Exploring Taylor Swift's "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)" And Its Impact

Taylor Swift has made a significant mark on the music industry, not only as a talented singer but also as a prolific songwriter. Her journey from a country star to a global pop icon has been remarkable, and her recent re-recording of "Speak Now" showcases her evolution as an artist. The album, originally released in 2010, was pivotal in establishing her identity as a true superstar in the music realm.

In 2023, as Taylor embarks on her blockbuster Eras Tour, she has released "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)" as part of her ongoing effort to regain control over her music catalog. This re-recording not only brings back the nostalgia of her earlier work but also offers a fresh perspective on her artistry. It emphasizes her growth and maturity over the years, both personally and professionally.

As fans eagerly dive into the new version of "Speak Now," there are several key takeaways and insights to consider. Each song holds a story, reflecting Taylor's journey through fame, love, and self-discovery. This article will explore five significant aspects of "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)" that highlight Taylor's growth as a songwriter and the impact of her music on fans and the industry alike.

Table of Contents

• She Wrote 'Em All
• She Retconned a Snide Lyric
• 'Dear John' Remains Fantastically Savage
• Banjos!
• 'Timeless' Leads the Outtakes

She Wrote 'Em All

Swift has long been proud of the fact that she wrote all 14 songs on “Speak Now” by herself, and that hasn’t changed in 2023. In an essay that accompanies the LP’s new edition, she writes that, having had her authorship questioned in the past, she “made a decision that would completely define this album: I decided I would write it entirely on my own. I figured, they couldn’t give all the credit to my cowriters if there weren’t any. But that posed a new challenge: It really had to be good. If it wasn’t, I would be proving my critics right.”

Some no doubt remained suspicious that a woman in her late teens had truly composed “Speak Now’s” songs. Yet revisiting the album makes clear she accomplished what she set out to do: Her best songs here represent a high point in her immense catalog, with an emotional and intellectual incisiveness she’s never surpassed.

She Retconned a Snide Lyric

Though she’s made a virtue of precisely replicating her old albums — the “Taylor’s Version” campaign began, don’t forget, as a way to devalue master recordings she doesn’t own — Swift makes a crucial change in her fresh take on “Better Than Revenge.”

The pop-punk song is a snide takedown of a girl who “steals” the narrator’s boyfriend — a framing that reflects Swift’s mindset at age 19 but that also reveals the institutionalized misogyny in which that mindset was shaped. “She’s not a saint and she’s not what you think / She’s an actress,” Swift sneers in the original. “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.”

'Dear John' Remains Fantastically Savage

A better strategy for recontextualizing old work might be the one Swift deployed during a concert last month in Minneapolis, where she introduced a performance of “Speak Now’s” “Dear John” by assuring her ultra-devoted fans that they don’t “need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”

Her comments were widely understood to refer to John Mayer, about whom Swift is thought to have written “Dear John,” in which she excoriates an ex for gaslighting a woman “too young to be messed with.” Onstage she insisted she no longer cares about what happened to her when she was 19, which is almost certainly untrue. (The whole point of the “Taylor’s Version” project — the whole point of Taylor Swift — is that the past is always alive.)

Banjos!

Swift wouldn’t score her first No. 1 single on Billboard’s Hot 100 until “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” from 2012’s “Red” — an album for which she consciously adopted the sleek programmed textures of the hitmaking pop producers Max Martin and Shellback.

Given where she’s gone since then, both aesthetically and commercially, it’s fascinating to remember how rooted in hand-played sounds the former country phenom still was on “Speak Now,” which piled on the strings and banjos and acoustic guitars in a year when the Hot 100 was dominated by the likes of Kesha’s “Tik Tok,” Usher’s “OMG,” Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” and Far East Movement’s “Like a G6.”

'Timeless' Leads the Outtakes

Like Swift’s remakes of “Fearless” and “Red” before it, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” comes with a handful of newly recorded outtakes from her so-called vault. None quite rise to the level of what’s on the album itself, though each provides an intriguing look at where her head was as she was writing.

“Electric Touch” has chugging emo guitars provided in part by Fall Out Boy; “I Can See You” sounds like the Police, of all things. “Castles Crumbling” features Hayley Williams of Paramore (one of Swift’s opening acts on the Eras Tour) and, as produced by Swift and Jack Antonoff, suggests she was into cloistered indie folk years before “Folklore” and “Evermore.”

The best of the vault tracks is “Timeless,” a characteristically detailed fantasy in which the narrator, having come across a box of photos in an antique shop, imagines herself in a series of historical romances. (Fans have decided the tune was inspired by Swift’s grandmother Marjorie, whose name provided the title of a track on “Evermore.”) “Time breaks down your mind and body / Don’t you let it touch your soul,” she sings in the bridge — advice she’s clearly taken to heart.