One wonders at times if there were several moments when Taylor Swift might have cringed throughout the re-recording of her 2008 sophomore album, Fearless. The record that changed everything and primed her for a full-tilt pop crossover—in addition to providing the catalyst (the 2009 VMAs) for her walking right into one of the most infamous feuds in pop culture history: Kanye West v. Taylor Swift.
She was nineteen at the time of the record’s release, a very different place to be not just emotionally, but psychologically. And while Swift does still sing mushy love songs about the perfect boy (when she’s not lambasting the one who did her wrong), the material on Fearless is markedly more puerile in retrospect. Made even more so when one hears Swift’s “folklore voice” re-create them (in fact, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner show up on this album, too—having proved their value to Swift as a producing team on folklore and evermore). Try as she might to remain as faithful as possible to the originals, she can’t hide the fact that, yes, she’s matured (said in that way gross professorial types do, as in muh-toor). Both in terms of how her voice sounds and the content of the “stories.”
By now, even non-fans are familiar with the drama that led Swift to start re-recording her first six albums as a result of Scooter Braun selling her master recordings. Swift, who has proven that an artist’s agency—especially in the present—is something that should be a given, continues to walk her talk by doing this. To sweeten the deal for fans, she’s even added additional tracks from “the vault” to build on the overall track list from the Fearless Platinum Edition (plus tossing in that single from a movie we’d all prefer to forget, Valentine’s Day—which Swift also had a part in).
Lending her usual dramatic flair for describing things, Swift has presently looked back on Fearless as “an album full of magic and curiosity, the bliss and devastation of youth. It was the diary of the adventures and explorations [of] a teenage girl who was learning tiny lessons with every new crack in the facade of the fairytale ending she’d been shown in the movies.” Pardon the eye roll, but didn’t the happy ending in Swift’s fairytale actually arrive in the form of, oh, becoming a major international star? Still, even that can’t soothe a girl’s wounds when she’s rejected by a boy—which is, in all honesty, not the greatest message to keep peddling to modern teens who should instead be taught that emotions are a waste of time, especially when showered upon people with penises. Commencing with that twang that won fans’ hearts, “Fearless” feels more country than ever, particularly in contrast against what we’ve grown used to hearing from Taylor since 2012’s Red.
The teen girl specificity ramps up on “Fifteen.” At thirty-one years old, however, one can still hear the earnestness in Swift’s voice when she croons, “‘Cause when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you they love you/You’re gonna believe them/And when you’re fifteen and your first kiss makes your head spin ’round/But in your life you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team/But I didn’t know it at fifteen.” Among other things Swift didn’t know—like that she should take a political stance sooner or not date “men” in boy bands (and most especially not John Mayer).
With the now classic opening notes to “Love Story,” Swift’s knack for storytelling has strong origins in this song. And, in many ways, it seems as though Swift could be talking about Joe Alwyn now. The high school motif is more prominent than ever, as Swift references two classic of H.S.-sanctioned literature: Romeo and Juliet and The Scarlet Letter. Little has changed for Swift in terms of ardor and intensity, but what has changed is this quaint, “girlish” idea she used to espouse about wanting to be rescued. Even something as “retro” as Sex and the City thought to tell Charlotte that maybe—just maybe—a girl is responsible for rescuing her damn self. But that much isn’t manifest in the lines, “Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone/I’ll be waiting, all there’s left to do is run/You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess/It’s a love story, baby, just say, ‘Yes’/Romeo, save me, they’re trying to tell me how to feel/This love is difficult, but it’s real.”
In the time since Swift declared this, she’s realized that, more often than not “real love” probably shouldn’t have to be that difficult. Yet it’s one of the myths that seem most propagated during one’s youth, when all one wants is the whirlwind and excitement of something complicated and hopefully forbidden.
To that point, before Kesha’s “Stephen,” there was Swift’s “Hey Stephen,” a song that expresses Swift’s crush on an older man—specifically Stephen Barker Liles of the country duo Love and Theft. While they toured together, Swift found the time to be inspired by her yearning…which once again seeks to establish Taylor as the most determined and devoted of all the girls. Thus, her teen girl assertion, “Of all the girls tossing rocks at your window/I’ll be the one waiting there even when it’s cold.” But apparently she was wrong, for that girl turned out to be Jenna Michelle Kennedy.
