A Political Reporter’s Descent Into Swiftiedom

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I have a playlist on my phone called “Songs that move me.” With 66 selections and a five-hour run time, it’s not exactly well curated. But during a car ride last year, my college-age stepdaughter fixated on one particular choice: “Mirrorball,” a contemplative song from Taylor Swift’s 2020 album “Folklore.”

“That song being on this list says a lot about you,” she told me. She meant it in a good way.

It was one of those bonding moments in a blended family with four daughters, two of them my biological progeny, two of them my wife’s — a moment when you think, Huh, this could work. And I had Taylor Swift to thank.

That particular stepdaughter came to live with me and my wife in Chicago last summer, the summer of Taylor and the Eras Tour. Her father had gotten her, her boyfriend and her older sister tickets for one of Ms. Swift’s performances at Soldier Field. They dressed in the requisite sequins; we dropped them off at the concert and escaped to dinner on the North Side.

My Swiftie stepdaughter wept when Ms. Swift emerged onstage, all caught, of course, in a video she shared with our family. It said a lot about her.

I’m proudly Gen X, and my musical taste tends toward an era long before Ms. Swift, the millennial icon, began recording country songs as a teenager. My biological daughters’ music preferences stem in large part from my own, a progression from Led Zeppelin and Green Day to more contemporary bands like My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy.

But when Ms. Swift set aside her pop style for the sophisticated sounds of “Folklore” and her other pandemic release, “Evermore,” I was all in.