SAYLOR TWIFT

“Saylor Twift” was the ninth song I wrote for what I was calling Album I at the time.

I remember the beginning of this one really clearly.

The song started with an arpeggio. As soon as I heard it, I pictured an old roller rink: people slowly moving around the floor under a mirror ball, everything slightly hazy and dreamlike.

There wasn't a story yet. I just liked where the sound put me.

I started building underneath it with a synth pad, then moved into an A minor chord followed by B diminished. That little bit of tension changed the feeling of the song. It was still pretty, but something underneath it felt slightly wrong.

That ended up being perfect for what the song became.

I programmed the drums in Logic Pro using sounds based around a CR-78. I modified them quite a bit because I wanted to keep some of the character of the original machine without making the track feel like I was trying to recreate music from another decade.

Most of the song came together while my husband was away in Washington, D.C. for a week on business.

So I had the house to myself.

That meant a lot of late nights.

THE PART I DON'T REMEMBER

I've dealt with sleep problems since my time in the Navy.

There have been nights when I've taken sleep medication, gone to bed, and woken up the next morning with very little memory of what happened after the medication kicked in.

It's a strange feeling.

You wake up and notice little things.

Something isn't where you remember leaving it. A light might be on. There's evidence that you were awake and moving around, but you don't actually remember doing any of it.

You know those hours happened.

You were there.

But they're gone.

That became the real idea behind “Saylor Twift.”

The lyrics aren't describing a literal sequence of events. They're more about that strange gap between being awake and asleep, when time becomes unreliable and everything starts feeling disconnected.

That's where lines like “Here we go fading into the endless night” came from.

But there's another part of the song that's much more personal.

MAYBE WE MEET SOMEWHERE

My husband has dealt with sleep medication too.

Sometimes I like to imagine that when we both fall asleep that way, we meet each other somewhere.

I know that's ridiculous.

I don't mean that I actually believe we're entering some shared dream universe.

I just like the idea.

Maybe there's some place our sleeping brains invented where we're together for a few hours. We talk. We wander around. Whatever people do in dreams.

Then morning comes and neither of us remembers any of it.

There's something strangely romantic about that to me.

You can probably hear it in the lyrics. I'm constantly trying to find someone, asking them not to leave, telling them I'll be there.

Maybe that's what the song became without me completely realizing it at first.

Two people trying to find each other somewhere they won't remember.

WHY THE HELL IS IT CALLED SAYLOR TWIFT?

The title has almost nothing to do with any of that.

For years, I would tell people that I wasn't a Taylor Swift fan.

Then one night my husband and I were out to dinner and a song came on.

I immediately liked it.

It had this indie-pop/electronic production that caught my attention, and I was convinced I knew who it was.

I thought it was CHVRCHES.

It wasn't.

It was Taylor Swift.

The song was “Anti-Hero.”

So after years of casually dismissing Taylor Swift, I had to sit there and accept that I liked the song.

And, more importantly, that maybe I had been a little full of shit.

She's obviously an incredibly successful songwriter and performer, and hearing something of hers completely outside of whatever assumptions I had made about her music forced me to reconsider them.

“Saylor Twift” became my stupid little acknowledgment of that.

I swapped the first letters of her name and used it as the title.

That's it.

A song about sleep, missing memories, trying to find my husband in a place neither of us can remember...

called “Saylor Twift.”

Somehow that feels appropriate.

Lyrics

Now you've got your way

Just wanna feel your face

Lookin' back at me

I know we're meant to be the same

If I'm late, don't let it go to waste

Not lookin' back to find myself again

It's time but you're late

I think you know

I'll be there

Here we go fading into the endless night

Please don't run 'cuz we can't hide

Here we go fading into the endless night

Please don't run 'cuz we can't hide

How do we know the way

In this majestic place

Starin' back at me

But I know we'd rather be in the flame

We decay

Don't let it fade away

Not lookin' back to find myself again

It's time but you're late

I think you know

I'll be there

Here we go fading into the endless night

Please don't run 'cuz we can't hide

Here we go fading into the endless night

Please don't run 'cuz we can't hide

Now, we've been this way

And I still wanna feel your face

Calling out my name

But this time you're gonna stay with me

In this place

No need to leave in haste

Not lookin' back to find myself again

It's time but you're late

I think you know

I'll be there

I said, Dance

I said, Dance

Here we go fading into the endless night

Please don't run 'cuz we can't hide

Here we go fading into the endless night

Please don't run 'cuz we can't hide

Here we go fading into the endless night

Please don't run 'cuz we can't hide

Here we go fading into the endless night

Please don't run 'cuz we can't hide

MUSIC HERE