When Taylor dropped this album in 2008, I was prepared: I had played her first album on repeat on a literal CD player, followed her vlogs featuring country stars holding up their fingers to promote 11-11 (Nov. 11), and enlisted a classmate with an iPod to share her headphones during precalculus (thank you Sara). Not much has changed for me 13 years later, except that I’m now getting my doctorate in music and using my own headphones. I’m ready to deep dive.
FIRST: it is un-deNIable that she is more vocally skilled now. She’s hitting the T-drop (Switched on Pop reference) of You Belong with Me like it’s nothing, and Untouchable’s low range verses actually sound melodic. It’s so musically enjoyable, even though I miss the ragey quality her youthful vocal strain provided in Forever & Always or Tell Me Why. This improvement is a no-loss gain for her ballads: look no further than the piano version of Forever & Always for proof.
SECOND: On the face of it, the lyrical content of this album was strange for an 18yo because of its seemingly premature grappling with the loss of childhood and youth. In hindsight, this was a self-aware recognition of what was lost when she catapulted to international fame. These nostalgic lyrics just hit different coming from a 31 year old woman (in a good way). If you haven’t watched the lyric video for Fifteen, can I recommend making sure you’re off-camera and well-equipped with tissues? Similarly, The Best Day is almost unfair now that it is coming from an adult whose mother is, as far as we know, still battling brain cancer. I can’t recommend the lyric video in good conscience as I have the decency to respect your workday.
THIRD: the vault tracks. I am anti-slow songs with few exceptions (sue me), which means my ranking is:
Mr. Perfectly Fine (by a long shot, Sophie Turner agrees)
Bye Bye Baby
That’s When
You All Over Me
Don’t You
We Were Happy
I reserve the right to update this list as I actually listen more than twice.
FOURTH: the tl;dr, as far as I’m concerned, is that this re-release works because Taylor is still the same ol’ romantic she has always been. Yeah, the production is impressively identical, yeah, her voice is better, but MOST importantly, she’s still believable when she is singing about fairytales and dancing in the rain. I believe her!! She still wants to fight at 2am!! This would not work otherwise!
FIFTH: In Case You Were Concerned:
Her laugh on Hey Stephen is grown-up but still works
The guitar solo on Forever & Always is distorted slightly differently, be prepared
She still says the guttural “HOH” before the second verse on Jump Then Fall (phew)
The bridge of The Other Side of the Door still deserves to be included in Biden’s infrastructure bill
Okay, that’s it from me. PLEASE tell me your thoughts, preferably on a graphing calculator that you can slide over to me so it looks like we’re doing homework but really it’s lyrics to Love Story.