It’s Tuesday, November 9th and my Swiftie WhatsApp group has just changed the chat name to “🧣Taylor’s Version🧣” in preparation for Friday when Taylor Swift will be releasing Red (Taylor’s Version). The album is the second in her roll out of re-recorded albums which are allowing her to reclaim ownership of her life’s work. It is also one of the most important albums of her career.
In 2012, Taylor Swift released the original recording of her album Red. In her own words, “Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past.” Lead singles included the poppy hit “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, the quietly romantic “Begin Again”, and the dub-step dance track “I Knew You Were Trouble”. The album largely documents her short lived relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal, 9 years her senior.
A song that was notably absent from any kind of marketing or press release was “All Too Well”, a song widely regarded to be her best songwriting to date, which took on a life of its own. Taylor Swift herself has said it was the most difficult song to write on the album and that she didn’t perform it for a long time because of how raw and sad it was for her. But fans took to it and made it this larger than life experience that now when she thinks of it she associates it with a very magical and beautiful experience with her fans.
It’s been five days since Red (Taylor’s Version) entered our lives and damn do Kayla and I have a lot to say about this…
The Vaults
If you’re new here, “vault songs” are songs Taylor originally wrote during her time prepping for Red that did not make the original cut of the album. As part of her re-recording project, she is releasing these vault songs to the public for the first time.
Better Man (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault]
“Better Man” is a song we’ve actually heard before. After failing to make the cut the first time around, Taylor passed it on to Little Big Town who then released it as part of their 2017 album The Breaker. It sits at their 5th most streamed song on Spotify. While there are many unreleased Taylor Swift songs floating around the internet, this was a song the fans had not been aware of and through a little sleuthing, we were able to identify it as a Red era song. When she initially announced her intention to re-record, before she went into detail about it, fans began to hope online that songs like Better Man would be included, and it was!
Prior to last week’s release, the only time we’d heard what Taylor’s Version of the song may sound like was when she sang it at the Bluebird Cafe. The version that was delivered to us is a fuller version of the acoustic one she performed in 2019, perhaps a little sadder and with a little more perspective than that of Little Big Town’s much more bitter and pleading rendition.
If it was not clear, this song is 100% about Jake Gyllenhaal.
Favorite Lyric:
I hold onto this pride because these days it's all I have
And I gave to you my best and we both know you can't say that
Nothing New (Taylor’s Version) [From the Vault] (Ft. Phoebe Bridgers)
In my personal opinion, based on what I observed online, this was the song and collaboration that had fans most excited. Phoebe Bridgers is a tour de force in the music industry right now, having been nominated for Best New Artist, Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Alternative Music Album at this year’s Grammy Awards. She’s also appeared on several collaborations with other artist’s over the last 2 years, including this song.
Nothing New is about a young starlet who’s shiny newness is beginning to fade and her fear of becoming washed up like other women tend to become as a result of a sexist music industry. Taylor said “I really wanted another female artist who I loved to sing it with me, because I think it was a very female artist perspective … And her [Bridgers’] response was, ‘I’ve been waiting for this text my entire life’.”
Favorite Lyric:
How can a person know everything at eighteen
But nothing at twenty-two?
Babe (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault]
This is another song we’ve actually heard before. Taylor passed this song on to Sugarland who then released it as part of their 2018 album Bigger. It is currently their 3rd most streamed song on Spotify. Kayla and I have a difference of opinion (which you’ll read about in a moment), but I actually like this version better. Sugarland is one of my favorite groups, but something about their version of the song just never hit for me. I don’t dislike it, but in the grand scheme of their discography I just didn’t love it. I wasn’t terribly excited about hearing it on the Red (Yaylor’s Version) just because it wasn’t a favorite of mine already, but I think she really rounded out the song with some pop elements that make it super fun to listen to.
Message In A Bottle (Taylor’s Version) [From The Vault]
This is probably my favorite song of all the vault tracks and I am shocked it got cut from the original album. I know we all love “22”, but I think this would have been a more fun pop song and it would have gotten excellent radio play. There aren’t many clues about who this song is about (I’m convinced it is not He Who Must Not Be Named), but the most revealing may be the reference to London (home of Harry Styles). All of her exes must hate him because he came out of all this unscathed and with the most bops.
