Taylor Swift has a special place in many people’s hearts. They grew up with her. They listened to her relatively innocuous country songs while crying over their first high-school breakup. They connect her music to some of the most important moments in their lives.
There’s no denying that Swift has shaped a generation. She is a talented musician and at times a clever lyricist. From the interviews that I’ve seen, she also seems to be a kind and likable person. But long gone are the days when Taylor Swift was a sweet teenage artist in t-shirts and blue jeans.
Eight of twelve songs on the billionaire pop star’s new album Life of a Showgirl are rated explicit. The album’s music videos feature Taylor and her dancers in skimpy clothes and bejeweled lingerie. The choreography is sexually-charged—the norm for pop singers like Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, and Lady Gaga.
While some of the lyrics are intriguing, like Taylor’s allusions to Hamlet in “The Fate of Ophelia,” other songs are just crass and sensual. In the chorus of the song “Wood,” Swift sings,
Forgive me, it sounds cocky
He ah-matized me and opened my еyes
Redwood tree, it ain’t hard to see
His love was thе key that opened my thighs
The song “Father Figure” explores exploitative mentoring relationships, but its lyrics are unnecessarily crude and explicit:
I’ll be your father figure,
I drink that brown liquor
I can make deals with the devil because my d***’s bigger
This love is pure profit, just step into my office
I dry your tears with my sleeve
These lyrics are all the more troubling when one remembers that Taylor has millions of teenage followers—especially young girls. While there’s a “Clean Version” of the album, its lyrics are still suggestive, and we all know that most kids will just listen to the regular version.
While Life of a Showgirl has drawn a lot of attention, erotic lyrics are nothing new for Taylor Swift. In the song “False God” from her 2019 album Lover, Taylor mixed the sensual and the sacred:
But we might just get away with it
Religion’s in your lips
Even if it’s a false god
We’d still worship
We might just get away with it
The altar is my hips
Even if it’s a false god
We’d still worship this love
I know heaven’s a thing
I go there when you touch me, honey
Hell is when I fight with you
But we can patch it up good
Make confessions and we’re begging for forgiveness
Got the wine for you
Even if I were to set aside my uniquely Christian convictions, I would ask any parent, “Are these really the lyrics and images that you want filling your daughter’s head and heart?” Music is deeply formative, especially on impressionable young minds, and especially when it comes from a cultural idol with a cult-like following. As a dad to a precious little baby girl, I know that I won’t be able to shelter her from everything, but I don’t want my daughter to follow an artist who normalizes explicit lyrics and promotes overt sexuality.
I don’t want my daughter to follow an artist who normalizes explicit lyrics and promotes overt sexuality.
I want my daughter to know that her body should be respected and, yes, that includes keeping it modestly covered. I want her to know that sex is good and designed by God, but it’s an act of profound intimacy that binds two people together, has the potential to create a new life, and should be reserved for within the safe bonds of a loving marriage. I don’t want her to be prudish, but I do want her to be appropriate, respectful, and dignified.
As a committed Christian, though, my objections to Taylor Swift’s music are even stronger. Scripture constantly warns against sensuality, sexual immorality, and impurity (Romans 13:3; 2 Corinthians 12:21; 2 Peter 2:2). In Galatians 5:19–21, they are at the head of a list of things that cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and will not escape God’s judgment: “the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality … I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Casually enjoying immoral Taylor Swift songs is not an option for Christians. To say so is not legalism. Legalism is an enforced restriction of Christian liberty, and Christian liberty is not license to rock out to music about spreading your thighs. Christians are “called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7), and holy people should have no part in such vulgarity, for “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).
Christians are “called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7), and holy people should have no part in vulgarity.
Those who wish to be saved when Christ returns must make a clean break from the world which is perishing. Titus 2:11–12 says that “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” Grace isn’t just about “getting off easy,” and it’s certainly not a license to indulge the flesh. God’s gracious kindness is expressed in teaching us to say “No!” to everything that’s contrary to God’s character and design for creation. That includes saying “No!” to licentious music.
In the traditional baptismal rite, candidates for baptism are asked, “Do you renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that you will not follow nor be led by them?” The life of a showgirl is a life that’s sold over to the “vain pomp and glory of the world”—a sad, empty, and carnal life that ends in misery and destruction.
Parents, it’s your job to raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Check your children’s playlists. Protect them from harmful music. Establish guidelines. Don’t just start deleting without explanation, but have a discussion in love. Wisely explain why some things are not God’s best for them. Pray with them for Taylor’s repentance and salvation (she’s a talented person whom God made for better things). Help your kids to find other music that they will enjoy—music that is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise (Php. 4:8).
Most importantly, work to cultivate the love of Jesus in your children’s hearts so that the things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. The only long-lasting protection against the vain pomp and glory of this world is a true and living faith that’s firmly fixed on God himself, in whose presence is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11).
