Content
Background
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is the third re-recording of Taylor Swift’s third studio album, Speak Now. The re-recording was on July 7, 2023, through Republic Records, and consists of sixteen of the seventeen previous tracks on the album, with Swift unjustly removing “If This Was a Movie” to fit an unimportant narrative of writing the entire album by herself, along with six “From The Vault” tracks of unreleased songs that did not make the cut of the original album.
The re-recording is the third of her first six albums she has planned to release to regain ownership of her original work through Big Machine Records after Scott Borchetta, then president of the record label, sold the label, along with the ownership of the master recordings to Swift’s early work through Big Machine after she left in 2018 to sign on with Republic Records, to Scooter Braun for $300 million. Swift publicly condemned the selling of the label via social media explaining she had been trying to buy the masters for years only to be offered unfavorable conditions and denounced Braun as an “incessant, manipulative bully”. In August of 2019 Swift revealed her intentions on re-recording her old music as soon as she was allowed to. With Swift also being the publisher of the music due to her being the main songwriter to all her songs she released through Big Machine, this allowed her, per the artist-label agreement that stipulates the artist cannot re-record a song for a fixed period of time, to re-record her music any time she wanted if she so chose to. By re-recording, Swift is technically covering her own songs into new sound recordings, resulting in new masters that she fully owns, which would enable her to control the licensing of her songs for commercial use, bypassing the owners of the older masters and subsequently devaluing them.
In October 2020, it was announced that Braun had sold the masters, artwork and music videos to Shamrock Holdings for $405 million. Swift later revealed that Braun had offered her a chance to bid on her work on condition she signed a non-disclosure agreement regarding her public statements against him in an attempt to try and gag Swift from making any further public remarks against him, an offer she refused. Swift also revealed, upon being reached out to by Shamrock Holdings, that Braun had put a non-disclosure agreement on the company to not say a word to Swift about the purchase until it was completed. Swift attempted to become an equity partner with Shamrock Holdings but would decline upon learning that Braun would still continue to profit off of her work and in November 2020 Swift returned to her original plan and began working on re-recording her first six albums.
Prior to the re-recording’s release, the album had leaked and was also put on Target store shelves before the release date and news medias began reporting on the lyric change in “Better Than Revenge” causing Swifties to bully anyone who disagreed with the lyric change if they didn’t want to purchase the album due to it. After the album’s release, some fans obtained vinyl pressings with a completely different album.
Upon release, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) received 126.3 million streams on its opening day on Spotify, breaking the records for the most single-day streams for any album in 2023 and for a country album ever and becoming the second most streamed album by a female artist in a single day, behind Swift’s own Midnights.
Billboard reported that Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) earned 575,000 units in the U.S. in its first four days, including over 400,000 album sales (of which 225,000 were vinyl LPs), marking the largest consumption and sales week for an album in 2023, as well as the second-largest vinyl sales week in U.S. history, behind Midnights.
On July 13, 2023, Swift released a digital deluxe edition of the album for a limited time with two live bonus tracks of “Dear John” and “Last Kiss”.
Track listing
| Standard | |
| Tracks | Length |
| 1. Mine | 3:51 |
| 2. Sparks Fly | 4:21 |
| 3. Back To December | 4:54 |
| 4. Speak Now | 4:02 |
| 5. Dear John | 6:45 |
| 6. Mean | 3:58 |
| 7. The Story of Us | 4:27 |
| 8. Never Grow Up | 4:52 |
| 9. Enchanted | 5:53 |
| 10. Better Than Revenge | 3:40 |
| 11. Innocent | 5:01 |
| 12. Haunted | 4:05 |
| 13. Last Kiss | 6:09 |
| 14. Long Live | 5:17 |
| 15. Ours | 3:55 |
| 16. Superman | 4:34 |
| 17. Electric Touch (feat. Fall Out Boys) | 4:26 |
| 18. When Emma Falls In Love | 4:12 |
| 19. I Can See You | 4:33 |
| 20. Castles Crumbling (feat. Halley Williams) | 5:06 |
| 21. Foolish One | 5:11 |
| 22. Timeless | 5:21 |
| Digital Deluxe Album Bonus Tracks | |
| 23. Dear John (Live From Minneapolis) | 7:09 |
| 23. Last Kiss (Live From Kansas City) | 6:12 |
Prologue
When I think back on the Speak Now album, I get a lump in my throat. I have a feeling it will always be that way, because this period of time was so vibrantly aglow with the last light of the setting sun of my childhood. I made this album, completely self-written, between the ages of 18 and 20. I’ve spoken about how I feel like those ages are the most emotionally turbulent ones in a person’s life. Maybe when I say that, I’m really just talking about myself.
