"because I am not frothing at the bit to rip Taylor Swift into fine, glittery shreds. I come to her latest album, the tepidly received "The Life of a Showgirl," with fresh ears and an open heart. You might even say I'm excited for this one-man listening party, because I've just received word of a track on Swift's new opus titled "Wood.""
"Now, popular music has a long, engorged history of phallocentric compositions. Gene Simmons alone accounts for hundreds of such tracks. So Taylor Swift isn't breaking new ground by penning an ode to her man's dig ol' bick. But when you consider that Swift's catalog almost exists as its own genre, and when you consider that she normally writes about topics that she, at 35, should have aged out of decades ago, "Wood" represents a foray into a bold, engorged new territory for our princess."
The Life of a Showgirl includes a track titled "Wood" that focuses explicitly on fiancé Travis Kelce's genitalia. The song aligns with a long tradition of phallocentric popular music, with Gene Simmons cited as an example of that legacy. "Wood" diverges from Swift's usual, youthful subject matter and signals a more overtly sexual direction within her catalog. The album has been tepidly received overall. A two-pass listening approach—first without lyric reference, then with the lyrics—was used to assess whether the song's penile themes emerge audibly or primarily through its words.
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