Every few years the music industry throws up a Taylor Swift, a pretty girl with a sweet voice singing perfect little bubblegum ballads about teen love. There seems to be an endless market for this sort of thing; Swift’s Fearless was the top selling album of 2008. The songwriting is surprisingly good, and the production is faultless. Even gruff old musical cynics will find something to enjoy on this album.

The break-through single was Love Story, a fairly obvious ballad about young romantic love -

Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone
I'll be waiting all there’s left to do is run
You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess
Its a love story baby just say yes

This “love story” has a traditional ending -

Romeo save me I’ve been feeling so alone
I keep waiting for you but you never come
Is this in my head? I don’t know what to think
He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring

And said, marry me Juliet
You’ll never have to be alone
I love you and that’s all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It’s a love story baby just say yes

It’s hard to be offended by a story that ends in a wedding. Yet it worries me a little. Girls are fed this notion of the perfect fairy tale romance throughout their lives - in stories, in film, in music, in books, everywhere. I can’t help but wonder how much discontentment it has bred? How many married women are secretly yearning for a Mr Darcy or a Mr Thornton? How many single women feel worthless because their lives have not yet been “redeemed” by the romantic love of Mr Right?

Perhaps it’s going too far to call these sorts of messages wrong. But I wonder if it’s possible to offer our young girls something better to aspire to; ultimately, to point them to a love that is greater, deeper and more profoundly satisfying than even the love of a Romeo?