the world. Almost all her songs are deeply self-referential. True Swifties are permitted to believe that through close textual study of her lyrics they gain access to new truths about her life. Thirteen years ago, on the release date of Fearless, she famously told Ellen DeGeneres that Joe Jonas broke up with her over the phone in 25 seconds, inspiring a song on the album. Who couldn’t resist purchasing the record to find out more?

But this is all over now. Swift has found her Mr Darcy. And does the reader much care what happens to Elizabeth Bennet after she accepts his proposal? Or what happened to Madonna after she married Guy Ritchie? Disney movies end with the princess at the altar. Even in the emancipated, frank, Materialists, the final scene gives us a courthouse wedding.

Taylor Swift finds 'happily ever after' with Travis Kelce engagement. Photo / @taylorswift, @killatrav

There isn’t much to say about true love. We are happy when Anne Elliot persuades Captain Wentworth to take her back in Persuasion. But we have little interest in her once she becomes a sailor’s wife.

Living happily ever after doesn’t make good copy. I hope that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce head off into the sunset together. I hope they enjoy spending their many billions. Maybe a Swift baby will do wonderful things for our rapidly declining birthrate. Swift finally got “the boy on the football team”. I couldn’t be more thrilled for her. But as her search for a “really great guy” comes to a close, so too does the thing she’s best at: the breakup album.

Who can forget Taylor telling Jake Gyllenhaal “I’ll get older but your lovers stay my age” or Joe Alwyn that “I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath”. But for now, her romance novel is finally over. Reader, she married him.

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