In 2014, a mere nine years ago, the world seemed simpler. It always does with hindsight. But in 2014’s case, things really were decidedly “safe” in America. Unless you were Eric Garner or Michael Brown or any other Black person subjected to the usual “rigmarole” of being Black in the United States and coming anywhere near law enforcement. But that’s not really the audience anyone associates with Swift. In fact, a recent study on the makeup of her fanbase revealed the absolutely unshocking statistic that three-fourths of “Swifties” are white. So no, you won’t catch many Black people bumping Swift tunes from their car, though that might “put them in good” with the cops who pull them over. More detailed statistics of the study revealed that “avid fans and U.S. adults agree that 1989 is Swift’s best album. Some 15% of avid fans picked this work, more than any other album.” Even though, for the sheer non-virtue of 1989 having “Welcome to New York” on it, that really shouldn’t be the case.
But since Swift moved to New York in March of 2014, during which time she recorded the album, the horrifically schlocky “Welcome to New York” is what she chose to kick the record off with. After all, she had also just agreed to become the NYC Tourism Ambassador that year, offering people such “pearls of wisdom” as, “Having a good latte or a good cup of coffee is really important to me” and “I like how you don’t really have to make a plan. If you want, you can just let the day happen.” In other words, this bitch doesn’t know shit about New York. Accustomed, like many tourists, to the sanitized version of it that suits her “needs” best. And, to that point, of course the song would go on to soundtrack the opening sequence to the classist movie that is 2016’s The Secret Life of Pets. This was after Swift was permitted to perform it during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, before the ball would drop to signal the arrival of 2015. That was about the only shelf life the song ever had. Because, as far as “New York anthems” go, it still blows ass.
Perhaps that’s why she never released it as a single. “Blank Space,” on the other hand, is both the second single and the second song on the album. Out of all the re-recordings on 1989, this is the one that sounds the most obviously different in terms of Swift’s evolving vocal pitch. Something she can’t always recapture from the original albums. And, by now, the lyric, “Got a long list of ex-lovers” has only become more applicable. Along with, “Cause you know I love the players/And you love the game!” What with Travis Kelce being her (football) game-playing new boo. And yet, if Swift taught her listeners one thing about “how” she’s able to “land” so many men, it’s: “Boys only want love if it’s torture.” And what could be more torturous than the media scrutiny required of dating Swift, no matter how briefly or casually?
“Style” is one of Swift’s most “Del Reyian” offerings on 1989, at least lyrically speaking. For yes, lest anyone forget, Lana Del Rey resuscitated James Dean iconography on 2012’s “Blue Jeans,” lazily crooning, “Blue jeans, white shirt/Walked into the room, you know you made my eyes burn/It was like James Dean, for sure.” In Swift’s use of Dean, she sings, “‘Cause you got that James Dean daydream look in your eye/And I got that red lip classic thing that you like/And when we go crashing down, we come back every time/‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style.” The song was a barely-veiled dig at her relationship with Harry Styles, including overt references to One Direction, like her urging in the bridge apropos of nothing, “Take me home/Just take me home.” To be blunt: the name of One Direction’s sophomore album is Take Me Home. In the present, Swift and Styles have made nice (at least during award show appearances), with Styles more focused on queerbaiting in the aftermath of his time with Swift.
Nonetheless, like any worthwhile Swift boyfriend, Styles provided fodder for multiple songs, and “Out of the Woods” was one of them. Certain to verbally incorporate the “Polaroid aesthetic” she had used on the original album cover (now missing from the more lackluster [Taylor’s Version] one), the opening verse features the nostalgically-tinged lyric, “You took a Polaroid of us/Then discovered/The rest of the world was black and white/But we were in screaming color.” And then they were just screaming. Namely, during the snowmobile accident Swift refers to for the bridge: “Remember when you hit the brakes too soon?/Twenty stitches in the hospital room.” The accompanying Joseph Kahn-directed music video escalates more dramatically with scenes of Swift amid violent nature, echoing, at times, Snow White trying to make her way through the Haunted Forest. Indeed, Swift’s past relationships could easily create a haunted forest unto themselves.
Having gone down to one of her “besties’” (Lorde) native land—New Zealand—to shoot the video, Swift was accused at the time of allowing her film crew to violate strict regulations implemented to prevent harm to dotterel nests along the beach. But then, of what importance is an endangered species when put in perspective to Swift being able to pursue her wildest artistic dreams? In effect, a video that could have been shot against a green screen and still included the cheeseball concluding title cards, “She lost him. But she found herself. And somehow that was everything.”