Favorite Lyric:
You're so far away and I'm down
Feelin' like a face in the crowd
I'm reachin' for you, terrified
I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault] (Ft. Chris Stapleton)
Arguably my favorite song from the vault, “I Bet You Think About Me” is seriously a banger. In the same way that “Mr. Perfectly Fine” will forever haunt me as a song that I was missing for 13 years, “I Bet You Think About Me” will forever make me mad that I spent almost a decade listening to Red without this musical wonder. One thing that I love about this song is the clear country routes. Because Red was Taylor’s first “pop” album, this song may have been left off the original album because of the clear country twang it possesses, but it is beyond amazing. According to Taylor herself, it is a song that was written to listen to while you are drinking and she could not be more accurate. I can imagine sitting in a country bar and listening to the harmonica on this song while drinking a beer (let’s be real, actually a seltzer) and drunkenly singing this song at the top of my lungs.
Clearly this song is about one of Taylor’s worst exes (cough cough Jake Gyllenhaal) who gets completely roasted on most of this album. She pretty much confirms it is about him with lyrics like “You grew up in a silver-spoon gated community/ Glamorous, shiny, bright Beverly Hills” and “I bet you think about me when you’re out/ At your cool indie music concerts every week” which clearly reference Gyllenhall’s Beverly Hills upbringing and his taste for indie music (which can also be noted in “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”.
In addition to releasing this gem of a song, she also released a music video for it that was co written and directed by the other queen, Blake Lively. I could write an entire piece on just that music video alone, but all I will say is that it is iconic and has so many Easter Eggs that scream classic Taylor. Some of my favorites are as follows: the birds on the wedding cake resemble the birds on her sweater from the 1989 cover, Taylor also destroys the wedding cake in the video which is a clear homage to the “Blank Space” music video, and finally at the end Taylor’s wedding dress turns red and mimics the one she was wearing on the cover of the deluxe Speak Now CD.
Favorite Lyric:
I bet you think about me in your house
With your organic shoes and your million-dollar couch
Forever Winter (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault]
In “Forever Winter”, Taylor sings about her constant worry about her partner, who seems to be going through a rough patch mentally. She is worried and stressed about him and in the chorus she talks about trying to be his “sun”. Sometimes when in a relationship, your partner's burdens also become yours and most sane people would do anything to relieve their partner of those burdens. This is obviously the case for Taylor in this song as she recollects all of the memories about her partner breaking down on phone calls and getting pulled down by the weight of the world.
To me, this song shows its age and was clearly written by young Taylor. The lyrics talk about wanting to help someone in emotional turmoil, but with age comes wisdom that sometimes there is nothing you can do for someone if they are in a poor mental state. Sometimes the only thing that can happen is them helping themselves.
Favorite Lyric:
If I was standing there in your apartment
I’d take that bomb in your head and disarm it
Run (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault] (Ft. Ed Sheeran)
I love Taylor Swift. I also love Ed Sheeran. Put those two together and I am going to pretty much love anything that they do. This song is really no exception.”Run” was one of the first songs that Taylor actually wrote with Ed in 2012 and she said in an interview that they wrote it on a trampoline. It is such a gentle song and Taylor and Ed harmonize so well in it, you’d never know it was written on the first day they met. The song is about leaving behind all responsibilities and taking off with your significant other and I relate to that at this current time because my dream is to drop everything and become a van lifer (much to Marc’s dismay). I’d like to just get up and run away while listening to this song.
Although I do like the song, I don’t think it is one of Taylor’s most lyrically profound songs. It is pretty simple for the most part, but the lyrics match the tone of the song. It is slow, mellow, and reminds me of something that would be cute to listen to with a partner while laying on a blanket in the middle of a park on a warm summer day. Dreaming of a future where you can just run off into the sunset and never look back on life’s responsibilities or cares.
Favorite Lyric:
I could see this view a hundred times
Pale blue sky reflected in your eyes.
The Very First Night (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault]
Unlike a lot of other songs on this album, in “The Very First Night” Taylor reminisces about a past relationship that she remembers fondly. Let’s be real, Red is filled with many songs where she sings about heartbreak, but in this song she is remembering the relationship and wishing she could go back in time to when they were together. The song is also super up-beat and quick, resembling the feeling of young love - passionate, happy, free…
This song also has lyrics that Taylor has used in other songs. In the second verse she says “And so it goes” which were used in the song “So It Goes” on the Reputation album. She also says “We were built to fall apart” and the same lyrics were used in her 1989 song “Out of the Woods”. Truthfully I’m not sure if there is any reason she would use these same lyrics later in life (since both 1989 and Reputation came out after she wrote this song), but she could have been pulling bits from previous work that did not get released.
