by Grace Wang
Speak Now was originally Taylor Swift’s third studio album and is now her third re-recorded album. On May 5th, 2023, Swift announced that the album would be coming out on July 7th, 2023 — the first night of the Eras Tour in Nashville. There are twenty-two songs on the album, including six tracks “from the vault.” Here are three standout songs from the album (not including “If This Was a Movie”).
- Timeless
This song was one hundred percent written for the hopeless romantics who believe in fate. There is no love song Taylor Swift has ever written on any of her albums that rivals the ageless love story “Timeless” paints. “Timeless” is the last track of both the album and vault tracks. “Timeless” is about two people who Swift believes would’ve loved each other even if they met in different time periods and places because of their infinite connection. They were destined to be together even if they met on a crowded street in 1944 or off in a foreign land in the 1500s. This song was inspired by her grandparents: in the lyric video, Swift put together a collage of photos of her grandparents, showing their love story from birth to death.
A large part of Speak Now’s storytelling is due to the fact that she wrote it when was eighteen to twenty years old. She was constantly daydreaming about love—real love, something timeless. When she wrote this song, she most likely took inspiration from both her grandparents and her definition of a real love, something that she had never experienced herself, but has watched.
- Back to December
Taylor Swift is notorious for her break up songs; almost all of them place blame on her partner, a rare exception being “Back to December.” The song was inspired by her relationship with Taylor Lautner, and Swift claims she was the cause for their fallout. In the song, she reminisces about simpler times, where he loved her and was so perfect to her, but she threw it away. It is a public apology, as she apologizes for never loving him as he loved her and wishes that she could go back to December, back to a time when he was hers and loved her. In the lyrics, she also hints at the 2009 VMAs incident in September with Kanye West. Lautner was on stage where West took the microphone from Swift and rudely interrupted her and never defended her in any way. She sings, “And how you held me in your arms that September night, the first time you ever saw me cry.” Even years after that incident, Lautner admits that one his biggest regrets was not standing up for Swift.
It seems that Lautner and Swift have now developed a friendship as he showed up to the Era’s Tour show in Kansas City, and he featured in her “I Can See You” (another song on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)) music video alongside Joey King. It’s quite coincidental that Lautner’s wife is also named Taylor. (they now share the same name; Taylor Lautner!) Lautner’s wife also helped around on set, allowing the three Taylors to create a strong and long-lasting bond.
- Dear John
Words can’t even describe the masterpiece this song is. This song appeared on the original version of the album at track five. Taylor Swift’s saddest and deepest songs are all track fives, and this song is no different. There are many emotions tangled into this song: heartbreak, anger, reminiscence, and it settles down on anger and disgust. In the song, Swift talks about her on and off relationship with a lover, assumed to be John Mayer, who manipulated and played all sorts of mind games with her. When they dated, Swift was only nineteen years old while Mayer was a whole thirteen years older, at thirty two years old. This song also sets the stage for her song “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” in her 2022 album, Midnights, where she reflects on their relationship thirteen years later realizing how wrong and disturbing it was. In “Dear John,” she also realizes how wrong it was and repeatedly calls him out on how he manipulated her, used her, and played endless mind games with her until she couldn’t take it anymore. She took his matches before he could burn more people and broke his patterns of manipulation and gaslighting. She ended the cycle. The most iconic part of this song is the bridge, where she goes from pure rage to a feeling of “I’m above that” and happiness before she escaped him before he ruined her permanently. The title of the song,“Dear John”, is a clever play on the letters women would write to their husbands during World War Two, informing them that their relationship was over. Let’s hope John got the message.
