“I’ve always said that the world is a different place for the heartbroken. It moves on a different axis, at a different speed. Time skips backwards and forwards fleetingly. The heartbroken might go through thousands of micro-emotions a day trying to figure out how to get through it without picking up the phone to hear that old familiar voice. In the land of heartbreak, moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion are intricately woven together with grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness. Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past. And this is all to say, that the next album I’ll be releasing is my version of Red.”
– Taylor Swift via Instagram, June 18, 2021.
If you’re anything like me, your heart just about stopped waking up to that Instagram post on a warm summer morning. Fast forward a few months as the air chills and the leaves turn, “Red (Taylor’s Version)” is ours for the first time since 2012. The full record, filled with 30 songs and never-released tracks has won the hearts of her most devoted fans (and even the skeptical). Spotify data reports that Swift smashed two records on the release date of Friday, November 12: one awarded for being the most streamed album in a day by a woman in Spotify history (a title previously held by herself for the Folklore Album) and another for being the most streamed female artist in a day in Spotify history.
With all of this being said, what is it about Swift that has grappled the hearts of her listeners—pulling at their heartstrings with lyricism and imagery in a magnetism only found in her music—for over 15 years? Swift has proven again and again that storytelling and connecting with listeners on an emotional platform has been the key to her success. In her listeners, there is a sense of nostalgia: a feeling of warming up to an old friend over a cup of coffee, running through sprinklers on a summer day, a first date and moving into an apartment in the big city for the first time. Swift has transcended the boundaries of celebrity to civilian by developing a fan base that ages with her, sharing the sincerity of those milestones, heartbreaks and soul-searching moments in her ingenious understanding of human emotion and connection.
The evolution of Swift is fascinating, but like other extremely successful women her story is one of patriarchal pitfalls, defamation of character and stolen achievements and compensation. Her previous record label, Big Machine Records (under CEO Scott Borchetta) had worked with Swift since 2005 until their split in 2018. Under contract, Big Machine and its new acquiree Scooter Braun retained the rights to the masters of Swift’s first six albums, stripping her of the very foundation of her livelihood and years of memories and life lessons. In 2019, Swift announced that she would be re-recording each one of her old albums to regain her masters in a belief that artists deserve to own their own work. One by one, each album became inscripted with “Taylor’s Version,” each becoming new again with profound wisdom, eloquence and a new generation of listeners to experience these milestones. A jeopardy so fascinating, so inherently Taylor that only someone like Swift could pull off with dynamite success and the poise of a woman who knows her worth.
Swift has served as the narrator of my own life for over a decade, never being more than a listen away in serving as a model and an old friend in consolation and assurance—her vocals beaming from car radios to coffee shops to stadiums. As a little girl, I looked up to Swift with the same admiration and wonder I do as a woman. I can distinctly remember practicing “White Horse ” for my elementary school talent show hoping that my seven-year-old vocal cords could do the song justice. Waking up on Nov. 12, that same little-girl persona pressed play on “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and was immediately captivated into hearing tracks Swift wrote during her formative years—her early 20’s—meeting me at the footsteps of where I stand today with the same triumphs, adversities and insecurities that she personifies in her herself. At 15, at the cusp of breaking open into adulthood or shrinking back into childhood, she met me with the insight of a big sister and acknowledged the gravity and fear of growing up. At 18, finding myself a brand new college student lost on my way to classes, she took me in the direction of self assurance as her harmonies let my head rest on her shoulder in an unfamiliar dorm room. At 20, deeply in love and connected to a partner while remaining distinctly me, she revealed the same growth within me as I had longed for through years of connecting with her music. If Swift has affirmed anything in her career, it’s that there is truth in the eternal human bond of emotion and universal experience that will always guide her listeners right back to the origins of her roots. An extraordinary artist with an extraordinary heart, her ever evolving charisma always leads right back to success in the wake of her traitors.
How special is it that once again, both Swift and her devoted fans can begin this journey once more. This time with the confidence to reclaim the very composition they began with and the insight of a star enlightened with years of wisdom and understanding. Tune into “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and listen for yourself the brilliant allure of Swift and her sheer talent in transcending the limits of human connection in a patchwork of passion and affliction from 10 years past.