Things slow down on “White Horse,” what would become one of many of Taylor’s declarations about losing her sense of wonder and ability to dream because a man came along and shattered her innocence. There’s no white horse and, as Swift soon discovers after her heartbreak, “I’m not a princess, this ain’t a fairytale/I’m not the one you’ll sweep off her feet, lead her up the stairwell/This ain’t Hollywood, this is a small town/I was a dreamer before you went and let me down.” The victimhood shtick is, again, not only part and parcel of the Swift canon, but also the feelings a girl can’t help but have when she’s a teenager, feeling as though it’s her against the world (though if she’s as boy crazy as Tay Tay, she can only hope it’s at least two against the world).
Another instant classic from not just Fearless, but the entire Swift oeuvre comes in the form of “You Belong With Me,” a peak high school-inspired track with a video that has launched a thousand memes of Swift holding up a sign with writing on it that says anything people want it to. Here, we’re meant to believe that because Swift has put some black-rimmed glasses on, she’s supposed to be an impossible dweeb (not a thin blonde that is actually the archetypal male fantasy) who will never manage to attract the attention of the boy she admires from afar. Hence, her description, “She wears high heels, I wear sneakers/She’s Cheer Captain and I’m on the bleachers/Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find/That what you’re looking for has been here the whole time.” In other words, “There’s better for you, and it’s right here,” to quote an outtake from 10 Things I Hate About You.
Alas, things don’t seem to work out once again for Swift on “Breathe,” a track during which she has the epiphany, “People are people and sometimes we change our minds.” Like Ariana Grande’s “Breathin’” afterward, Swift places emphasis on the importance of continuing to… breathe. Even in the wake of a terrible heartache that involves being ripped from the person you thought you couldn’t live (in short, breathe) without. Ah, everything is so life and death with teen girl emotions.
The “Irish jig-ready” “Tell Me Why”—complete with its violin intro—picks up the pace as “Empowered Taylor” returns to say, “I’m sick and tired of your reasons I got no one to believe in/You tell me that you want me, then push me around/And I need you like a heartbeat/But you know you got a mean streak…/And I know, that you see, what you’re doing to me/Tell me why.” The country-ness of the song soon reaches a crescendo with the incorporation of a banjo. With the same urgency of these notes, Swift comes to the realization at the end that she’s not “bulletproof” (incidentally, the year after, La Roux would release a song of the same name), which is precisely why she has to walk away. This, bullet analogy, too, would later materialize on 2014’s “Bad Blood,” when Swift asserted, “Band-Aids don’t fix bullet holes.”
Another lyric from that same song—“You say sorry just for show”—plays into the track that follows “Tell Me Why.” Yes, Swift’s career-long obsession with rightness and a sense of justice continues on “You’re Not Sorry.” Slowing things down again on piano to lend the serious tone required to discuss more affronts regarding being jilted and disillusioned as she laments, “You don’t have to call anymore/I won’t pick up the phone/This is the last straw/Don’t wanna hurt anymore/And you can tell me that you’re sorry/But I don’t believe you, baby, like I did before/You’re not sorry (no no no no).”
The guitar-happy “The Way I Loved You” (not to be confused with Faith Hill’s “The Way You Love Me”) continues to lay the country music elements on thick as Swift proceeds to discuss the current “good on paper” guy she’s with. He’s all the things a girl is supposed to want in a boy: “He says everything I need to hear and it’s like I couldn’t ask for anything better/He opens up my door and I get into his car/And he says you look beautiful tonight.” But Swift, in her teen state, can’t help but think that everything was so much more exciting when she was involved in the “crazy love” she had with her ex, explaining, “You’re so in love that you act insane/And that’s the way I loved you/Breaking down and coming undone It’s a roller coaster kind of rush/And I never knew I could feel that much.”
The particularly cheesily titled “Forever & Always” (which later appears again as a piano version) is yet another breakup song—this time about Joe Jonas—that once again possesses a fixation on what a boy “promised” (with Swift naively assuming that anyone’s word is their “promise”). Swift here conveniently seems to forget what she herself said earlier on “Breathe” about people being people and sometimes changing their minds. But like Janis calling Damien “too gay to function” in Mean Girls, it’s only okay when Taylor says it (that is, something to indicate she’s changed her mind). But when Joe does (or rather, doesn’t), it sends her into a depressive panic mode as she sings, “And I stare at the phone, he still hasn’t called/And then you feel so low you can’t feel nothing at all/And you flashback to when he said forever and always/Oh, and it rains in your bedroom/Everything is wrong/It rains when you’re here and it rains when you’re gone/‘Cause I was there when you said forever and always.” Well, it’s a damn good thing he didn’t stick to those words, otherwise Swift never would have followed that invisible string leading her to Alwyn.
