Taylor Swift Is My Personal Trainer

Working out while attending The Church of No One Understands Me

Fist bump.

Sup.

Fist bump.

Hey, how many sets do you have left?

My wife bought me a few sessions with a trainer at our local YMCA as a Christmas gift. She wants me to live a long, healthy life, so I must sweat. After all, I am a middle-aged man, which means I am slowly transforming into a human cupcake.

I complained at first but then it happened: One weekend, I couldn’t pick up my adorable little niece anymore. Is she 11? Yes. Is she small for her age? No. Did she actually try to tackle me first? Yes. She was excited to see me, and vice versa, but my God, what are they feeding her? She’s strong for her age and I am weaker that I once was, back when I could open jars of mayonnaise with one firm twist.

So, after dragging my feet for a few more days, I put on the sweatsuit my father-in-law had bought me at Costco for Christmas. I used to call them “stainsuits” because I’d sooner get salsa and bean dip on them than sweat. That’s a little joke my wife didn’t find funny. But I went. I went to the gym. Thank you, my love, for caring about my corporeal being.

The trainer’s name was Ahmed, and he was exactly 25 years younger than me. Ahmed is lean and powerful, not too beefy. He’s studying to be a lawyer but he’s not sure. He’s sharp. We tell our best and brightest they can grow to be whatever they want to be, but generally speaking, that’s a nice, mostly dishonest, thing to say. Not everyone can grow up to be whatever they want to be. Luck plays a huge part. But so does talent, and Ahmed could be a lawyer if he wanted, a doctor, or, I don’t know, an Instagram influencer.

He carries himself with confidence. Ahmed loves rap, especially Danny Brown, whose name I recognized because an intern once talked my ear off about him during a coffee where the intern was supposed to pick my brain—a terrible phrase.

No one told me that growing older meant growing heavier, not because of metabolism or late-night nachos, but because of gravity and decomposition. I knew I’d grow hair in my ears, but I didn’t know that years are bricks that crush you slowly.

I wanted muscles. Hell, I don’t even need the plural form of that word. One muscle would do. A show muscle. I wanted to make sure I’d be able to perform feats of strength at the nursing home, like being able to bend over and put on non-slip socks. I needed to learn how to navigate a gym. I didn’t know how to use exercise equipment, especially the large pieces that look like medieval torture devices. I was honest with him: Hotel gyms are intimidating.

Ahmed taught me how to squat. Squatting is everything. He taught me how to properly sit on a workbench and pull down weights. To imagine I was squeezing pieces of fruit between my shoulder blades. I know how to use the vertical pull, the seated row, and the biceps curl. I do cardio now, too. But most of all, he taught me how to act in a gym.

How to behave. The gym is like a fancy restaurant or a ballet. It’s a space shared by all kinds of people, and subtle and not-so-subtle social cues rule it. A nod. A fist bump. A polite question. Don’t stare. It’s okay to grunt, but don’t overdo it. Ahmed was confident and cheerful, so I mimicked him.

Sup.

Ahmed was supportive, even tender, toward me. Even when 20-pound weights tested the limits of my Jell-O muscles, he’d warmly smile and tell me I was doing great, and you know what? I’d believe him. And he’d lightly tap the knuckles of his fellow gym rats as we worked our way around the racks of dumbbells and rowing machines. This was his community, and I was welcomed into the sweaty club. After a couple of sessions, I, too, offered up my fists for bumps. The crew—many skinny teens and local meatheads—were stone-faced but encouraging. They were fond of saying, “You got this, dude,” to each other.

So now I stroll into the gym with a benevolent poker face. There are comedy and tragedy masks, and I wear the workout mask, eyes narrowed and my mouth relaxed. I know what I’m doing. When I’m done, I wipe down the bench and return the kettlebells to where I found them.

Ahmed once asked what I listened to when I worked out. I inhaled and then replied, “Rap.” Small talk is allowed at the gym.

Fist bump.

“What kind of rap?”

“Oh, you know, old school stuff. Danny Brown, too.”

He nodded approvingly and walked away. Before doing 20 minutes of cardio, I put in my earbuds and hit play on my favorite Taylor Swift album, Folklore.

---

Hey.

Fist bump

What are you listenin’ to?

Podcasts.

Cool.

At any time, in every musky gym in America, at least one man in his forties or fifties, powerlifting or jogging on the treadmill, is listening to Taylor Swift, the incandescently popular singer-songwriter.

Just the other day, it was me. I was on the elliptical, the low-impact exercise machine that does not mimic any real-life activity—you’re walking! running! skiing! hands pulling and pushing, feet sliding back and forth— and to look at me, huffing and puffing, little white plugs in my ears, you’d think I was rocking out to something stereotypically masculine, like Led Zeppelin or Metallica or the sound of chainsaws.

But I wasn’t.

Swift’s story is pretty well known: a young country star turned music-industry behemoth, an autobiographical artist whose life is a widely lucrative global brand. Who listens to Swift? That is also no secret: young women, but not exclusively. You see these people screaming with joy in Swift’s blockbuster concert movie and on social media. They are her followers and enforcers, her sisters. I think it’s assumed that most so-called Swifties are women who, like Taylor, have survived having their hearts broken by mopey men.

But there is a shadow audience for her music, an unlikely horde of listeners who secretly blare her infectious and uplifting power rock while desperately trying to stay fit on the elliptical—an invisible army of dudes who like bubblegum, I guess.

The spectrum of Swift’s demo is vast, but at one end are socially awkward teen girls who do not know what society expects of them, and at the other end are socially awkward middle-aged men who do not know what society expects of them.

Swift chronicles modern love’s primary paradox: We’re all the center of our little universes, and yet none of us are happy. Of course, there is a cure for this profound loneliness: Swift’s music, which connects people. Her songs are hymns we can sing together in the Church Of No One Understands Me.

I haven’t always been a fan of Swift’s work. But during the most suffocating months of the 2020 lockdowns, I listened to Folklore, and she reminded me that confusion, anger, and sudden, unfathomable sorrow can be beautiful, like the woods in the winter, cold and dead and stark, a skeleton standing in the snow, waiting to be kissed by spring.

I have allowed myself to forget those months and years, but I remember how Swift’s heartfelt, exquisitely produced record cooled my fears. I can’t be objective when it comes to Folklore. Is it special? Immortal? Or is it a mass-produced entertainment designed to balance the scales of my heart? I don’t know.

As a writer, Swift is inspired by regret and the righteous path. She yearns for freedom, and goddammit, so do I. Her lyrics are human and vulnerable, but she’s also a myth. Her entire body of work tells one long, complex story about a woman who grew up too fast and endured scorn and betrayal. There’s so much lore. But Swift’s music can also be enjoyed without knowing anything about her; pop songs are mirrors that reflect something deeply personal and universal to the listener. I wear her music like wax wings.

Another popular criticism of Swift is that all she writes are breakup songs. That’s true. But all songs are breakup songs.

They’re all about the one that got away or the one that broke your heart or the one that stayed. All songs are about what was, what could have been, what never was. A song is sung after the fact. It is a story in the rearview mirror, a memory, a love affair that died, or a brief victory. It is how we mourn the passing of time. We sang songs naked, long ago, around fires and under the stars, about our joys and sorrows, and we sing to each other, now, about good times and bad, because in the end, you’ll be thankful for all of it. Even the breakups.

It’s the most powerful way humans know how to connect with and comfort each other. Every heart is different, every crack is different, but every heart cracks. If you boil any song long enough, what’s left behind is pure heartbreak. Even the happy songs. The dance songs. The silly ditties and the bubblegum pop. The songs about fighting and the songs about fucking. The hymns and power ballads and headbangers. They’re all about longing, at different volumes.

Songs trigger tears or dry them with fire. They electrify limbs and make blood pump faster. All artists, not just musicians, transform pain into beauty or laughter, or vengeance. I want to listen to those songs. You do too. Life is about heartbreak. The whole thing, from baby rattle to death rattle. It’s a bittersweet story told in goodbyes: you will lose everyone you ever loved and one day you will let go, too.

---

I go to the gym now. Once or twice a week. When I’m not at the gym I think “Should I go to the gym?” Is this what brainwashing is like? But it’s good for me? It is good for me. I’m changing. Moving my body. What if I keep it up? Slow the clock? Lower my blood pressure? What would I do with the extra time?

Today is “leg” day. Ahmed would be proud. I stretch, attack a foam roller, then do jumping jacks. After that, leg presses, hamstrings, lunges, and back on the elliptical. In my earphones, Swift is singing her heart out. She’s pushing back. She is triumphant. Sweat leaks down the sides of my face. My legs swing back and forth, and my arms pump to the rhythm.

I’m listening to “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me”—a song about gossip and justice—and it’s typical Swift, soft and barbed, explosive. When she sings about leaping from the gallows and levitating, I’m panting and soaking my shirt. The elliptical machine is a flying machine, a mechanical pterodactyl, and high up from the clouds, looking down, I see myself and think, “That guy’s trying his best.”

John DeVore is an award-winning writer and editor whose funny/sad memoir about grief, friendship and jazz hands, Theatre Kids, is now available.