an age old classic - musings on Speak Now (Taylor's Version)
in which i fall in love with a thirteen year old album all over again
I can’t remember listening to Speak Now for the first time. Released in 2010, I was nine years old. I recall seeing it in the check out line at Target, marveling at the pretty purple dress and the perfect corkscrew curls, but as a little kid, I rarely listened to anything besides the radio.
It was three years later, in the throes of middle school, when I finally dove into Taylor Swift’s discography. I remember dancing around my friend’s basement and jumping on my bed as we held a concert night after night, singing our hearts out to The Story of Us and Sparks Fly. I remember logging into Youtube to watch lyric videos and live performances. The Mine music video is burned into my mind. I remember when I finally bought the CD and stayed up on a school night to crack the secret codes in the lyric booklet.
I can’t remember listening to Speak Now for the first time. But I like to think it felt something like when I heard the vault tracks for the first time.
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is the third re-recording under Swift’s belt, so in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing new. Swift is known for her meticulous planning and master business skills, and each re-release is a marketing and revenue goldmine. Sure, her popularity will continue to skyrocket and she will once again earn the royalties from streaming, but the new release is more than that. She is making a statement, advocating for the importance of musicians owning their own music, on all levels.
This statement is the reason for the re-recording of Swift’s first six albums, and while each of the original songs sounds mostly the same (other than less country twang and a particular lyric modification), these releases become an event. Swift takes fans on a journey, revisiting previous eras, which is a little word that has taken on new meaning as she tours the world this year.
Fans get to hear the same music they know and love in a new way, and support Swift’s mission to own her work. But what makes the Taylor’s Version release so special? Getting to hear brand new songs that were previously locked away in the ‘vault.’
Taylor Swift has over 200 songs currently released, spanning a career of over seventeen years and ten albums. But there are countless unreleased gems lost in time and hidden in the depths of murky internet archives.
Vault songs are fresh and new, while also fitting the familiar feeling of the era in which they were crafted for. Hearing the strums of a banjo as Swift crafts a fairytale makes me feel like I am thirteen again, and wondering how this country music artist could write something so intrinsically relatable to someone who’s never experienced love.
And that’s the thing about Taylor Swift. She makes me believe in love, even if it sometimes seems as fleeting for me as it does for her.
Story telling has always been at the forefront of Swift’s musical genius since the very beginning. As she has traveled through different musical genres, her lyrics have always been the golden thread tying her discography together.
Her narrative powers are highlighted in the concluding vault song, Timeless. Drawing comparisons to vintage pictures of love found in an antique shop and star-crossed lovers from the 1500’s, Swift shares the feelings that emanate from a love so strong its ‘timeless.’ “Even in a different life, you still would've been mine, / We would've been timeless,” she sings, paralleling the first song on Speak Now, rounding out an album that she poignantly describes as ‘the best thing that has ever been mine.’
This is not the only parallel drawn between an original track listing and a new ‘From the Vault’ track. Castles Crumbling paints the other side of the coin to Long Live, sharing the fears and insecurities that Swift tried at the time to sweep under the rug. The song is only strengthened by featuring another seasoned singer, Hayley Williams, lead vocalist of Paramore. Both musicians have been scrutinized in the media, and through the lens of time passing, the song reveals the underlying emotions of growing up with the whole world watching.
Despite these songs fitting Speak Now’s general aesthetic, the songs seem even more impactful being released thirteen years after the original. There is a sense of hindsight that alters how the primary album feels— in a good way.
In the title track, Speak Now, Swift sings a story, begging a groom-to-be to run away with her instead and find their happy ending together. In an alternate ending, Foolish One describes the harsh reality of moving on once the boy chooses the other girl. This song shifts away from the perfect storybook love that the title track emulates, but strengthens the album as a whole. Speak Now has immense highs and lows, reaching from the happiest of loves to the saddest of endings, and the inclusion of Foolish One as a parallel to the title track encapsulates that full journey.
When Emma Falls in Love is another excellent example, showing that despite her earlier work being primarily autobiographical, she writes narratives that weave into her life and beyond. This is one of her strongest vault tracks, with it’s familiar feeling in the instrumentation and the metaphors she uses as she writes from an outside point of view.
“'Cause she's the kind of book that you can't put down,
Like if Cleopatra grew up in a small town.”
Overall, it’s hard for me to tell you if this re-release was good or bad. The nostalgia paints this album in swirling, purple skies, and I wonder who I would be without having listened to this music throughout middle school, high school, college, and into the present. But the vault songs remind me of why I’m here in the first place. They add a new layer to the album, weaving new chapters and writing alternate endings to the storybook many of us grew up singing, as we danced around all alone and blushed all the way home.
The album is a mish mash of genre, a ‘patchwork quilt’ much like its successor, Red, as Swift slowly made the gradual shift away from country and into the world of synth pop. But every song on Speak Now— regardless of whether it feels more rock, pop or country— is united by the masterful storytelling. This is only exaggerated even more with the new uncovering of more Speak Now-era songs.
For an album that has followed me from the depths of middle school melancholy to the highs of adolescent independence, Speak Now is still versatile and demanding of attention, thirteen years later. The nostalgia of the past mixes with the constant of the present, leading Swift toward her increasingly bright future.
And hey, I’ll be there too, as I strive towards my own future. And with the older sister of our generation guiding me, I know it’s been waiting for me.
this summer, i’ve been diving into mary oliver’s poetry, and i fell in love with this poem particularly. also currently reading rachel lynn solomon’s recent release, business or pleasure! it fits nicely into the purple aesthetic i’ve been crafting recently since birth.
reminiscing on my trip to new york earlier this year, and wondering what is stopping me from living there…
between graduating and job hunting, i’ve been writing up a storm this summer! fiction, poetry, random musings, etc. more to come soon :) thanks for reading!
-Em