Taylor Swift’s re-recorded Speak Now still makes for great listen

Taylor Swift is a music-making dynamo. She is songwriter, singer, producer, background singer, etc. of every recording she makes. Just think, she dutifully kept on working at her home studio during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and was able to come out with three excellent albums of all-new materials these past three years. Folklore, Evermore and Midnights.

Then aside from those, Taylor has also been busy re-recording songs from her early albums. Remember, way back in 2017, her first label, Big Machine was sold to Scooter Braun. She did not like that and tried to get back the masters of her first six albums. She couldn’t and the recordings went to Braun.

But Taylor still owned the songs and to sort of retain ownership of the music of her early years, the albums Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation, she had been re-recording the songs and releasing albums subtitled Taylor’s Version. Now already available are Fearless, Red and released a week ago was Speak Now from 2010. All three re-recordings are also big hits.

Speak Now Taylor’s Version contains the 14 tracks from the original album. Mine, Back to December, Mean, Story of Us, Sparks Fly, Dear John, Enchanted, Haunted, Last Kiss, Long Live, Never Grow Up, Innocent and Speak Now. There are two songs from the

Ours

Deluxe Edition and Superman.

Then, there are six formerly unreleased recordings subtitled as From the Vault. Timeless, Foolish One, Castles Crumbling ft. Hayley Williams, I Can See You, When Emma Falls in Love and Electric Touch featuring Fall Out Boy.

Almost every singer I know dreams of re-recording their old songs. They always feel they can do it better. So I am sure that Taylor is enjoying this opportunity to change or even improve on her early work. And she does. For one, she is now a better vocalist and she uses her wider range and softer tones to shade her compositions with utmost confidence. Check out Back to December, Enchanted, The Story of Us.

Why, she even changed a line in Better Than Revenge from “She’s an actress/she’s better known for the things she does on the mattress…” to the kinder “She’s an actress/ he was a moth to the flame/she was holding the matches…”

The first and I must say better line came from the mind of a broken hearted 19-yearold. In fact, this was what the entire Speak Now album was all about. Taylor Speaking Now. That was when Taylor went into revenge mode and took on the world. Of course, she won. But for months on end gossips went to town listening and analyzing and wondering who Taylor was doing battle with.

Foremost among these were talks that the young Taylor was not really writing her own songs. Can’t really blame them for not believing. After all, she was like a music factory with an assembly line to manufacture songs. So, to prove them wrong, Taylor composed every song included in Speak Now herself. Not one co-writer in the credits.

Well done Taylor but that was not as juicy as other references that bubbled up to the surface again with the new Speak Now. Truth or not, here are some I have heard about. Was it really Kanye West and that infamous MTV Video Music Awards trophy grabbing trophy incident in Innocent? Did you break Taylor Lautner’s heart or was it vice-versa in Back to December?

But John Mayer did and he is said to figure in two songs, Dear John and The Story of Us. As for a music critic who said that Taylor can’t sing and should use autotune, he got his reply in Mean. “Someday, I’ll be singing this song at the Grammys and all you’re ever gonna be is mean.” Taylor did sing Mean at the Grammys and she brought home a few trophies, too.

Speak Now is Taylor’s coming-of-age album and still makes for a great listen. After she let loose, there was nothing for her to prove anymore. To her credit, she just got better and better over the years.

As for the actress in Better Than Revenge, could it be true that it was Camilla Belle, who reportedly “stole” Joe Jonas from the then 18-year-old Taylor Swift? Nice that the Taylor version had a change of heart and lyrics.

Way back in 2017, Taylor Swift’s first label, Big Machine, was sold to Scooter Braun. She did not like that and tried to get back the masters of her first six albums. She couldn’t and the recordings went to Braun. But Taylor still owned the songs and to sort of retain ownership of the music of her early years, the albums Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation, she had been re-recording the songs and releasing albums subtitled Taylor’s Version.