Despite this presentation of a supposed newfound confidence and self-love, Swift goes right back to her needy, yearning ways on “All You Had To Do Was Stay” (track five always being, per studies done by Swifties, her most emotional). Continuing a running motif that exists in many of her songs, Swift basically instructs men how simple it is to maintain a relationship: “Hey, all you had to do was stay/Had me in the palm of your hand, then/Why’d you have to go and lock me out when I let you in?” This foreshadows later lyrics about being “locked out” of a man’s heart, including 2022’s “Bejeweled,” during which she bemoans, “Familiarity breeds contempt/Don’t put me in the basement/When I want the penthouse of your heart.” In the end, though, it seems that Swift doesn’t really want anyone’s heart…unless it’s roasting on a spit fueled by her damning song lyrics.
To the point of often being accused of promiscuity (cue the later-appearing “From the Vault” track that is “Slut!”), the chirpy, uptempo-ness of “All You Had To Do Was Stay” continues on “Shake It Off.” As the first single of 1989, its intent was to get across that there should be no question about Swift’s complete transition from country star to pop star. The video, therefore, features an aura of jubilance and frivolity one wouldn’t usually associate with something directed by Mark Romanek (who, in more artistic days, directed Madonna’s “Rain” and “Bedtime Story” and Fiona Apple’s “Criminal”). Swift also harkens back to 2010 by dressing in Black Swan (a.k.a. Swan Lake) ballerina attire, among many other costume changes throughout the video that often looks like a reworked Gap commercial.
Regardless of the occasional shade for her relationship-flitting (though nothing compared to what Britney Spears had to endure), Swift’s tendency to focus on one man and/or failed relationship with each album paints her as more of a serial monogamist (à la Jennifer Lopez) than a ho. And on 1989, that focus remains attuned to Harry Styles with “I Wish You Would.” A song that explores the additional pain of losing a friendship when you lose a romance. Yearning to still be able to talk to that person and tell them the things you once would have eagerly, Swift depicts a John Hughes-esque emotional landscape when she sings, “I wish you would come back/Wish I never hung up the phone like I did, I/Wish you knew that I’d never forget you as long as I live and I/Wish you were right here, right now, it’s all good/I wish you would/I wish we could go back/And remember what we were fighting for and I/Wish you knew that I miss you too much to be mad anymore…”
Here, too, one is reminded of the influence Swift so clearly had on Olivia Rodrigo, who evokes similar emotions of bereftness stemmed from love lost on songs like “happier” and “love is embarrassing.” In the latter song, “I stayed in bed for like a week/When you said space is what you need” mirrors Taylor on “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” when she sings, “‘Cause like/We hadn’t seen each other in a month/When you said you needed space…what?” Unfortunately, the “feelings of warmth” Rodrigo once had for Swift seem to have cooled as of 2023, with many speculating that Guts’ “vampire” is really about the red-lipped “mentor” herself. In which case, “Bad Blood” applies to yet another fellow female pop star apart from Katy Perry this year. As the fourth single from 1989, it can’t be emphasized enough the chokehold this song and its video had on “the culture” in 2015. Complete with endless dissections of Taylor and her “squad,” which, per the video, consisted of, among others, Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss, Lily Aldridge and, as though to add “which one of these is not like the others?” cachet, Lena Dunham. It was Gomez who played Swift’s betraying rival—ironic, to be sure, considering their close-knit friendship.
Although many assumed, in the moment, that it was spotlighting another wrong-doing man, the truth about how Perry inspired it came out eventually. And, for like, the dumbest reason ever: she “poached” some of Swift’s backup dancers. Specifically, three of them. But then Swift went and blew the whole thing out of proportion by telling Rolling Stone in 2014, “She did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business… She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational—you would not believe how much I hate conflict.” Said the woman who constantly courts it with her music. Ergo sarcastically singing on “End Game,” “I swear I don’t love the drama/It loves me.” And then there was that admission to more than slightly getting off on drama via the opening lyrics to “The Archer”: “Combat, I’m ready for combat/I say I don’t want that, but what if I do?” But what does one expect from a Sagittarius (hence, referencing “the archer” associated with that zodiac sign).
