Opinion: Taylor Swift’s albums are the theme songs to my life … I’ve grown as she’s grown, and that’s what makes her unique

We grew right along with Taylor Swift as we watched her meteoric rise, writes 7NEWS Melbourne’s Melina Sarris.

I was 21 years old when I travelled by myself to the United States for six weeks.

It was a birthday present from my parents. A solo trip to the states for northern hemisphere summer.

For part of my trip, I stayed with family friends in Wisconsin. They introduced me to a little-known country singer called Taylor Swift.

Her second album “Fearless” had recently been released in the US. She was playing at a Wisconsin country music festival not too far from where I was staying.

I listened to that album all summer long. In the car on long drives from Milwaukee to Chicago. On a boat jetting around Lake Michigan. “You Belong With Me”, “Fearless” and “Fifteen” were on constant repeat on my little iPod touch (new technology in 2009).

In 2010, when her next album “Speak Now” came out, I had started a new job. My manager was patronising, demeaning, and a bit of a bully. I listened to “Mean” over and over. “You, with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me,” she sang. It helped me through.

By 2012, “Red” was released. I moved away from home and was working three hours north of Melbourne, on the border of Victoria and New South Wales. Behind the wheel of my 2007 Mazda 323 belting out “driving a new Maserati down a dead end street”, from the title track, it kept me company on those long drives to and from the city. Once again her music pinpointed a pivotal moment in my life.

Jumping ahead seven years, “Lover” was released in 2019 … coinciding with the year I got married.