In an unlikely teen girl move (for most tend to have a contentious relationship with their mother as they hit puberty), “The Best Day” is another ode (just as “Soon You’ll Get Better” is) to Swift’s mother. Specifically how Andrea Swift served as a knight in shining armor for when Swift was being ostracized in junior high, taking her on some middle class safari of better malls in other towns where they wouldn’t run into the mean girls. As Swift tells it, “I’m thirteen now/And don’t know how my friends could be so mean/I come home crying and you hold me tight and grab the keys/And we drive and drive until we found a town far enough away/And we talk and window shop ’til I’ve forgotten all their names.” As sad as that is, it sounds, at times, a lot like white girl problems, compounded by the fact that the song could also be read as touting white privilege with such proud descriptions as, “I grew up in a pretty house and I had space to run/And I had the best days with you.” Okay, why does anyone living in the projects give a shit about this?
To deepen the Lana Del Rey-Taylor Swift parallels, Swift also has a song called “Change,” which, no, is not about menopause, but, at the time it was written, being on the smallest record label in Nashville and trying to beat the odds of what that entailed as a fifteen-year-old seeking superstardom (who says Britney Spears had the sole claim to that fate?). Taylor beat them and then some, only to be brought down by the very label that helped raise her up. And so, “Change” has taken on a new meaning entirely as Swift gleefully stating, “These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down/This revolution, the time will come/For us to finally win/And we’ll sing hallelujah, we’ll sing hallelujah.” That Swift and her fans have, especially after Swift first learned of the sale of her masters and had to clap back, “This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘music has value,’ he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.” Not anymore. This is one former teen girl they shouldn’t have tangoed with.
The jubilance persists on “Jump Then Fall,” with Swift revealing herself in a rare drama-free moment as she prattles on about all the things she loves about the guy she’s with. With a banjo to back her up, she wistfully remarks, “I’ve never been so wrapped up, honey/I like the way you’re everything I ever wanted/I had time to think it o-over/And all I can say is come closer/Take a deep breath and jump then fall into me.”
The “lovey-dovey” motif remains on “Untouchable,” that rare type of song Swift engages in: a cover. Still, she makes Luna Halo’s song all her own against the simple musical arrangement that allows her voice to shine through as she gently urges, “In the middle of the night when I’m in this dream/It’s like a million little stars spelling out your name/You got to come on, come on, say that we’ll be together.”
After the piano version of “Forever & Always,” Swift brings it back to the country vibe thanks to “Come in With the Rain.” Another slow jam about pining away for a boy who doesn’t seem to notice her long blond hair and model-thin physique, she offers, “I’ll leave my window open/‘Cause I’m too tired at night for all these games/Just know I’m right here hoping/That you’ll come in with the rain.” Has a certain sexual innuendo, n’est-ce pas?
Country strong once more on “Superstar,” Swift seems to borrow the same motif from The Carpenters’ song of the same name as she details her love for a rock star (ahem, country star) who will likely never take note of her amorousness because he has so many other groupie-type admirers to choose from. It’s not unlike “Hey Stephen” in that this track is also about another country star Swift was crushing on at the time, Jake Owen. Goddamn, them teen girl hormones. But Swift has long kept that humble “nobody” shtick in her back pocket, evidenced by the surely Karen Carpenter-approved pronouncement, “I’m no one special, just another wide-eyed girl/Who’s desperately in love with you/Give me a photograph to hang on my wall, superstar.”
The banjo don’t stop on “The Other Side of the Door,” a song that serves as a kind of precursor to Lover’s “Afterglow,” with Swift detailing one of her temper tantrums that can so often lead to breakup level fights. She sings, “I said, ‘Leave,’ but all I really want is you/To stand outside my window throwing pebbles/Screaming, ‘I’m in love with you’/Wait there in the pouring rain/Come back for more/And don’t you leave ’cause I know/All I need is on the other side of the door.” “Afterglow,” likewise, finds Swift admitting, “I’m the one who burned us down/But it’s not what I meant/Sorry that I hurt you/I don’t wanna do, I don’t wanna do this to you (ooh)/I don’t wanna lose, I don’t wanna lose this with you.” Swift has apparently lost enough loves in her life to know how to better handle her emotions with her current boo. And, speaking of that boo, “Today Was A Fairytale” fits right in with her narrative of the moment. Written for the Valentine’s Day Soundtrack, we can forget that little faux pas as Swift wholeheartedly insists, “It must have been the way you kissed me [side note: she sounds very Faith Hill singing “This Kiss” right at this moment]/Fell in love when I saw you standing there/It must have been the way.”