With Rodrigo taking up the mantle on female friendship gone wrong diss tracks (at least according to conspiracy theorists), “vampire” is the “Bad Blood” of 2023…until Swift came along to reassert her dominance on knowing how to dig the knife into a female rival. Which brings us to the very glaring fact that since about three-fourths of Swift’s songs are about relationships/breakups, it doesn’t leave much room for her to discuss topics like female solidarity—despite characterizing herself as a feminist. But it’s plain to see Swift would choose dick over a friend any day of the week. Shit, for the inspiration factor alone.
The kind of inspiration that also prompted “the muse” to give Taylor “Wildest Dreams.” Yet another overt nod to the end of her romance with Styles, Swift urges, “Say you’ll remember me/Standin’ in a nice dress/Starin’ at the sunset, babe/Red lips and rosy cheeks/Say you’ll see me again/Even if it’s just in your/Wildest dreams, ah, ha.” To underscore the bittersweetness of it all, Swift opted to set the narrative, of all places, in 1950s Africa. More to the point, in the white version of 1950s Africa. Indeed, the video (once again directed by Joseph Kahn) was criticized for its glorification of white colonialism. And yes, it’s a bit odd that, of all the premises to choose, Swift opted for the faux 1950s movie of her video to be set in Africa. Even if she felt it was “paramount” to getting across the point that being on an isolated film set would invariably lead to a romance (in pre-smartphone times anyway).
And speaking of women who love to glorify the oppressive mid-twentieth century, more echoes of Lana Del Rey appear in this song, with “Wildest Dreams” also coming across like an unwitting companion piece to “Out of the Woods.” At the time, Billboard’s Jem Aswad wrote of the track, “Surprisingly, the famous figure who gets the most elaborate attention is Lana Del Rey: Swift flat-out mimics her on ‘Wildest Dreams,’ flitting between a fluttery soprano and deadpan alto, flipping lyrics so Lana—‘His hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room’—that it’s hard to tell if the song is homage or parody.” Perhaps somewhere in between.
But Swift goes back to her “true” self on “How You Get The Girl,” which is very reminiscent of “All You Had To Do Was Stay.” That is, with regard to giving a man instructions on how to “catch a woman and keep a woman.” As far as Swift is concerned, that entails relentlessly pursuing said woman even after a breakup (proving she saw one too many early 00s rom-coms promoting a stalker-y “edge” for a man). Per Swift, it’s as simple as showing up on her doorstep and saying, “I want you for worse or for better/I would wait forever and ever/Broke your heart, I’ll put it back together…” And, voilà, “that’s how it works/That’s how you get the girl, girl.” Or, as Rodrigo puts it from a more openly sadistic view on “get him back!” (“I wanna break his heart, stitch it right back up”).
Apparently, whatever he did worked because on “This Love,” Swift is talking about their togetherness again, even it still feels tenuous. Cyclical (even if viciously so). And, once again, she’s all about using the word “mark” to describe her love, a word decidedly territorial and possessive. Nonetheless, she uses it as she declares, “This love is good, this love is bad/This love is alive back from the dead [a.k.a. “We never go out of style”], oh-oh, oh/These hands had to let it go free, and/This love came back to me, oh-oh, oh/This love left a permanent mark/This love is glowing in the dark, oh-oh, oh.” Other notable instances where Swift uses “mark” to delineate a sort of scar from one of her relationships include, “There is an indentation in the shape of you/Made your mark on me, a golden tattoo” from Reputation’s “Dress” and “Steppin’ on the last train/Marked me like a bloodstain” from Folklore’s “Cardigan.” That last line incorporating her simultaneous love of “marks” and “stains” to illustrate what so-called love does to her when it’s over. The “staining” will appear later on 1989, with, appropriately, “Clean”—when she sings, “You’re still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore.”
But before “Clean” is the Reputation-y “I Know Places.” This before the “I know a place” meme that would offer up such isms as, “Girls be like, ‘I know a place’ and then take you to the friendzone” or Girls be like, ‘I know a place’ and then take you back to the date and time you lied.” In Swift’s case though, she knows a place where she and her latest love won’t be hounded by the paparazzi. While it might have applied to Styles then, it’s as though she was foreshadowing how much she would have to defend the secrecy of her relationship with Joe Alwyn in its early days (perhaps the reason why the sound gives off such a Reputation vibe long before Reputation came out). In terms of loathing the paparazzi chase she has to endure as part of the price for her fame, this is very much Taylor’s version (ha) of Lana’s “13 Beaches,” during which she rehashes the celebrity problem (an oxymoron, to be sure) of never having a moment to oneself in public via the opening lines, “It took thirteen beaches/To find one empty/But finally it’s mine.” As for Taylor, she assures her camera-shy love, “Baby, I know places we won’t be found/And they’ll be chasing their tails tryin’ to track us down/‘Cause I, I know places we can hide/I know places.” If only Britney had known a place she could hide during the peak of her scrutiny, too.
