I’ve been listening to A LOT of T. Swift recently. But not for the reasons you might think.
Sure, it’s basically impossible NOT to come across Taylor’s music these days. Also, my wife is a big-time Swiftie, and has been for years, so I’m no stranger to her discography. But the reason I’ve been listening to Swift’s music is because, over the past few months, I’ve become increasingly obsessed with music theory.
I realize that’s a bit of an odd thing to be obsessed with. When most people think of music theory, I imagine their eyes glazing over as they say something along the lines of “Oh, great, just what music needed…math.”
But as someone who grew up playing the cello and as someone with a background in electrical engineering, I find the intersection of music and math to be utterly fascinating. I could give an entire lecture on why music is so cool from a mathematical perspective, but I’ll leave you with just one interesting fact:
Play any musical note. Let’s call that the tonic. Then play the perfect fifth above the tonic (a very pleasing interval to the human ear). The frequency of that perfect fifth note is 1.5x the frequency of the tonic.
I mean, ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!? That’s WILD. It’s SO UNBELIEVABLY BEAUTIFUL that the universe works that way.
What’s that? No, you don’t think that’s mind-blowing? It's just me? Fine.
One of the things I’ve been learning about is chord progressions, which I also won’t bore you with (because, again, I could go on about them for hours), but essentially chord progressions are one of the many building blocks of music composition. And it turns out that there are some very common chord progressions in different genres of music.
For example, in pop music, one of the most common chord progressions is the “I V vi IV” chord progression, most recognizable in the song “Let It Be” by The Beatles, but also in about a trillion other pop songs.
That chord progression ALSO, as I learned from David Bennett’s excellent video on the subject, happens to be the most common chord progression used by…wait for it…Taylor Swift. She uses that chord progression in a whopping 21 of her songs.
So why does that matter and where am I going with this? Well, songs are, at their core, stories. And like any storytelling medium, there are rules and techniques to tell those stories effectively. I find it interesting, therefore, that the most famous pop singer in the world just happens to use arguably the most common pop music chord progression in so many of her songs. I guess it would actually be weirder if she didn’t, right? I mean, if your goal is to write songs that lots of people like, doesn’t it make sense to use techniques that have been proven effective time and time again?
I’ve been thinking about that in my own life, because one of my main goals right now as a writer is to get better at storytelling. I’ve spent so much of my comedy career hyper-focused on learning how to tell good jokes. But I think I’ve underestimated the importance of storytelling techniques like hooking the reader quickly, giving the story stakes, and so on.
For the past few months, I’ve been playing around with making short-form videos for places like TikTok and Instagram, mostly because, like they say, you have to fish where the fish are. And these days, it feels like all the fish are at the bottom of the lake scrolling through TikTok before bed.
It’s been interesting trying to create for that medium, especially when I’m arguably three years late to the game. Gaining any sort of foothold now seems impossible when everyone from Mr. Beast to the Duolingo owl is vying for everyone’s attention.
The more I’ve watched and analyzed short-form videos, the more I’ve realized it’s basically a storytelling pressure cooker. When your video is a 2-second thumb swipe away from being cast into oblivion, captivating the audience is more important than ever.
While I was deep down the music theory rabbit hole, I came across the Taylor Swift song “Champagne Problems,” which is a textbook example of the “I V vi IV” chord progression. The song sounds nothing like, say, “Let It Be,” but it’s similarly catchy, partly because it uses that chord progression, which, just like in “Let It Be” is so satisfying to hear.
As I was listening to the song, an idea popped into my head for a parody, “Campaign Problems,” that would use Taylor Swift’s song to make fun of Ron DeSantis. And if there’s one thing Ron DeSantis needs, it’s to be made fun of. Relentlessly. Always. Forever and ever. So I wrote the lyrics, ran a sample of Ron’s voice through an AI speech generator, made a MIDI piano cover of “Champagne Problems” and the result is what you saw up at the top.
I’d love to end this story by telling you that “Campaign Problems” went mega-massively viral because the captivating lyrics, coupled with Taylor Swift’s expert use of the musical lexicon, weaved a story that the entire world found both engaging and hilarious.
But the truth is, the parody song just…doesn’t…quite…work? At least not for short-form video platforms?
The first problem was the AI voice generator. As impressive as it was at mimicking DeSantis, I couldn’t get it to generate his voice at different pitches or speeds, so the result is that the video feels a bit choppy.
The other big problem, which I only realized in hindsight, is that “Champagne Problems” is SLOW AF. So in the parody, my first real joke (about DeSantis wearing high-heel boots) doesn’t hit until 14 seconds into the video — an eternity in the short-form video world.
BUT, hey, it’s still a funny song! So just because it’s not right for TikTok, doesn’t mean it’s not right for, say, a newsletter, or a text to a friend who might get a kick out of it.
On that note, here’s a shareable version of the video below:
Plus, it was a great learning experience. I got to play around with music production, which I’ve never done before. And the fact that I can look back and armchair quarterback my way around what went right or wrong with the video shows I’ve already learned a lot about making short-form videos in just a few months.
On a broader note about writing, the pressure cooker of TikTok and Instagram has proven to be helpful in my other writing, because it’s brought storytelling elements to the forefront of my mind as I write. Even if you never plan on blowing up on TikTok any time soon, it is perhaps a worthwhile experiment to play around with, not just short-form video, but any other storytelling medium that feels outside your wheelhouse. You never know what insights you might uncover.
Oh, and also listen to more Taylor Swift. Best case, it inspires you to make some sonorous political satire. Worst case, hey, at least her music is catchy?
How Taylor Swift, Ron DeSantis, and Math Made Me A Better Writer