Taylor Swift – Tied Together with a Smile

Taylor Swift’s “Tied Together with a Smile” focuses on the main character who seems to be extremely insecure about her physical looks despite people’s opinions about her. Interestingly, it appears everyone sees her as perfect, except for herself.

In the chorus, Taylor addresses the fact that she may be letting go of herself and gradually losing her identity. She uses the phrase “tied with a smile” to signify that the subject often puts on fake smiles which make everyone think that she’s perfectly fine. However, this time around she may actually be getting tired of all the pretense and desiring to throw in the towel.

The subsequent verse sees Taylor describing this character as a desperate lady who’d do anything simply to get the attention of men. The singer is also insinuating through the various analogies of pennies and extra change that this girl may be getting intimately involved with those men for financial advantage. This technique does not work because in the end she gains nothing and loses her dignity as well.

Throughout the song, the artist tries to convince her to stop devaluing herself and hold her fort. At the same, she captures the reality that this girl is tired of hiding behind fake smiles and is ready to unravel her true self.

The story behind “Tied Together With A Smile” is Real

Taylor, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly has revealed that she wrote the song about one of her mates in high school who had an eating disorder. According to Swift, although this girl was a beauty pageant winner, liked by boys and admired by girls, she had this problem and never saw herself as beautiful. Bulimia nervosa was the disorder the subject had, causing her to binge eat and later make herself throw up. As a songwriter, who often writes what she observes, especially about the people she knows, Taylor is said to have written this song immediately after she found out this girl had this disorder.

Summary

“Tied Together with a Smile” specifically covers the story of a person with low self-esteem and the associated frustrations that come with living in pretense. It also portrays the singer’s attempt to advise the subject otherwise while laying emphasis on the demerits of her vulnerability.

Quick Facts about “Tied Together with a Smile”

Taylor wrote this song alongside prolific songwriter Liz Rose, a name that long-time fans of the songstress would be familiar with. And that track was produced by someone Tay Tay worked with even more regularly, Nathan Chapman.

Taylor began penning “Tied Together with a Smile” after discovering a friend who possessed envious beauty was suffering from anorexia.

This is one of the song’s from Taylor’s eponymous debut album. And Big Machine Records released it along with the rest of that project on 24 October 2006.