I was only 7 when Fearless came out in 2008. But it was only about 2 years later when I came to know about Taylor Swift’s existence. Back then, YouTube was a luxury and Spotify was still nonexistent. I remember almost being late to school because I waited for her music videos to come out on MYX’s Daily Countdown. Our version of streaming was paying P30 to patiently watch her music videos in computer shops, and not to mention the laborious process of buying her physical CD, importing it to our computer, and then to our phones and iPods. Thanks to Taylor, we get to relive that nostalgia today and open our eyes to so much more.
Taylor’s sophomore album Fearless (2008) debuted at number one on Billboard Hot 200, with all her five singles peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs. It won her Best Country Album and her first Album of the Year at the Grammys in 2009, making her one of the youngest artists to receive such accolades. Needless to say, it was the record that catapulted her to become the country and pop icon she is today.
Contrary to the magic and stardust that Fearless embodied, events weren’t so enchanting after Taylor’s departure from her former label and the sale of her master recordings to Scooter Braun, who later sold it to an investment fund. Two years later, quoting one of her songs in reputation, she “got smarter, got harder with the nick of time” and pulled one of the greatest UNO reverse cards in music history. On April 9, Taylor came back stronger than a 90s trend with the release of the first of six albums she plans to rerecord but, this time, with full ownership of her masters and publishing rights.
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) revisits the nostalgia of experiencing love and heartbreak for the first time. The 2-hour walk down memory lane showcased rerecordings of the same 19 songs from the original, the 2010 single ‘Today was a Fairytale,’ and six unreleased songs from the vault, which admittedly had us all reminiscing memories of our younger days and 2008 Joe Jonas. In this review, we dive into the similarities and differences between the two versions, break down Taylor’s lyricism in the new songs, and discuss what lies ahead for the young artist.
The same record 13 years later: What changed and what stayed
Decoding the meanings to Taylor’s songs is one thing, but dissecting the differences between the two versions is another. Musically, the 2021 version does not greatly differ from the original recordings. It features the same key and tempos, the same instruments, the same musicians, and the same Taylor, but now with a richer, deeper, and more mature sound. However, in terms of sound quality, the rerecordings are undoubtedly crisper and cleaner than the originals, making the instrumentals more prominent as opposed to the 2008 version where they sounded a bit muffled. The banjo lines and fiddle riffs in ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’ and ‘Love Story (Taylor’s Version)’ sound so crisp and clear that even a casual listener would easily notice and find very satisfying.
Taylor in the Fearless era had the country twang to her songs, which somehow got lost in the pop mix following the birth of the 1989 era. As someone who religiously listens to Speak Now, I was manifesting hard for a comeback. Lo and behold, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) pays homage to her country roots and reincarnates her country twang from the depths of Pennsylvania. It’s subtle and not as strong and prominent as the one she had on her first few albums perhaps due to her more pop-inclined vocal tone and range, but it’s there. On the bright side, her enunciation was evidently better in the current version. The way she sings with clarity makes us realize how many lyrics we had been singing wrong all this time.
During the production for this rerelease, Taylor revealed that she went “line by line” on every track and improved upon some parts. True enough, there are subtle differences on how she sings the rerecordings, but these neither makes Taylor’s version less better nor takes away the character of the songs. Rather, it shows how her vocal technique has improved throughout the years. The belting in ‘White Horse (Taylor’s Version)’ and ‘Tell Me Why (Taylor’s Version)’ showcases her wider vocal range. The sharp breath that every Swiftie sang like a lyric in the ‘You Belong With Me’ bridge is also nowhere to be found, which only shows how much her breath control has improved. The changes in the ad libs also gives a new personality to her songs like how the laugh in ‘Hey Stephen (Taylor’s Version)’ brings in a more mature Taylor and how the silence that comes after she softly sings “Here’s to silence” in ‘Forever & Always (Piano Version) (Taylor’s Version)’ delivers a more painful stab in the heart.
A modern retelling and reimagining of letters from the past
The six songs off her vault stay true to the motif of Fearless by encapsulating the growing pains of young love and giving listeners an introspect on 18-year-old Taylor. Though originally written 13 years ago, most of the tracks are musically reminiscent of her recent releases. The muted ballads ‘You All Over Me’ and ‘When We Were Happy’ did not tread far from the alternative, folk-pop core of folklore and evermore, while ‘Don’t You’ and ‘That’s When’ felt like the long-lost parents of ‘Clean’ in 1989. After all, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, who each had a hand in the production of these albums, were also called by Taylor to work on the vault tracks.
The never-before-released catalogue also features country artists Maren Morris, who she once shared the stage with on her reputation tour, and Keith Urban, who she opened for when she was just starting out in the music industry. Harmonies from Maren and Keith laced with Taylor’s deep and rich tone enhance the emotional delivery and impact of the songs, which allows each word to truly resonate with listeners.
Besides nostalgic melodies, it’s not surprising that each track had lyrical and thematic parallels to many of her songs, while still having their own character. Like Marvel, Taylor has her own emotionally and mentally stimulating universe built from her discography.
In the ‘You All Over Me’ chorus, Taylor and Maren sing, “I lived, and I learned, had you, got burned / Held out, and held on / God knows, too long, and wasted time.” These words seem like a response to her 2006 hit ‘Picture to Burn’ that touched on a painful breakup: “Watch me strike a match on all my wasted time / As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another picture to burn.”
