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I’m someone who watches all the best Yellowstone shows; I’m also a massive Swifite. For the entire time the modern Western has been around, I have never thought those two worlds would collide. However, they did when Taylor Swift quoted John Dutton during her Songwriters Hall of Fame speech, and I have to say, she did it in an A+ way.
This came up as Swift was giving advice to young artists. She spoke about prioritizing what they love and the balancing act songwriters have to maneuver that involves being emotionally vulnerable and having to deal with people being critical of that vulnerability. That’s what led to the Yellowstone quote, as the pop star said (via TSUpdating):
So, it’s hard to harden yourself to certain brutal elements of this world. But allow me to now make a hard pivot and pull out a quote I love from the show Yellowstone, when a father says to his son, ‘It’s the one constant in life, son, you build something worth having, somebody’s gonna try to take it.’
In other words, to quote Taylor Swift, “the haters gonna hate, hate, hate.” All jokes and her Kevin Costner impression aside, the “Shake It Off” singer explained that the way the Dutton family has to fight for their ranch and stand by what they have is not dissimilar to how she’s had to handle her career and the reception of it. Explaining that fruther, she said:
So, John Dutton was talking about a ranch, but I’m using this quote to refer to your self-worth, your peace of mind and your singular vision as a creator. Positive feedback and people loving what you wrote feels incredible, and I hope you get lots of it. But you need to be ready to receive negative feedback, whether you seek it out or not. It’s no longer a shock that this is how things work, but somehow it feels like I have this conversation with a young writer every other week.
While Taylor Swift is not fighting through brutal Yellowstone moments and protecting a ranch from people who want to take it, she does have to fiercely protect her work. Her efforts to re-record her albums and the fact that she eventually bought back her music prove that. She has also faced both adoration and criticism with grace.
During her speech, she explained that it’s important to stand with your work and protect it too, much like the Dutton family did until the very end of Yellowstone. To that point, the "Opalite" singer explained:
If you make anything awesome, someone out there is bound to say horrible things about it or twist what you meant into something completely unrecognizable to you. What I hope you discover is this: you can be sensitive but also durable.
She went on to say that artists can extract the feedback from negativity that’s useful, and then leave the rest behind. Overall, the point she made was very poignant and relevant to musicians and songwriters. I also love that she did it by quoting Yellowstone, of all shows.
Now, I have to wonder if she’s watching Dutton Ranch with a Paramount+ subscription (new episodes drop on Fridays, by the way) or if she’s rewatched Yellowstone with a Peacock subscription. Based on the fact that she literally quoted John Dutton while making a very important speech, I don’t think it’s impossible. And overall, I love that she did all this too, because it led to a valuable and very creatively explained lesson about how songwriters have to handle their careers and people’s reception of them.
