There is ample evidence that ‘All Too Well’ is also about Jake Gyllenhaal. The symbolic scarf, which is mentioned throughout the song, is surely the one that she was sporting in several of the photographs of the couple together. As we have seen, they spent time at Gyllenhaal’s sister Maggie’s place in Brooklyn, and autumn was a particularly strong time for their relationship. These images are dropped deftly into the lyrics of this heartbreak ballad, which remains one of Taylor’s most impressive compositions to date. The motif of the couple dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light shows Taylor at her songwriting best.
The lyrics for that song have not been without their controversy. Matt Nathanson, a folk singer, claimed that some of them seemed to have been lifted almost directly from a song of his own, called ‘I Saw’. ‘She’s definitely a fan … and now she’s a thief,’ Nathanson wrote on Twitter about the allegation. Taylor is indeed a fan of Nathanson and it remains possible that she unintentionally borrowed his lyrics having found them in the back of her mind and not recognised where they were from. It’s also possible that the similarity is entirely coincidental.
Having navigated grace, anger and heartbreak, in ‘22’ Taylor turns playful with some pure pop. A romp of a tune, here she celebrates what she considered when she wrote the song to be the best age of her life. This song is pure hedonism and euphoria. For once, she is not looking back or forwards, instead she is simply enjoying the moment: partying and clowning around all evening with her friends. For Taylor, being 22 seemed the ideal age, blending as it did a sense of maturity and wisdom with a remaining spirit of youth and frivolity. ‘You’re old enough to start planning your life, but you’re young enough to know that there are so many unanswered questions,’ she said. She found this combination heady, bringing about in her a ‘carefree feeling’.
She was inspired to write the song during a plane journey, yet the enclosed, claustrophobic atmosphere of air travel is not one that has any place in this song. It is the sound of Taylor and her friends letting loose and celebrating the good in their lives, while poking fun at the sadder aspects of it. She worked with Max Martin on the song and said she was ‘fascinated’ by how he ‘can just land a chorus’. She added: ‘He comes at you and hits you and it’s a chorus – all caps, with exclamation points.’ This song is brimful of both, and its frothy hedonism is a much-needed lift after the anger and heartache of its predecessors. If it recalls any other artist of the moment it would be Katy Perry, yet even Perry would have struggled to lend it quite the playtime quality that Taylor pulls off. Her chant of ‘Twenty-two-ooh-ooh’ is as catchy as pop came in 2012.
‘I Almost Do’ is back-to-basics acoustic country fare. It is as if she is taking a break from the experimental forays into more commercial territory, to show us her grounding in tradition and her credibility. The mood immediately becomes considerably quieter and more sombre, though amid the heartache of the song there is an element of redemption and healing. Here, she sings about the moment in the aftermath of a break-up when the heartbroken party considers taking her ex-lover back, but just knows that such a move is ill judged. ‘Writing the song was what I did instead of picking up the phone,’ said Taylor, explaining just how precisely the song reflects her real life. The ‘never, ever’ refrain makes its second appearance on the album, prefacing its starring role in the following song.
Which is ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’. It is said that the best form of revenge is to live well. Another good form of revenge is to write a song that will drive your ex-lover crazy on several levels. This is, according to Taylor, the theme of this song. She was working in the studio with Shellback and Max Martin when a friend of her ex appeared and said he had heard that the estranged couple were getting back together. Taylor was furious, and when the man left she fumed out loud. She told her studio colleagues that, actually, she and her ex were never, ever, ever getting back together.
There could be a song in that, Martin had said. Less than half an hour later, they had created the basic structure of that song, which would go on to break records. At first, when Taylor set her ‘never, ever, ever’ rant to a guitar background, she wondered if it was too ‘obvious’ to just chant those words. But she was encouraged to keep exploring the notion and liked what she found. ‘It came from a very real place and it came from a very spontaneous situation,’ she said.
The line about the man’s ‘indie’ music, which is so much ‘cooler’ than Taylor’s, is for her a pivotal part of the song. She said it reflected her experience of feeling ‘critiqued and subpar’ during the relationship. Her ex-partner would deliberately listen to obscure music and would ‘drop’ any act the moment he realised that any of his friends had heard of it. ‘I felt that was a strange way to be a music fan,’ she said.