Alas, her knowing a place doesn’t really matter in the end, as “Clean” recounts, “The drought was the very worst, ah-ah, ah-ah/When the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst.” And if the sound of “Clean” sounds the most differentiated from the rest of 1989, that might have something to do with Imogen Heap co-producing. Perhaps having her on board for this song prompted Swift to lend the track its “edgy” metaphor of a relationship being like a drug you have to wean yourself off of in order to get “clean.” That’s right, Taylor is saying what Kesha already did in 2010: “Your love is my drug.” But drug addictions can be kicked if you really want it. And that’s what Taylor aims to prove, coming out the other side and into “Wonderland.” Not, it would seem, a reference to John Mayer, but rather, the more classic association: Alice in. Marking the beginning of the deluxe edition tracks on the original 1989, “Wonderland” is, quelle surprise, a ditty that ruminates on a toxic relationship that felt so good (read: the dick was good…enough) when it was happening. Yet another track co-produced by Max Martin and Shellback, the early flickers of Reputation are also present on this song as Swift reflects, “We found Wonderland, you and I got lost in it/And we pretended it could last forever (eh, eh)…/And life was never worse, but never better (eh, eh).” So it is that Swift manages to paraphrase Charles Dickens (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”) in her own way. The repeated “eh, ehs” also channel both Rihanna on “Umbrella” and Lady Gaga on “Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say).”
The mood slows down on “You Are In Love,” a song that has become even more cringeworthy with time. For, in case anyone forgot, Swift wrote the song about Jack Antonoff and Lena Dunham, who were dating during this period. Obviously, Lana Del Rey’s “Margaret,” about Antonoffs relationship with Margaret Qualley is a more tenable slow jam. In any event, as Swift said told Jimmy Kimmel, “I wrote it with my friend Jack Antonoff who’s dating my friend Lena [Dunham]. Jack sent me this song, it was just an instrumental track he was working on and immediately I knew the song it needed to be. And I wrote it as a kind of commentary on what their relationship has been like. So it’s actually me looking and going and ‘this happened and that happened then that happened’ and that’s how you knew, ‘You are in love.’” Evidently, though, not anymore. And it’s even more embarrassing that Dunham tweeted at the time, “My someday wedding song, as you know.” But that would have been weird considering she got married to Luis Felber.
Swift does a sonic about-face again on “New Romantics,” with lyrics that show Swift at her most Kesha as she belts declarations about being young and bored (as Kesha said on “Blow,” “We’re young and we’re bored”). Then there is talk of the national anthem, which again borrows from Del Reyian iconography (who says, “Money is the anthem of success” and “Tell me I’m your national anthem”) as Swift sings, “Baby, we’re the new romantics, come on, come along with me/Heartbreak is the national anthem, we sing it proudly.”
And yet, what Swift sings most proudly of all on 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is “Slut!,” which commences the “From the Vault” portion of the record. And with the phrase “flamingo pink” starting the lyrics, one can hear still more Del Reyian flair, as it parallels 2015’s “Music To Watch Boys To” when Lana chose to commence her song with the phrase, “Pink flamingos.” The fact that Swift held back on releasing a song like “Slut!” in 2014 is perhaps the most telling of how times have changed. Swift seems less afraid now of getting on the already well-trodden bandwagon of calling out the double standard for women’s “dating practices” (particularly in the music industry), whereas, before, she appeared nervous about losing red state fans if she spoke her “boilerplate liberal” mind. Like “Shake It Off,” “Slut!” embraces her reputation as a woman who “collects” men. But Swift claims the flak is worth it because it’s all part of her necessary journey toward finding “the one” (or “the 1”). As she says in the chorus, “But if I’m all dressed up/They might as well be lookin’ at us/And if they call me a slut/You know it might be worth it for once/And if I’m gonna be drunk, I might as well be drunk in love.” A phrase, to be sure, that has extremely Beyoncé connotations, especially as “Drunk In Love” had been released the year before.
