Taylor Swift: New Romantics

So what the hell are you going to do with the rest of your life, Taylor Swift?

“I have no idea,” she says, with a sigh that’s more blissful than anxious. “This is the first time in ten years that I haven’t known. I just decided that after the past year, with all of the unbelievable things that happened . . . I decided I was going to live my life a little bit without the pressure on myself to create something.”



Do not freak: Swift is not abandoning making music. Those who know her know this is chemically impossible. (“Her not being creative is one of the last things I’d ever worry about,” the musician and producer Jack Antonoff tells me later.)

“I’m always going to be writing songs,” Swift says. “The thing is, with me, I could very well come up with three things in the next two weeks and then jump back into the studio, and all of a sudden the next record is started. That’s an option, too.”



But probably not for the moment. “I would really like to take a little time to learn things,” Swift says. “I have lots of short-term goals.”

Such as?

“I want to be a well-rounded person who can make a good drink.” (I can confirm from the wedding’s cocktail gathering that Taylor Swift enjoys an Old Fashioned and knows how to make one.)



Anything else?

“To be able to save somebody if they’re drowning,” she says. She’s completely serious. “So CPR, all the various kinds of chest compressions. People tell you little tips, but that’s different from actually taking a class and getting certified.”



Can you change a tire?

“No. I should probably know how to do that.

“I do things like this,” Swift says. Once, “I got it in my head that I couldn’t do a split, and I was really upset about it. And so I stretched every single day for a year until I could do a split. Somehow I feel better knowing that I can.”



I ask her if she’d ever consider launching a fashion line.

“Theoretically, yes,” she says. “But I would want it to be something that was relatable and accessible and everyday. I don’t see it being couture. I would want it to be reflective of my style. And a lot of things I wear are not highly expensive.”