However, this gave her a tantalising idea: why not create a pop song that referenced him and did so in the most proudly uncool style she could muster? She set out, she said, to make a song ‘that I knew would absolutely drive him crazy when he heard it on the radio’. If the song became the hit she hoped it would, he would find it hard to escape. The fact that it would be ‘the opposite of the kind of music that he was trying to make me feel inferior to’ only added to her hand-rubbing glee.
It is indeed a song that any indie-loving music snob would hate – and is all the better for it. It is not a song to stroke your beard to. Instead, it is a clipped, bubblegum-pop romp to dance along to with confidence, festivity and sassiness – a stadium-friendly song of girl power indeed. The choral chant of ‘never, ever, ever’ sticks in the head like glue – almost cruelly so. The way she adds, in spoken voice, the ‘Like … ever’ only adds to the defiant tone. It’s all wonderfully snarky. The overall song has been compared with those of Avril Lavigne, and certainly it would have struggled to fit in with any previous Taylor long-player. Rolling Stone described it well as ‘a perfect three-minute teen tantrum’.
Gyllenhaal is, once more, the lead suspect for the song’s character. The promotional video starred actor Noah Mills as the ex-lover. He bears a reasonably strong resemblance to Gyllenhaal. The video also features humans dressed as animals, which has been widely read as a reference to the human rabbit in Gyllenhaal’s film Donnie Darko. However, it is the scarf she waves in the video that most connects the song with him. The scarf had become a central motif of their relationship, and Taylor would not have let it within a mile of the video without knowing the conclusions people would draw.
With so much heartbreak and indignation on Red, it is ‘Stay, Stay, Stay’ that lightens the mood both musically and thematically. In contrast to previous tracks in which the finality of the message is clear, here she sings about how, despite imperfections, some relationships are worth sticking with and fighting for. She has hinted that this is a fantasy relationship, as opposed to one she has experienced. It is another of the album’s nods back to Taylor’s past releases, particularly the single ‘Ours’. She has stated that it was a relief to exit the ‘really dark places’ that she had to go to emotionally elsewhere on Red. Yet even in this fun, light tune, she cannot help hurling a passing jibe at the ‘self-indulgent takers’ she had previously dated, who took their worries out on her. For some listeners, this brief outburst of bitterness almost ruins the song, yet her subsequent giggle as she sings about her new man carrying her groceries goes some way to redressing the balance.
In ‘The Last Time’ she duets with Gary Lightbody, whom she met through Ed Sheeran. Lightbody is the lead vocalist of the band Snow Patrol, best known for their hits ‘Chasing Cars’ and ‘Run’. When the two sat down to work together, Lightbody had a melody and Taylor had an idea for lyrics. Out of that combination came ‘The Last Time’. The track is her musical representation of the moment a man asks a woman for yet another last chance. It is a hypnotic tune, its repetitive format an intentional motif to represent the scenario. It could, suitably enough, have been on a Snow Patrol album.
‘Holy Ground’, a percussive track, takes
the mood upwards again. She was inspired to write it after bumping into an ex-boyfriend. It is believed that the ex was either Lautner or Jonas. She wrote ‘Sad Beautiful Tragic’ while sat on her tour bus. She recorded it the same day and preserved the first-take vocals for the final polished version. She wanted that authenticity to reign in the album version. Her gentle vocals attempt to evoke the ‘cloudy recollection’ of a lost fling. The reference to the relationship having been on ‘New York time’ is a nod to it being about Gyllenhaal.
In ‘The Lucky One’, Taylor opens up a little about the elements of her privileged lifestyle that make her feel uncomfortable. Although she is believed to be hooking the experiences she describes onto Joni Mitchell, there is no doubt that Taylor is also singing about herself here. ‘Everything Has Changed’ is not short on cliché, but the presence of Ed Sheeran gives it a lift. There was a pleasant coincidence to their meeting. ‘I fell in love with his music and I couldn’t believe we hadn’t had his album come out in the US yet,’ she said. When she contacted his ‘people’ about a possible collaboration, she was amused to learn that he had just asked them to reach out to her for the same reason. They met, sat on a trampoline in Taylor’s garden and wrote this song together. It is about how meeting the right person romantically can change your perspective on everything.