Swift’s passionate fire sign nature also presents itself on “You All Over Me.” Addressing that “marked me like a bloodstain” theme Swift is so fond of, this track featuring Maren Morris is dusted off from the vault with some newfound production value added by Dessner. Exploring how Swift still just can’t seem to shake the intensely felt traces of an ex, she has the revelation, “No amount of freedom gets you clean/I still got you all over me.” Sounds like a hotel comforter with perpetual semen resin on it. The song echoes the staining imagery also present on 2014’s “Clean,” during which Swift rues, “You’re still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore.”
In contrast to “You All Over Me,” “Mr. Perfectly Fine” with its Fleetwood Mac-esque musical opening (think “Gypsy”) is far less mushy. In keeping with the sentiments of “Always & Forever,” Swift opens with the sarcastic lines, “Mr. ‘Perfect face’/Mr. ‘Here to stay’/Mr. ‘Looked me in the eye and told me you would never go away’/Everything was right/Mr. ‘I’ve been waitin’ for you all my life’/Mr. ‘Every single day until the end, I will be by your side.’” With many speculating that the song is about, once again, Joe Jonas, the proverbial “Easter egg” Swift likes to hide for her fans to find seems to rest in the calculation that she says “Mr.” a total of twenty-seven times—a.k.a. the same number of seconds Jonas’ breakup call to Swift lasted.
This transitions into the “sweeter,” more nostalgic “We Were Happy.” With its sparse instrumentals and regretful tone, Swift captures the essence of ruminating all that might have been in a relationship, including, “Talking ‘bout your daddy’s farm we were going to buy someday.” Ah, such sweet possibilities—the song might even have worked for a more hoedown version of La La Land.
The mid-tempo “That’s When” marks the second collaboration between Swift and Keith Urban (who knows, maybe it’s all a bid to ingratiate Nicole Kidman into the former’s good graces so she can play her in a biopic—a testament to Kidman’s Botox artist). Detailing the complexities of “taking a break” in a relationship, Swift plays the part of the one who needed space while Urban ruminates on whether he should take her back, knowing full well that he, of course, will via the lyrics, “That’s when I see your face I’ll let you in, and baby, that’s when.”
Wielding the words “Don’t You” (on the track called as such) in varying ways, Swift again ruminates on an ex who doesn’t seem to be exhibiting the same feelings of pain post-breakup. Not even after they run into each other some time later. No twinge of sadness or regret the same way Taylor feels it. Like “closure” from evermore, Swift doesn’t want his kind words, which are ultimately meaningless, especially if he doesn’t feel the same way. Or apparently, much of anything at all. And so she demands, “But don’t you, don’t you/Smile at me and ask me how I’ve been/Don’t you say you’ve/Missed me if you don’t want me again/You don’t know how much I feel/I love you still/So why don’t you, don’t you?” This running motif of Swift never being enough for the object of her desire is another key element of the teen girl plight.
After twenty-five previous tracks, we finally end at the appropriately titled “Bye Bye Baby” (which Madonna will have to let Taylor borrow as a title from her Erotica album). More complaints about how life isn’t like a movie commence the record’s new grand finale, which infuses plenty of country flavor to confirm that Fearless is still firmly a part of Swift’s pre-pop era. Some have speculated that the songs was originally left off because of its lyrical and sonic parallels to Michelle Branch’s 2000 hit, “Goodbye To You,” on which she sings, “Goodbye to you/Goodbye to everything that I knew.” This chorus is somewhat repurposed on “Bye Bye Baby,” especially as Taylor mourns, “Bye bye to everything I thought was on my side/Bye bye baby.” Once again addressing the intensely-felt letdowns that arise when one is at this particular age (later on, you start to take it as par for the course of everyday existence), it serves as an ideal cap on this re-recorded album that is a time capsule of 00s teendom. But no matter what the epoch, being an adolescent will forever be rife with emotions one can’t yet “learn” to suppress.
And maybe it should sound out of place in the present to hear Swift revisit her “old” teen girl ways, but the thing is, many of us will always be stuck in a state of “teen girlhood.” Particularly those millennials with incurable Peter Pan syndrome. And that’s why Swift has only built upon this songwriting method over her now decade-plus spanning career. The teen girl inside never really dies. Especially in this increasingly youth-obsessed world.