This is not the first time Taylor has used fire as a metaphor for relationships as heard in many of the songs like ‘Red,’ ‘Dress,’ and ‘ivy.’ The vault track ends with, “But no amount of freedom gets you clean / I’ve still got you all over me,” which is later echoed in ‘Clean’ from 1989: “You’re still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore.”
The fan-favorite ‘Mr. Perfectly Fine’ that embodies the classic Taylor Swift breakup anthem we all missed singing along to also has its fair share of lyrical similarities. In one of the 28 repetitions of “mister” in the track, Taylor sings, “Hello Mr. Casually Cruel.” Every Swift disciple would be quick to point out how it alludes to the climactic bridge of ‘All Too Well’ in Red: “You call me up again just to break me like a promise / So casually cruel in the name of being honest.” It is also interesting how the line, “Mr. Looked me in the eye and told me you would never go away,” is lyrically related to excerpts from ‘Forever and Always’ (“You looked me in the eye and told me you love me”) and ‘Last Kiss’ (“You told me you loved me / So why did you go away”). Well, it goes without saying that hearing these gut-wrenching words triggers our fight-or-flight response towards 2008 Joe Jonas.
On ‘We Were Happy,’ Taylor reminisces on memories of a seemingly perfect relationship that sadly ended. The imagery used in “We used to watch the sun go down on the boats in the water” is later mirrored in ‘Mine’ from Speak Now: “Do you remember all the city lights on the water?” Despite this similarity, it’s worth noting how both songs are a contrast of each other. ‘We Were Happy’ talks about a future that two people dreamed of having, while ‘Mine’ recounts memories of two lovers living out their happy ending.
The deep dive into the Fearless rabbit hole continues with Taylor and Keith contemplating on the what ifs of a past relationship in ‘That’s When.’ This seems to have been the precursor to other duets in her succeeding albums like ‘The Last Time (ft. Gary Lightbody)’ in Red and ‘exile (ft. Bon Iver)’ in folklore, which followed the same structure of back-and-forth conversations between two lovers going through the aftermath of a breakup.
‘Don’t You’ describes the early stages of acceptance. Taylor’s storytelling in this track is similar to ‘You’re Not Sorry,’ which talks about rejecting the other party’s desire to get back together. The moral of self-healing and moving on in ‘Don’t You’ is thematically carried in ‘Clean’ from 1989, giving us the therapy we all need after a painful breakup. To make it even more devastating, this track would perfectly fit the summer love affair narrative in folklore either told from Augustine’s perspective after James chose Betty over her or from Betty’s perspective after finding out about James’ affair.
All the tears are finally swept away with ‘Bye Bye Baby’ that talks about bidding goodbye and fading into the memory of a great love. Taylor describes the breakup as how “It wasn’t just like a movie / The rain didn’t soak through my clothes, down to my skin,” which thematically relates to ‘If This Was a Movie’ that contrastingly talks about a lost love coming back. Shen then sings about getting “lost in the gray” and trying to “grab at the fray” encapsulates the heartbreaking emotions of holding onto pieces of a crumbling relationship or one that was bound to end. The line “And all the pages are just slipping through my hands” foreshadows the book and page theme later described in ‘Story of Us’ in her next album, Speak Now.
The themes of love and heartbreak have become mainstream in pop culture. But what sets Taylor apart is her innate brilliance as a writer and artist to capture a range of emotions and refine it into simple words that resonate with many people yet still hold so much meaning and depth. On top of that, the parallelism of her past and present writing demonstrates how her understanding of the human experience of love has evolved and matured.
Are we out of the woods yet?
When Taylor first announced the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version), everyone was looking forward to the six new tracks. From her fans’ point of view, it was heaven on earth. But from a business standpoint, this was a lucrative decision as additional songs on the rerecorded version would draw more listeners and licensing deals to her songs and, as a result, further devalue the earning potential of her old recordings.
Legally, Taylor can rerecord 4 (Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, 1989) out of the 5 remaining albums she released under Big Machine Labels (Sadly, reputation has to wait until 2022). Nothing has been confirmed yet but following her cryptic clues on Instagram and the snippet of a ‘Wildest Dreams’ rerecorded version in a movie trailer, fans speculate that 1989 would be the next to roll out. If she decides to do the same strategy as she did with Fearless, then it’s checkmate on the business moguls that bought her old masters.
More than that, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is her first step to regaining creative control and full ownership of her life’s work and legacy that brought her to where she is today. It’s no strange fact that Taylor has been caught in many celebrity feuds throughout her career, but this battle is different. It is monumental for the music industry as it may lead to changes towards artists’ rights. As she continues to take bold steps to take back what is rightfully hers, Taylor serves as a lesson and an advocate for aspiring artists across all industries waiting to sign their first contract.
13 years ago, these tracks left us feeling like an emotional train wreck (and it still does today). It’s a memoir of our youth and a reimagining of our past because fan or not, her songs have impacted our lives in some way. But Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is more than just nostalgia. Listening to these songs as adults hits differently not only because we’ve loved and lost, but also because it serves as an anthem of freedom and a celebration of women in music. So the next time you hear that “hallelujah” in ‘Change (Taylor’s Version),’ allow yourself to feel empowered and free just as Taylor is now.
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