To anyone on the internet on Friday who is not familiar with the works of Taylor Swift: Sorry, it’s going to be a tough day.
At midnight, Swift dropped the highly anticipated “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)," the third of six albums that she is re-recording after a dispute with her former record label. These re-releases have taken on legendary status in the fiercely loyal Swift fandom and consume social media, especially given that they include previously unreleased songs (and sometimes previously unreleased lyrics). And “Speak Now," her third studio album originally released in 2010, holds a special place in the pop megastar’s lore: This is Swift’s only album where she’s the sole writer on every song.
In a long letter that accompanies the physical copies of the re-release, Swift explains that she was “tormented by the doubt that swirled loudly around my ascent and my merits as an artist” early in her career, particularly by the people who criticized her singing voice — and those who refused to believe that she wrote her own songs as a teenager in Nashville.
“I didn’t want to just be handed respect and acceptance in my field, I wanted to earn it,” Swift writes. “To try and confront these demons, I underwent extensive vocal training and 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.”
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Swift, now 33, wrote the entirety of the 14-song album between the ages of 18 and 20. It went on to sell more than 6 million copies and was nominated for best country album at the 2012 Grammy Awards, where Swift picked up the best country song and best country solo performance trophies for “Mean” — incidentally, a song striking back at a critic who slammed her voice.
So as talk of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)" — or SNTV, as it’s known in the Swiftverse — takes over the internet discourse, here are several answers to some questions you might have about the album.
Why are there so many headlines about John Mayer?
“Dear John," the fifth track, remains a nearly seven-minute scorching indictment of an ex-boyfriend: “All the girls that you’ve run dry have tired lifeless eyes, cause you burned them out / But I took your matches before fire could catch me, so don’t look now: I’m shining like fireworks over your sad empty town,” Swift sings on what she now calls “the most scathing” song she’s ever written.
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Many details in the lyrics — and, of course, the title — point to the obvious: That it’s about singer-songwriter John Mayer, to whom Swift was romantically linked around 2009, when she was 19 and he was 32. (“Don’t you think 19′s too young to be played by your dark twisted games?” she sings.) Swift has steadfastly never revealed the subject, and in one of her rare statements on the matter, said it was “presumptuous” of Mayer — who told Rolling Stone he was “humiliated” by the song — to assume it was about him.
Still, the Swifties sharpened their knives in the weeks before SNTV, ready to rake Mayer over the coals just as they did with her ex Jake Gyllenhaal during the release of “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)" in fall 2021. However, Swift — sort of — addressed the impending torment during a tour stop in Minneapolis last month, when she played “Dear John” for the first time in more than a decade. While introducing the song, she called for “kindness” and “gentleness” online when the album was released.
“I’m not putting this album out so that you can go and should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago when I was 19,” Swift told the sold-out stadium crowd. “I do not care. We have all grown up. We’re good.”
What’s all the chatter about a lyric change?
One looming question was whether Swift would stick with her original lyric of the chorus in “Better Than Revenge,” an angry track about a girl who “stole” her boyfriend: “She’s not a saint, and she’s not what you think, she’s an actress / She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.” That line raised eyebrows at the time and did not age well, especially as Swift became more vocal about feminism and women supporting women.
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Though Swift has been mildly defensive about the lyric in the past (“I was 18 when I wrote that. That’s the age you are when you think someone can actually take your boyfriend," she told the Guardian in 2014), she clearly heard the criticism and indeed swapped out the infamous “mattress” line: Now she sings, “He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches." Predictably, this has already resulted in a lot of jokes among Swift fans on social media, but also strife — particularly those who feel that she caved to public pressure when the point of the re-releases is to own her past work, regardless of controversy.
Why is Taylor Lautner involved in this?
Swift and the “Twilight” star briefly dated in 2009 after meeting on the set of “Valentine’s Day," and the apology ballad “Back to December” is believed to be about him, as Swift expressed her regrets of ending a relationship.
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Unlike Swift’s other exes, Lautner appears to be loving this renewed spotlight — he will happily talk about Swift in interviews, and even got in on the Mayer mockery by posting a TikTok with the hashtag #prayforjohn with “Dear John” playing in the background as he fell to his knees in prayer.
Is there any mention of Kanye West or the VMAs?
When West stormed the stage and grabbed Swift’s microphone during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, it turned into one of our culture’s first viral moments — and everyone eagerly awaited to see how Swift would address the massive controversy on her upcoming album. It turned out to be the gentle chiding of “Innocent": “It’s okay, life is a tough crowd / 32 and still growing up now."
In her letter for SNTV, Swift briefly references the incident, calling it her “first worldwide scandal” and that it was “the mic-grab seen around the world.” And she notes that the tone of the song took people by surprise: “Some expected anger and instead got compassion and empathy with ‘Innocent.'”
Did Swift still write every song on the re-release?
Swift did retain the sole writing credit on “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)" even with the six extra tracks “from the vault." Like her previous re-releases of “Fearless” (spring 2021) and “Red” (fall 2021), she included some special guests on vault songs: “Electric Touch” features Fall Out Boy, a band that Swift frequently name-checks as one of her greatest writing influences.
Share this articleShare“Castles Crumbling” features Hayley Williams of Paramore; Swift and Williams have been close friends since their teen years in Nashville. Similar to “Nothing New,” the duet with Phoebe Bridgers on “Red (Taylor’s Version)," the lyrics touch on a common theme in Swift’s world — the fleeting nature of fame and the pressure of being beloved in the public eye.
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