Ambitious first songs and poems opening debut albums and books: Taylor Swift’s “Tim McGraw” (2006) and Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” (1966)

Today in my Volkshochschule beider Basel course on Taylor Swift, we'll be discussing "Tim McGraw", the first song on her eponymous album from 2006. As I wrote back in January, the song is a statement of the singer and songwriter's ambition, narrowly, to be better known than country singer Tim McGraw, but broadly, to be even more popular than that. The song's marking of ambition to start Swift's career reminds me of "Digging", the first poem in "Death of a Naturalist", Irish poet Seamus Heaney's 1966 debut collection. Now I'm trying to think of other songs and poems that open debut albums and books and so powerfully express the artist's ambition. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 2 December 2024)