Almost 2 years after she first announced her intentions, Taylor Swift has begun her magnanimous quest to re-record the majority of her discography, starting with, arguably one of her most defining records; Love Story.
“12 years ago she was writing in defiance of her parents, but this time she is deconstructing a different narrative”
If we cast our minds back to December it was only then Taylor Swift was releasing her surprise ninth album Evermore but ever the pandemic productive she is back again. Last Thursday, Swift took to Good Morning America to announce that the re-recorded version of the 2008 single, now titled ‘Love story (Taylor’s Version)’ would be dropping at midnight on the 12th of February, exactly 12 years and 5 months since the original.
The old Taylor wasn’t really dead, she just took a really long nap
Swift originally wrote the track when she was 17 years old after her parents expressed disapproval of a potential boyfriend. In her frustration she took the world’s most famous love story (and most tragic) and rewrote it, ending it so that Romeo came back to save his Juliet and the latter’s father agreed to the union. The accompanying music video paints this picture with a warm yellow hue, gorgeous scenery and delicate costumes, and also really misrepresented what romance would look like to my seven-year-old self.
However, the new version opens with a picture of Swift in a white dress from her 2009 Fearless tour, and goes on to feature pictures of her fans from meet and greets in the late naughties, alongside the lyrics. 12 years ago she was writing in defiance of her parents, but this time she is deconstructing a different narrative; namely, the one written for her by the CEO of her former label, Scott Borchetta, and Scooter Braun, the artist manager who originally bought her back catalogue.
Past pain
“Long story short, it’s a love letter to her fans.”
When Borchetta announced his treacherous plans to sell his label, Big Machine Records to Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in June 2019, Swift responded in outrage, stating the sale was her ‘worst-case scenario’. She had known of Borcettcha’s plans to sell the company but had no inkling it would be to Braun, a man she states ‘tried to dismantle’ her legacy. This is in reference to his associations with known antagonists of Swift, Kanye West and Justin Bieber, with whom she has had very public grievances. It was this which prompted the singer to announce her plans to re-record her old work; to attempt to devalue the originals which Braun profits from, but also to own the work that she created.
By including pictures of her fans in this version, Taylor is rewriting another sad, beautiful and tragic story. The one where two rich men attempt to profit off the work of something they have no hand in. Instead of calling out for a ‘Romeo’ to save her, the visuals from all those meet and greets so many years ago, accompanied with lyrics like ‘don’t be afraid we’ll make it out of this mess’, acknowledge how her supporters (affectionately known as Swifties) chose to love her and stand by her and she them. Long story short, it’s a love letter to her fans.
How successful can a song be the second time around?
Cynics have been sceptical as to the potential success of the re-records but as ever with old grown men, they doubt the power of enthusiastic young people. When Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour was predicted to flop, Swifties turned out in their droves making it the highest-grossing US Tour since records began. Indeed the day the new single was released she was the most streamed artist on Spotify with 37.34million streams and it was also the biggest opening day for a country song in Spotify history. She has now already surpassed one billion total streams on the service in 2021, the first female, and 2nd overall to do so. (I’d say she’s fairly untouchable).
“Famous for her rich and picture-painting lyrics, when choosing the new album cover, the opportunity for further metaphor and imagery was clearly not lost on her.”
But aside from this Swift has taken steps to set her new version up for success. Notably, she includes many of those on the original track, like Jonathan Yadkin, the original fiddle player and Caitlin Evanson who did backup vocals. She also mimics some of her young Nashville twang on lines like ‘I love you and that’s all I really know’.
But there are also some differences, like the fact that she has her touring band, who’ve played the song in shows with her for over a decade, on the instrumentation. And though she imitates her young breathless intonation so that listening to each version in each ear is nearly indistinguishable, it’s only nearly. You can still tell that the singer from 2021 is much older, almost like she is not singing as an innocent damsel ‘on a balcony in summer air’ looking for someone to stay (stay, stay), but now a rightful queen, with a perfectly good heart, fondly looking back on her own past.
Fearless announcements
In her GMA message, it was also revealed that she had finished recording her version of her second album. Fearless, would now have six bonus songs ‘from the vault’. Ever the cryptic, the SuperStar left a series of capital letters in her statement on social media which spelt out ‘APRIL NINTH’; the release date for the album. Swift explained on country radio her reasoning behind choosing to release this album first stating ‘it was an album about hope and lessons learned and the effervescence of teenage youth and all that so what more fun than to go back and explore that’.
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As we know all too well, she is famous for her rich, picture-painting lyrics and when choosing the new album cover, the opportunity for further metaphor and imagery was clearly not lost on her. It features her looking to the right; the opposing direction to that pictured on the original. Aside from being an incredible galaxy brained moment for symbolism, it also furthers the suggestion that whilst Swift seeks to mimic her originals as far as possible in these new versions, she is only a reflection of the young girl she was when she had first signed to a record label.
And as such, these new versions are likely to recall that growth and experience, if not just in her maturer voice, but also in the way that she has the power to write and, now that everything has changed, even rewrite her narrative for herself.
Aarthee Parimelalaghan
Featured image courtesy of Raphael Lovaski on Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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