As for keeping it off the album originally, Swift had a very Lana Del Rey reason for it: “I always saw 1989 as a New York album, but this song, to me, was always California, and maybe that was another reason it didn’t make the cut, because sometimes, thematically, I just had these little weird rules in my head.” However, many rules still apply. Such as constantly carrying on about an ex. With that in mind, like “All You Had To Do Was Stay,” “Say Don’t Go” exhibits the many abandonment issues Swift appeared to be having circa 2012-2015. And that much is palpable in the way she urges, “Say, ‘Don’t go’/I would stay forever if you say, ‘Don’t go.’” How Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats when she tells Bill (Michael Paré), “I would have stayed with you forever. I would have turned myself inside out for you.” Such is the foolishness that women can display sometimes.
Even Selena Gomez, who had her fair share of back-and-forthing during her relationship with Justin Bieber. But before Gomez sang on a track called “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” Swift had penned “Now That We Don’t Talk.” Arguably the song most worthy of being characterized as “influenced by 1980s synthpop,” the slow build at the beginning feels reminiscent of Thompson Twins. So perhaps it was worth the wait, as Swift stated that the reason it was left behind in the first place was because “we couldn’t get the production right at the time.” Yet another dig at Styles, Swift brings her feistiest shade yet with the lines, “I don’t have to pretend I like acid rock/Or that I’d like to be on a mega yacht/With important men who think important thoughts/Guess maybe I am better off now that we don’t talk.”
A similar story is about to be told on the following track—where Swift again lets her Lana Del Rey freak flag fly. Because, needless to say, “Suburban Legends” is a title that could have easily been on Ultraviolence. And, funnily enough, Del Rey was just featured on Holly Macve’s “Suburban House.” As for the sonic tone and the intonation of Swift’s voice, it immediately reminds one of Midnights’ “Mastermind.” She begins the song with the line, “You had people who called you on unmarked numbers.” For, just as things can be marked, so, too, can they be unmarked. And yeah, it’s a weird way to phrase it when referring to what amounts to a burner phone. Elsewhere, she seems to be mimicking Kesha yet again when she says, “Tick tock on the clock,” adding, “I pace down your block/I broke my own heart ’cause you were too polite to do it/Waves crash on the shore, I dash to the door/You don’t knock anymore and my whole life’s ruined.” Not really though, seeing as how she did just become a billionaire. And not even by needing to create a beauty empire like Rihanna, but actually from her music and tour sales.
For those asking “Is It Over Now?,” well, it depends on what iteration of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) you’ve purchased. If it’s the “standard” one, it is over now with “Is It Over Now?” But with the deluxe (that’s right, now there are additional deluxe songs on top of the original three deluxe songs), there’s the superior version of “Bad Blood” featuring Kendrick Lamar. While the “tangerine edition” offers, instead, “Sweeter Than Fiction,” written for the 2013 movie One Chance and awash in the tone of a Powerful Scene From An 80s Movie. Because, as most are aware, Swift is nothing if not a deft capitalist. Either way, “Is It Over Now?” serves up major M83 vibes—for this was the era when “Midnight City” was playing everywhere (even though it had come out in 2011). At a certain moment, the way she shouts, “Is it over now?” sounds just like “Are we out of the woods?” (indeed, the singer stated, “I always saw this song as sort of a sister to ‘Out of the Woods’”). Swift, like her fans, probably doesn’t want it to be. Yet, as her erstwhile enemy, Katy Perry, said, it’s “never really over.” Least of all when it comes to Swift, who shits out new releases with more regularity than any prune eater.
While 2014 might have been more open to casual mentions of wanting to commit suicide (i.e., “Oh Lord, I think about jumpin’/Off of very tall somethings”) over a relationship’s end, the present generation doesn’t take too kindly to such things. Nor do they, really, to Swift’s brand of “ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.” But that doesn’t mean Swift can’t and won’t endlessly appeal to her OG fans with the content of this record. And yes, always one for being hyper-sensitive to dates, Swift’s re-release of 1989 arrived on the same day—October 27th—that it did back in 2014. Only that week, there was nothing nearly as earth-shattering going on as the current war (though no one wants to call it that) between Israel and Palestine. This latter “narrative” overshadowing (only somewhat, sadly) Swift’s newly-released version of the album.