There are just two songs left on this epic album. ‘Starlight’ was born in the moment Taylor saw a photograph of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy at a ball in the 1940s. ‘They look like they’re having the best night,’ she told the Wall Street Journal. The joy she saw in them was the starting point for this song. It is one of Red’s lightest and most fun tunes.
The album closes with its most country-flavoured track. ‘Begin Again’ is Taylor reflecting on how, even after a bitter break-up, there is that moment when you spot someone across a crowded room and ‘it clicks and, bam, you’re there – in love again’. With its softer production, violin and banjo, this song also sounds more like it comes from earlier Swift albums. Country fans will have been relieved to hear the strains of this song after the rock- and pop-infused tracks that precede it. All listeners will, one hopes, be encouraged by the optimistic feeling the album leaves behind.
‘When she’s really on, her songs are like tattoos,’ said Rolling Stone. The Los Angeles Times said: ‘By setting rural music alongside more “urban” sounds of the moment, Swift is arguably just responding to a pop world in which country singles might please her base, but certainly doesn’t expand it.’ Slant magazine, noting how long the album is, said that while songs like ‘All Too Well’ ‘prove how adept Swift is at expressing genuine insights into complex relationship dynamics, there are also a handful of songs that lack her usual spark’. AllMusic, though, praised her album’s ‘pristine pop confections’, while the 4Music website said the album included ‘a large serving of soul and tenderness alongside a huge dollop of talent’.
The Guardian said: ‘Red is another chapter in one of the finest fantasies pop music has ever constructed.’ Tackling the rogues’ gallery of damned males, it added: ‘Men will always be drippy, emasculated partners who exist to serve her needs.’ Billboard said: ‘Red is her most interesting full-length to date, but it probably won’t be when all is said and done in her career.’ Praise for the present and hope for the future: this was just the sort of verdict that would be music to Taylor’s ears.
Perhaps the verdict she had been waiting for most anxiously was that of Jake Gyllenhaal. Although she was characteristically vague about whom she was talking about, it seems that, during an interview with the New Yorker, she revealed that the actor had spoken favourably to her about Red. ‘I heard from the guy that most of Red is about,’ she said. ‘He was like, “I just listened to the album, and that was a really bittersweet experience for me. It was like going through a photo album.” That was nice. Nicer than, like, the ranting, crazy emails I got from this one dude.’ (The ‘dude’ was widely believed to be John Mayer.)
Yet with such a longstanding and high-profile résumé of heartbreak on her CV, some wondered whether she was destined always to be unhappy. With characteristic perspective and maturity, Taylor explained why she was not worried. ‘That’s the thing with love: it’s going to be wrong until it’s right,’ she said. ‘So you experience these different shades of wrong, and you miss the good things about those people, and you regret not seeing the red flags for the bad things about those people, but it’s all a learning process. And being 22, you’re kind of in a crash course with love and life and lessons and learning the hard way, and thankfully, I’ve been able to write about those emotions as they’ve affected me.’
As for those who paint her as a serially heartbroken, vengeful lady, she shrugs off their perception of her. ‘I mean, they can say that all they want,’ she told the New Yorker. ‘Those are real feelings that every single person goes through. I think that it’s okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn’t about, like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you. I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.’
Perhaps the biggest creative legacy of Red was that it saw Taylor drop the country twang in her vocal style. Since her debut album, she had delivered her lyrics with a Nashville tone, which seemed to be exaggerated. That vocal slant had slowly eased ever since, and in Red it is virtually absent. It worked – the album was a commercial smash from the start. In its first week on sale, Red sold an amazing 1,208 million copies – more than any album has sold in a single week since 2002. It became only the eighteenth album to sell a million units in a single week since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991. As of the autumn of 2013, it had sold over six million copies worldwide.