Favorite Lyric:
We were built to fall apart
We broke the status quo
Then we broke each other’s hearts
Ronan
“Ronan” deserves its own explanation, especially to those who may not be the die-hard Swifties that Kayla and I are. It is important to note that under no circumstances should we be ranking “Ronan” when discussing our favorite/least favorite songs on the album or in her discography. “Ronan” exists to be loved and cherished, never judged.
Ronan is the name of a four-year-old boy who died of cancer in 2011. His mother wrote a blog called “Rockstar Ronan” which detailed the challenges of having a young child with cancer. Taylor wrote the song based on his mother’s blog posts and credited her as a co-writer of the song. Five months after Ronan passed, Taylor invited his mom to her concert where she told her about the song. Taylor has only performed the song twice: the first time for Stand Up to Cancer in September 2012 and a second time during her 1989 World Tour at the Glendale, AZ show where Ronan’s family was in attendance.
In a letter to Ronan’s mom, Taylor asked permission to include the song on the re-recorded album.
I've recently completed the re-recording of my 4th album, Red. It's really exceeded my expectations in so many ways, and one of those ways is that I thought it would be appropriate to add "Ronan" to this album. Red was an album of heartbreak and healing, of rage and rawness, of tragedy and trauma, and of the loss of an imagined future alongside someone. I wrote "Ronan" while I was making Red and discovered your story as you so honestly and devastatingly told it. My genuine hope is that you'll agree with me that this song should be included on this album. As my co-writer and the rightful owner of this story in its entirety, your opinion and approval of this idea really matters to me, and I'll honor your wishes here.
Saddest Lyric:
Flowers pile up in the worst way, no one knows what to say
About a beautiful boy who died
And it's about to be Halloween
You could be anything you wanted if you were still here
Our Favorites (And Least Favorites)
Unlike Fearless (Taylor’s Version) which I think did a good job of sticking to the source material and maintained the integrity of the original album, we saw a lot of differences with Red (Taylor’s Version). While we can’t go through every little detail (this would be the length of a college thesis), we can talk about our favorite and least favorite changes on the new album.
Sydney’s Favorite Change:
“Girl At Home” was one of the target exclusive bonus tracks included on the original Red album. The original was a country leaning pop song that now sounds like an acoustic arrangement of the newer Taylor’s Version, which was updated to be a knockout electric dance pop song. While the original sounds like it could have easily been placed on Fearless or Speak Now, now it sounds like it could have a home on 1989. I think this perfectly illustrates the purpose of Red, which was to bridge her from country to pop. Having a song like “Girl At Home”, which could easily go either way, on such a hybrid album is a metaphor for that bridge.
Kayla’s Favorite Change:.
I don’t think there is a ton of change from the original to Taylor’s Version, but in my mind, something about “Red” just seems so much different. Knowing how she has grown over the years while still continuing to use colors to represent her feelings makes this song even more important. In this album, she describes the feeling of love as being “burning red”, but as we hear in her Lover track, “Daylight”, we learn she has grown up and now describes the feeling of love as being golden. Nevertheless, this song just solidifies her amazing use of metaphors as she captures every single emotion with a new color and paints some great imagery for listeners.
Sydney’s Least Favorite Change:
Bestie, I hate to tell you this, but the re-recorded version of “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” is just not it. This was the biggest let down for me on an album full of home runs. The original is a fun and fancy free letter to an on-again-off-again relationship that is off for the final time. The new recording comes off as inauthentic. Taylor has said that the original was recorded right after a mutual friend of hers and her ex came into the studio and mentioned they had heard they were getting back together and she needed to set that straight. Trying to recreate that feeling can be difficult when the original was recorded with that moment fresh in her mind. But still, something is wrong with those “wee-EEE”s. I’ve heard her single this song live enough times to know she could have done better.
Kayla’s Least Favorite Change:
I hate to say it, but I think the Sugarland version of “Babe” is better. There. I said it. I’m clearly not a good Swiftie anymore. While I do think “Better Man” is sung much better by Taylor than Little Big Town, I think “Babe” just isn’t the same without the signature twang of Jennifer Nettles. Taylor just seems so abrupt with her pronunciation that the whimsical nature of the song just doesn’t quite stick as well. If Taylor still had her signature country accent from her original album, it may have been different, but I just cannot take this song seriously as her own song. I find myself craving more of a country delivery… On that note, I do like Taylor’s background vocals in the Sugarland version, so I wish she would have just stuck with those.
