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  • The Atlantic

    Taylor Swift Knew Everything When She Was Young

    The singer’s rerecording of her second album makes a statement about her past—and delivers a blow to her rivals.
    by Spencer Kornhaber Apr 13, 2021 4 minutes
    Source: Republic Records / Big Machine Records / The Atlantic

    At 18, Taylor Swift had some regrets. Across her smash second album, Fearless, Swift sang about moments she wanted to relive and, in some cases, rewrite. “Wish you could go back / And tell yourself what you know now,” she said on “15,” a reminiscence about her freshman year of high school. On “White Horse,” she chided, “Stupid girl, I should’ve known,” as she thought back to a breakup. The album captured the act of painting over naïveté with experience—a common process in adolescence, when a couple of months of aging can feel like a lifetime of education.

    The Taylor Swift who’s now 31 does not sound, titled , simply affirms who she was in 2008. Her voice has deepened, she sometimes emphasizes fresh syllables, and her team has tweaked some instrumentation and sonic mixing, but the compositions are fundamentally the same. If notes, lyrics, or tempos have shifted, you can isolate how only with careful use of the pause button. “You Belong With Me” remains , and the pre-chorus simile in “Breathe” is still . Swift’s faithfulness to her teenage vision is unexpectedly moving. Think back to something you expended a lot of effort on 13 years ago. Does it make you cringe? She’s telling you to go easier on your past self.

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