Having dated A-list teen heart-throbs and released such a successful album, Taylor’s stature had never been higher than it was in the second half of 2012. She had achieved so much. Nevertheless, her rocketing fame brought with it a degree of pressure she had previously been unaware of. It certainly took her far beyond the life experiences of most other 22-year-olds. ‘I do think about it,’ she told radio network NPR. ‘There’s not really one day that goes by that my life isn’t documented somewhere. I live in a world where I know for a fact that my grandkids will get to Google what I wore today. It’s a strange dilemma, because it puts an amount of pressure on your every move that other 22-year-olds don’t necessarily have to think about. In the grand scheme of things, I’m living a life … I know I’m going to make mistakes. I’m just going to try to handle those mistakes as a good person. The perception of you is going to change daily when you do what I do, but I just want to end up knowing in my heart that I did that right thing and tried my best, and if you mess up, hopefully it teaches you something.’
As such a famous face, she was invited to express her opinion on every issue going. For instance, as the presidential election of 2012 approached, she was encouraged to make a clear statement about which candidate she would vote for: Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. ‘A lot of people tell me that when they were 22, they thought they had it all figured out, but they didn’t,’ she explained. ‘Just when I start to think that I know how I feel about something, I learn something else that changes my mind. I just feel like I don’t have enough wisdom about myself as a person yet to go out there and say to 20 million followers on Twitter, and these people on Facebook, and whoever else is reading whatever interview I do, “Vote for this person.” I know who I’m going to vote for, but I don’t think that it’s important for me to say it, because it will influence people one way or another. And I just want to make sure that every public decision I make is an educated one.’
Taylor was again in a position of some paradox. She was at once a wise elder sister to her fanbase and a younger sibling to much of the pop-music industry. To many of her country-music heroes she was young enough to be a daughter. To only confuse the picture further, she was simultaneously a music artist and a gossip-page princess. All these contradictions were just fine by her, as they made her day-to-day life more interesting. ‘I
’ve kind of realised that I have no idea where I’m going to be next year, or in six months, or in two months; I have no idea where I’m going to be mentally, emotionally, dreams, goals, wishes, hopes.’ She loves to daydream, but she knows that planning for the future can never be a precise art. Something will always come along and throw you off course.
What will a typical day in the life of Taylor Swift look like in 2014 and beyond? According to the lady herself, it will be a blend of anxiety, confidence, terror and – ultimately – creativity. It sounds as if she has a typical artist’s temperament. ‘I worry about everything,’ she told the New Yorker late in 2013. ‘Some days I wake up in a mind-set of, like, “Okay, it’s been a good run.” By afternoon, I could have a change of mood and feel like anything is possible and I can’t wait to make this kind of music I’ve never made before. And then by evening, I could be terrified of the whole thing again. And then at night, I’ll write a song before bed.’
This rollercoaster of emotions she describes will be familiar to many creative souls. Elsewhere, Taylor has defined the difference that successful creative activity can have on her mood. ‘If I’ve just written a song, I’m the happiest you’ll ever see me,’ she said. ‘But if I haven’t written a song in a week and a half, I am more stressed than you will ever, ever see me at any point.’ For mood to be so dependent on one’s creative output seems, on the face of it, to be an almost captive state of affairs. However, when the result of such tension is songs like ‘State of Grace’, ‘I’m Only Me When I’m With You’ and ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’, the pay-off seems fairer.
As Taylor’s fame and popularity soared, there was a very real danger she could lose any sense of who she was as a person and a performer. As she prepared to embark on the Australian leg of her world tour to promote Red, she was asked whether she now considered herself to be in the same bracket as pop icon Madonna. She must have felt tempted to agree to the comparison, but she could not do it. She insisted that she was something smaller and more grounded than the likes of Madonna, with her huge stage productions. ‘I would never see myself that way,’ she said. ‘I see myself as this girl who writes songs in her bedroom. You can kind of dress it up all you want and you can put together an amazing theatrical production, you can become a better performer as time goes by, and you can try to excite people, but I’m always going to be a girl who writes songs in her bedroom in my own personal perception of myself.’
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