I think they might just be the most idealistic, hopeful yеars too. At this point in my life, I had releasеd my second album, Fearless, it became the breakthrough moment I’d always dreamt of, one that catapulted my career to new realms of success. It had brought with it tidal wave of premises and pitfalls and growing pains. All the while, I was encountering the milestones and checkpoints of normal teenage growth. I had cataclysmic crushes and brushes with heartache, I moved out of my parents’ house and set my bags down in a new apartment, I hung photos on my walls and decorated the space where I would sob and cackle and chatter and dream. Sometimes I feel like a grown up, but a lot of the time I just wanted to time travel back to my childhood bed, where my mom would read stories to me until I fell asleep.
In my darker moments, I was tormented by the doubt that swirled loudly around my ascent and my merits as an artist. I was trying to create a follow up to the most awarded country album in history, while staring directly into the face of intense criticism. I had been widely and publicly slammed for my singing voice and was first encountering the infuriating question that is unfortunately still lobbed at me to this day: does she really write her songs?
Spoiler alert: I really, really do.
In the years since, I’ve developed a thicker skin about public criticism and the cynicism with which some people approach the music I make. At that time, it leveled me. I had these voices in my head telling me that I had the perfect chance and I blew it. I hadn’t been good enough, I had given it all and been found wanting.
I wanted to get better, to challenge myself, and to build on my skills as a writer, an artist, and a performer. I didn’t want to just be handed respect and acceptance in my field, I wanted to earn it. To try and confront these demons, I underwent extensive vocal training and made a decision that would completely define the album: I decided I would write it entirely on my own. I figured, they couldn’t give all the credit to my cowriters if there weren’t any. But that posed a new challenge: It really had to be good. If it wasn’t, it would be proving my critics right.
I had no idea how much this pain would change me. That this was the beginning of my series of creative choices made by reacting to setbacks with defiance. That my stubbornness in the face of doubters and dissenters would become my coping mechanism through my entire career from that point forward. This exact pattern of enacting my own form of rebellion when I feel broken is exactly why you’re reading these very words, and I’m re-releasing this album now.
I went through my first worldwide scandal (the mic-grab seen around the world). I experienced the weirdness of trying to get to know a boy while a swarm of paparazzi surrounds the car. Media contacting my publicist for an official statement on why two teenagers broke up. These are weird experiences to have at any age, but even more surreal when you’re 19.
I had the nagging sense that in the most intense moments of my life, I had frozen. I had said nothing publicly, I still don’t know if it was an instinct, not wanting to seem impolite, or just overwhelming fear. But I made sure to say it all in these songs. I decided to call the album Speak Now. It was a play on the “speak now or forever hold your peace” moment in weddings, but for me it symbolized a chance to respond to the chatter and commentary around my own life.
Some of these emotional revelations were surprising to people. Some expected anger and instead got compassion and empathy with “Innocent.” Some expected a kiss of breakup song but instead got a hand-on-heart apology, “Back to December.” It was an album that was the most precious to me because of its vast extremes. It was unfiltered and potent. In my mind, the saddest song I’ve ever written is “Last Kiss.” My most scathing is “Dear John” and my most wistfully romantic is “Enchanted.”
I’ll be forever proud of setting a goal and seeing it through. I’ll always feel shivers all over when I remember singing “Long Live” to close the show every night on tour. The outstretched hands of those bright and beautiful faces of the fans. Their support was like an open palm that reached out and helped me up off the ground when others were, frankly, mean.
These days I make my choices for those people who thought I had been good enough all along. I try to speak my mind when I feel strongly in the moment I feel it. I’m still idealistic and earnest about the music I make, but I’m less crushed when people mock me for it. I know now that one of the bravest things a person can do is create something with unblinking sincerity, to put it all on the line. I still sometimes wish I was a little kid again in a tiny bed before I ever grew up.
I always looked at this album as my album, and the lump in my throat expands to a quivering voice as I say this. Thanks to you, dear reader, it finally will be.
I consider this music to be, along with your faith in me, the best thing that’s ever been mine.
Notes
- All tracks are written soley by Taylor Swift.
- Tracks 1-16 are noted as (Taylor’s Version) while tracks 17-22 are noted as (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault).
- Physical CDs of the album have tracks 1-16 on the first disc with tracks 17-22 on the second disc.
- Tracks 1-16 produced by Taylor Swift and Christopher Rowe. Tracks 17-18 and 21 produced by Taylor Swift and Aaron Dessner. Tracks 19-20 and 22 produced by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff.