Taylor Swift (12/13/1989, Sagittarius Snake) is perhaps the single most successful and famous person on the planet at the start of 2024. Among an incredible array of achievements, the multi-award winning singer/songwriter is the most streamed artist on Spotify and Apple Music, the only winner of four Grammy Awards for album of the year, and her Eras world tour is the highest-grossing of all time.

Swift’s Chinese sign, the Snake, has since pre-history been associated with music and philosophy—the arts of “the Muses”. Her songwriting talent therefore draws on a deep wellspring of favorable energy. Further, Swift’s facility with conceptual ideas—the science of knowledge—is enhanced by the Western sign of Sagittarius, the sign most conducive to abstract thought. All four Mutable energy signs—Gemini, Pisces, Virgo, and Sagittarius—have a natural aptitude for consequences, implications, and after-effects. Even among these four, however, the conceptual and always-dynamic Fire sign Sagittarius stands out as a strategic powerhouse. Not for nothing are so many of the world’s most high-profile chess players—e.g., Magnus Carlsen (11/30/1990, Sagittarius Horse), Hikaru Nakamura (12/9/1987, Sagittarius Rabbit), and Viswanathan Anand (12/11/1969, Sagittarius Rooster)—born under the sign of Sagittarius!

For Swift, strategic insight has shaped her career in ways both myriad and diverse. For one thing, by authentically invoking her personal life, she has redressed gendered assumptions that previously underpinned the music industry. In comments applicable to many of her acclaimed songs, including “Delicate” (2017), “Dear John” (2010), “Marjorie” (2020), and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” (2012), Swift told fellow year-of-the-Snake, Barbara Walters (09/25/1929, Libra Snake):

If a guy shares his experience in writing, he’s brave. If a woman shares her experience in writing, she’s oversharing. And [she’s] over emotional. Or she might be crazy or watch out [she’ll] write a song about you. Well that is [a] joke [that] … is so old and [it’s] coming from a place of such sexism.

Swift has equally managed to turn her Sagittarius’ philosophical instinct for justice and natural business acumen into brilliantly successful commercial initiatives. Perhaps most famously, a highly-publicized dispute between Swift and entrepreneur Scooter Braun (06/18/1981, Gemini Rooster) led to Swift re-recording the albums, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Interestingly, the energy match between Swift and Braun is in fact one of the most compatible across the entire Western and Chinese combined zodiacs. That said, the Western combination of Sagittarius and Gemini can be powerfully conflictive, albeit in ways that may ultimately enrich both parties. It appears that the fertile potential of Swift and Braun’s connection may have been lost in their commercial imbroglio. Ultimately, though, the dispute arguably produced untold benefits both for Swift personally, and more broadly for the rights of artists. 

The same argumentative connection between Sagittarius and Gemini seems to have contributed to a long-running tension between Swift and Kanye West (06/08/1977, Gemini Snake). This feuding energy is believed to have inspired Swift to create songs like, “Karma” (2022), “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” (2017), and “Look What You Made Me Do” (2017). Of course, Swift and West also share the energy of the Snake year, which can lead to a pronounced weakness for jealousy and wounded pride.

Stay tuned for Part 2, investigating Swift’s varied relationships—including the startling synergy between her current partner Travis Kelce (10/05/1989, Libra Snake), and a high-profile former flame…