Side note, Taylor looks banging as a red-head in the “Babe” music video with Sugarland…
All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) [From The Vault]
Now for the moment 9 years in the making. Taylor Swift’ mythological 10-minute version of her sleeper hit, “All Too Well”. You can read more about the significance of this version in Sydney’s T-Party piece from last week, which was written prior to hearing the actual extended version of the song.
Sydney’s Thoughts:
I sobbed when I first heard the song, but I think it was almost out of jarred astonishment. It was an unbelievable moment to be a Taylor Swift fan and I was just in dumbfounded disbelief. The moment that broke me was the moment the new part of the song came into play, which was also the highly anticipated f-bomb she dropped at the beginning of the second verse:
And you were tossing me the car keys, "fuck the patriarchy"
Key chain on the ground, we were always skipping town
Up until that point the song had been pretty similar, identical lyrically. So that’s when it hit me that I was hearing a new song and I became unconsolable. It’s a very disorienting experience to be singing along to a song you’ve known the lyrics to be heart and all of the sudden you are hearing something brand new.
The song itself is heartbreaking. I’ve cried to the original many times, but this time around these were tears of pride and joy. Similar to the experience Taylor had with the song, it went from one of the saddest songs I’d ever heard to one of the most empowering. The biggest difference between the original recording and the new 10-minute recording is the tone and intention. The original was sung by a hollow and broken person, but the new one is sung by someone with strength and perspective. The 10-minute version is Taylor’s redemption arc, where she can stand in her truth and say, “I remember it all too well”. Once that may have sounded like a plea, today it sounds like an accusation.
Sydney’s Favorite Lyric:
The idea you had of me, who was she?
A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you
Kayla’s Thoughts:
I’ve always loved “All Too Well” (I mean, what Swiftie doesn’t?), but when I heard there was a 10 minute version originally written, I knew I wanted to hear it. It has long been folklore in the Swiftie universe that the 10 minute version existed, so when Tayler started re-releasing all her old albums with new songs from the vault, my heart immediately thought about the 10 minute version of “All Too Well” and I became so curious if she would ever release it. Sure enough, when she announced the re-record of Red, all fans were given a huge surprise when we found it on the track list. Years of manifesting it into existence paid off and we were finally given this gem.
After listening to it for the first time, I think I was in complete and utter shock. When I first started listening, I was singing along as normal. It was like an old and familiar sweater...and then, bam! We were hit with new lyrics in the third verse and my whole world was flipped upside down. After listening to the song once though I couldn’t help but think, how did so many amazing lyrics get put into one song and then cut? Reading all of the lyrics for the first time just confirmed how absolutely heartbreaking this song is, but when I watched her perform it on SNL, there was a confidence about her. She was no longer sad. She was singing from a place of growth and reflection, which is exactly how she sounds on this version of the song. She is older and much more mature. She is in a great relationship with someone who treats her well. All this to say she is in a place where she can look back at this song and see how far she has come.
Kayla’s Favorite Lyric:
And I was never good at tellin’ jokes, but the punch line goes
“I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age”
10 Absolutely Savage Tweets About Jake Gyllenhaal
Shit We’re Loving: LISTEN
Sydney and Kayla’s Pick: The Ringer Podcast - ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ | Every Single Album
If you’ve made it this far in the newsletter, THANK YOU. We realize this was a very long issue and we super appreciate you reading it! As you may have noticed, Kayla and I have a lot of fan-feelings about Taylor Swift and the new album. If you are a music aficionado or you’re just interested in a more technical breakdown of the album from two huge Swifties, you can listen to this podcast episode from The Ringer. They do a great job of analyzing the album from a journalistic perspective!
Show Your Support: Donors Choose
Donors Choose as a platform makes it easy for anyone to help a teacher in need. Their mission is to move us as a nation closer to the point where every student’s needs are met and great education is being had. Donors Choose is committed to leading with empathy to combat systemic racism and socioeconomic inequity in our school system. Since 2000, Donors Choose has supported over 5 million people and over 2 million classroom project requests that range from butterfly cocoons, to robotics kits, to books with diverse characters, and classroom basics like tables and chairs.
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For all the devil’s advocates out there (like myself) this totally does not take away from the horrible fact that our education system needs some serious reform and our teachers should not have to set up a donations page to get supplies. The system is wrong. But until it changes, we have the power to help those who can’t wait. And if you’re a teacher (like Aimée!), you and your classroom have the opportunity to get funded. Check out the teacher process here.
Daily Intention:
Today I will…
continue to hold a grudge against Jake Gyllenhaal.
Here’s some nifty buttons for you to press, enjoy: