Many songs from Taylor Swift's extensive music catalogue employ remembering, piecing together memories and telling stories from past experience. This has served her well. Perhaps some of her music goes a bit further, conjuring the Platonic notion of recollection, an attempt to nourish oneself on essential insight and truth within the marrow of memories and past experience.

Yet Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard associated "recollection" with motionlessness, contrasting it with his notion of repetition, characterized by constant motion and passionate commitment towards an ethical future. Kierkegaard's "repetition" involves moving beyond recollection.

According to Kierkegaard's perspective, repetition is not only a means to authenticity but also a way to counteract societally driven inauthenticity by fostering genuine individuality and spirit through repeated ethical choices and actions. This is in contrast to recollection, which is primarily aesthetic.

In popular music, recollection is ubiquitous.

Take "Yesterday," written by Paul McCartney. The lyrics reflect on a past love and the longing for simpler times. "Why she had to go I don't know. She wouldn't say. I said something wrong. Now I long for yesterday."

It's among the most popular songs of all time.

"Yesterday" mourns a loss, creating a musical shrine. McCartney isn't certain of the song's origins. He intended the words to be "girl lyrics" fictionalizing love lost, but recently wondered whether he had unconsciously penned memories of his mother, who died when he was fourteen (Muldoon, 2024), offering a poignant reframe. Either way, it is memory laced with sentiment and regret.

Repetition is more existential engagement than reminiscence.

Early songs from Swift's 2006 self-titled debut album offer prime examples of a wistful outlook—"Tim McGraw," "Cold as You," and "Should've Said No." Then on her 2008 Fearless album, "Fearless," "Love Story," and........

© Psychology Today