As many around the world will know, it’s now been around 10 days since Taylor Swift released the first of her re-recordings of her old material: a bid to take ownership of her work. You may also know that it has dominated the charts, with its no.1 status here in the UK giving Taylor Swift a new record surpassing The Beatles. It’s been celebrated both for its brilliance in the original instance, but also for being more polished, for her stronger vocals and cleaner mixes, for the subtle changes in inflection and lyrics that show how much she’s grown. And my name can be added to the long long list of people who adore it.
To be honest, when Swift made her first announcement that she would be re-recording her old music, my initial reaction wasn’t elation, but hesitation. Of course, from the perspective of agency and ownership, it’s impossible not to support the venture. But as someone who felt so deeply attached to this catalogue, and attached to it in a younger and formative part of life, I was scared that the memories would be changed by these new versions. Taylor has changed so much in the years since the release of her older work; both in her vocals and in her character, and I was terrified that these changes would make the music feel too different.
However, the reality is that the fact that Taylor has changed and grown up shapes the way she records Taylor’s Version, and shapes the way that fans interpret it. One reviewer said, “we get present-day Taylor in conversation with the Taylor of the past with a wrenching intimacy.” The truth of this permeates through the whole album. There is something somewhat moving to hear a 30-something woman sing the songs she wrote at 18, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the cathartic and reflective nature of the whole process for Swift herself. To be able to look back and see the things that felt so big back then, and how irrelevant they seem now. In her song Fifteen, she sings, “in your life you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team.” She saw that at 18 even; imagine how much more real those words feel with another decade of live lived, and in light of the incredible feats she has made in her career. I wonder if those feelings of all-encompassing teenage desire and angst she expressed came back in full power, or whether they were a wistful sigh and a smile as she sang them, as if they were an old friend’s words rather than her own. For some songs especially, the passing of time and the nature of Swift’s life make them feel that bit more relevant now: such as The Best Day, her ode to her mother, whom she’s seen go through the toughest of times in the years since her cancer diagnosis; or Change, which whilst a low-point of the original album for me as a kid, now rings in an anthemic way, paralleling the victory of being able to even release this album.
And whilst Taylor has changed a lot and it has influenced Fearless (Taylor’s Version), I have also changed a lot since 2008, and the way I consume and enjoy this album will of course have changed too, something I seemed to forget in my initial hesitation.
I think the reason I hold this album so dear is because it was the one I’d blast out loud when I was home alone and dancing round the house. I also treasured it because as a teen I felt seen by Taylor, as different as my teen experience was. I would sing You Belong With Me, believing that I ‘wasn’t like other girls’ and Fearless represented what I wanted in a relationship and Forever & Always was one to scream when you were annoyed at the world and people who’d let you down. Swift’s greatest gift as a songwriter has always been her ability to relate her personal, inward emotions and turn them outwards into this universal, relatable feeling. And I realised as I listened to Taylor’s Version, that the specific brand of this that is captured on Fearless is the yearning we all feel so desperately in our teen years. That yearning to fit in, to be loved, to achieve something bigger than what we see in front of us.
The joy of revisiting this fresh version of the album is that with perspective and nostalgia, those feelings of yearning come back as a fond memory of simpler times. However, I also realised that whilst the intensity of it in youth has dissipated, that yearning hasn’t gone, and I don’t think it ever will. Those desires to be known and loved and successful are eternal, and whilst the specific experiences of this album don’t feel relevant as a 23 year old, those feelings somehow still do.
With the release of 6 new tracks ‘from the vault’ as well as me discovering the tracks I missed on the Platinum Edition that I didn’t own, I feel myself both sinking back into the feelings I felt as a teenager, whilst retaining this distance and perspective to look back and think ‘it’s insane that seemed the whole world to us back then’. (Hearing Mr Perfectly Fine for the first time took me right back to being 18 and being rejected for the first time, like BIG TIME).
My memories of Fearless haven’t changed, and listening to it now, even if its does feel that bit more mature and polished, and even though I miss the youthful naivety and innocence in all of it, still makes me feel warm in that same way. But it also makes me feel comforted in new ways I didn’t expect, simply from the nature of both the artist and the listener having greatly changed since the original album. Nostalgia isn’t an unhealthy thing, and I love the fact that Fearless (Taylor’s Version) brings that feeling to the forefront of my mind. That being said, our relationship with art should change as we do, and this re-recording seems to have come at a good time to remind me of that and appreciate Swift’s incredible artistry yet again.