Nine years ago, Taylor Swift released her fifth album, 1989, marking her switch from a country singer to a global pop sensation. 1989 holds some of her biggest hits, including “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off”, and won her a Grammy for Album of the Year.
Two weeks ago, Swift released her re-recording of this album.
Re-recording her first six albums
Swift has always planned to own her music, believing one day her label would sell her masters to her, meaning she would get copyright to the original sound recordings of her music. Instead, in 2019, her former label sold her masters to Scooter Braun. Braun is a music executive who has managed the careers of many popstars including Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and Kanye West.
Failing to negotiate a deal to buy them from Braun, Swift embarked on a journey to re-record the six albums Braun had the rights to.
To differentiate the old albums from the re-records, Swift adds (Taylor’s Version) at the end of the title.
With each re-recorded album, Swift also releases songs “from the vault,” songs that were written for the original album but never released.
One would think that the release of an old body of work wouldn’t evoke much excitement. Swifties, however, view the release of the re-recordings as a whole new album release. Months leading up to the release, fans excitedly wait for the new songs and the chance to decipher the differences between the original recordings and the new ones.
Swift’s newest addition to the Taylor’s Version family, 1989, has five vault tracks.
I’ve ranked them below, from best to worst.
1. “Is It Over Now?”
“Is It Over Now?” is the strongest of the vault songs because of its repeated bridge.
In this vault song, the bridge allows us to understand Swift’s anger at the subject’s ability to move on and the double standards she faces within the dating world.
Swift sings, “And did you think I didn’t see you?/There were flashin’ lights/At least I had the decency to keep my nights out of sight/Only rumours ‘bout my hips and thighs.”
As a listener, you feel like you share this anger.
“Is It Over Now?” centres around the lack of closure Swift received at the ending of a relationship. The song is rumoured to be about singer Harry Styles based on lyric parallels in another 1989 song speculated to be about Styles, “Out of the Woods.” In both songs, Swift mentions the snowmobile accident she and Styles got into during their romance. In “Out of the Woods” she sings, “Remember when you hit the brakes too soon?/Twenty stitches in the hospital room,” and in “Is it Over Now?” she sings, “red blood, white snow.”
The snowmobile incident has become an inside joke within the fandom.
2. “Now That We Don’t Talk”
“Now That We Don’t Talk” is another song speculated to be about Styles.
1989’s “Style” discusses the quintessential relationship between Swift and Styles, explaining that they “never go out of style.”
The song contains lyrics directly referring to Styles who grew his hair long in 2014—“You got that long-hair, slicked back, white T-shirt.” Swift reintroduces this idea in “Now That We Don’t Talk” where she sings, “you grew your hair long.”
In “Now That We Don’t Talk,” Swift sarcastically toys with a former flame. Swift does a good job at simultaneously mocking the subject for their interests, “I don’t have to pretend I like acid rock,” and longing for the relationship they had. “I miss the old ways, you didn’t have to change.”
“Now That We Don’t Talk” is a cathartic song as it can be applied to the ending of a variety of relationship types.
3. “Suburban Legends”
“Suburban Legends” is about an intense love that was doomed from the start. This is exemplified in the line, “You kiss me in a way that’s gonna screw me up forever.”
Swift idolizes the subject, turning her head to their flaws and fantasizing about an eternity with them.
What makes this song so powerful is how the production mirrors the theme surrounding the fast-paced, whirlwind relationship.
4. “Say Don’t Go”
In “Say Don’t Go,” the longest of the vault songs, Swift longs for someone who didn’t share the deep connection she felt.
The subject only saw Swift as a fling—“Why’d you whisper in the dark/just to leave me in the night?”—when she saw them as a lifetime love: “I said ‘I love you’/you say nothing back.”
“Say Don’t Go” is highly repetitive, with short verses and many choruses and pre-choruses. The chorus and pre-chorus also are lyrically redundant. This is likely why this song is unnecessarily the longest on the album. It would be more powerful as a shorter song.
5. “‘Slut!’”
“‘Slut!’” perhaps the most anticipated vault song, is a dreamy love song.
This, however, is not what many were hoping for.
In Swift’s early twenties, she faced scrutiny surrounding her love life. A common narrative, at the time, focused on Swift’s “long” catalogue of exes. Swift played on this idea in 1989’s “Blank Space,” which tells a story of Swift’s craziness and serial dating history, saying “Got a long list of ex-lovers/They’ll tell you I’m insane.”
“‘Slut!’” was expected to be thematically similar to “Blank Space,” another satirical song touching on the media’s perception of her.
Swift does mention the public’s perception, claiming, “And if they call me a slut/You know it might be worth it for once,” but the song’s focus is on her new love interest.
Instead of the feminist anthem hoped for, we have Swift explaining how being publicly degraded is worth it if she gets to have … a man.
The song also contains some cringe-worthy lines, even for 2014, like “In a world of boys, he’s a gentleman.”
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