Taylor Swift Is Confusing

In Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” which I consider a perfect song, there’s a giggle she releases between the lines “I go on too many dates” and “But I can’t make ’em stay.” Driving around suburban St. Louis, listening to the radio, I’ve wondered many times if Swift includes this giggle—which acts as a vocal eye roll, or maybe a middle finger, to those whose judgmental comments she’s parroting—during her live performances. Surely, I thought, the temptation to include the giggle would be diminished by the cumulative evidence, as she performed show after show on her “1989” World Tour (which started in May and is still going), of the giggle’s utter lack of spontaneity.