Fans look for clues to Harry Styles romance as Taylor Swift re-releases her biggest album, 1989
As Taylor Swift releases her own version of her biggest album, 1989, fans are searching the bonus tracks for insights into her brief romance with Harry Styles. This is what we know.
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Fans are forensically poring over Taylor Swift’s five new bonus tracks from her biggest selling album, for clues on her then romance with fellow singer Harry Styles.
Nine years to the day after it first came out, the 33-year-old solidified her status as the biggest pop star on the planet by releasing the re-recorded version of 1989, just as she did with its predecessor Speak Now in July.
Thanks to huge singles including Shake It Off, Blank Space and Style, the original version evolved the crossover country artist into a genuine global pop superstar. It went on to sell more than 14 million copies, has been streamed billions of times and won the Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2016 Grammy Awards.
In a post on Instagram, Swift wrote of the significance of 1989.
“I was born in 1989, reinvented for the first time in 2014 and a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album I love so dearly”.
✨🫶 My name is Taylor and I was born in 1989 🫶✨https://t.co/klomIqGx38pic.twitter.com/sWofWRjpvN
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 27, 2023
She continued: “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the magic you would sprinkle on my life for so long”.
“This moment is a reflection of the woods we‘ve wandered through and all this love between us still glowing in the darkest dark.
“I present to you, with gratitude and wild wonder, my version of 1989. It’s been waiting for you.”
The music industry reacted saying the new version was Swift’s “most transformative album”.
Rolling Stone called this new version the “deepest look yet into the record that made everyone a Swiftie”.
NME said the re-recorded album showed that Swift‘s voice had “understandably matured” and ”some lyrics are recited with a touch more wisdom”.
Variety said it was her “biggest and most transformative album, ensuring that, for the rest of our lives, any citation of ‘1989’ will make just about anyone in the world immediately think of Shake It Off and Bad Blood”.
Of the five new songs, the publication noted that they reflected a particular time and a place in Swift's dating life.
“Plainly put, in the “1989” Vault tracks, she’s falling for a higher class of rogue,” Variety said.
“And mourning them just a little less, when things don’t work out ... Even as she still registers the pain of separations, there’s also a sense of no great loss in some of these old/new tunes.”
Case in point, the lyric: “I call my mom / She says that it was for the best / Remind myself the more I gave, you’d want me less,” in Now That We Don’t Talk , which Variety called the “most pungent and possibly the best of the five Vault tracks”.
Originally, 1989 was also the album Swift wrote in the wake of the break-up with Styles, with several songs thought to be about her brief relationship with the former One Direction singer. The five newly released “From the Vault” tracks on 1989 (Taylor’s Version) were written around the same time as the album tracks and legions of “Swifties” around the world will be eagerly and methodically analysing the lyrics for clues about the love life of the notoriously private singer, who is now dating Kansas City Chiefs footballer Travis Kelce.
Lines such as “you were so magnetic it was almost obnoxious, flushed with the currency of cool” from Is It Over Now”, “you grew your hair long” in Now That We Don’t Talk and “in a world of boys, he’s a gentleman” from “Slut!” could certainly fit the Styles narrative after the pair dated from late 2012 to 2013 at the height of One Direction’s fame.
But who is the “lying traitor” Swift sings about in the infidelity-charged Is It Over Now? Chances are we’ll never know – Swift has always preferred to let fans make up their own minds about who and what her songs are about, and of course there’s always the possibility it’s completely made up.
1989 (Taylor’s Version), which contains re-recorded versions of the 16 tracks from the deluxe edition of 1989, plus the “From the Vault” tracks, is the fourth album that Swift has re-recorded after a dispute surrounding the ownership of her back catalogue, some of which was bought by Justin Bieber’s manager turned music mogul Scooter Braun.
Streams of 1989 doubled after Swift announced that Taylor’s Version was coming at the end of the final show of the US leg of her Eras tour in August in Los Angeles. She said on Instagram that “the 1989 album changed my life in countless ways” and that after releasing Taylor’s Versions of Fearless, Red and Speak Now with extra unreleased material, this project had been her favourite because of the quality of the additional tracks.
“To be perfectly honest,” she said, “this is my most favourite re-record I’ve ever done because the 5 From the Vault tracks are so insane. I can’t believe they got left behind.”
Swift set her fans the task of revealing the titles of the new songs via interactive puzzles, which had to be solved 33 million times before they would be unlocked.
Swifties took to the task with such enthusiasm that it caused Google to jam before the song titles of Say Don’t Go, Now That We Don’t Talk, Slut!, Suburban Legends and Is It Over Now? were revealed.
The release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) to streaming, vinyl, CD and cassette continues a stellar year for Swift. While she is currently taking a break from the rave-reviewed Eras tour, the film version of the career-spanning, three-hour extravaganza has topped the box office in Australia and around the world, taking $283 million at the global box office and becoming the highest grossing concert film ever. In a move indicative of her showbiz clout, she bypassed movie studios altogether and negotiated directly with cinemas to get the movie on the big screen.
The Eras tour resumes in Argentina next month and will arrive in Australia in February. The dates in Sydney and Melbourne – the three shows at the MCG will be her biggest ever and she’s the first artist since Madonna to play that many there – sold out in hours when announced in June, crashing websites and leaving thousands of fans bereft when they missed out. With more US dates next year, it’s likely to end up the most successful tour ever, and is expected to rake in more than $2.2 billion.
REVIEW: 1989 (TAYLOR’S VERSION) FROM THE VAULT TRACKS
Taylor Swift was clearly faced with the best possible problem to have when she released the era and career-defining 1989 in 2014.
In an album that produced seven hit singles from the world-conquering earworm that was Shake It Off to the anthemic Bad Blood, it’s all killer and no filler, leaving Swift with an embarrassment of riches and the difficult choice of what songs to leave off.
As she has done with her other rerecorded albums, Swift now gets to give some of the near misses an airing with the five From the Vault Tracks. While none of them quite reach the joyous, poptastic heights of the hit singles, nor would any have been out of place had they been included in the original track listing, with a similar synth-driven sound and immaculate production. And it’s testament to Swift’s prolific talent that a song as good as Say Don’t Go – a collaboration with revered veteran Grammy and Oscar-winning songwriter Diane Warren, who has also crafted his for Cher, Celine Dion and Aerosmith – couldn’t make the final cut.
The other four tracks – “|Slut!”, Now That We Don’t Talk, Suburban Legends and Is It Over Now? – were written with Jack Antonoff of US indie band Bleachers, who would continue to be a key collaborator on follow-up albums Reputation and Lover.
“SLUT!”
With the confronting song title, Swift finds herself pondering life in the harsh glare of the spotlight and the endless fascination with her love life over languid beats and a mellow wash of synths.
Key lyric: “If they call me a slut, you know it might be worth it for once, and if I’m going to get drunk, might as well be drunk in love.”
SAY DON’T GO
A slow-burning meditation of unrequited love swelling to a soaring, anthemic chorus with gorgeous layered vocals and sweet harmonies. Instant classic.
Key lyric: “Why’d you have to lead me on, why did you have to twist the knife, walk away and leave me bleeding?”
NOW THAT WE DON’T TALK
Up-tempo number with pulsing drums and synths looking back on a relationship gone wrong – and reclaiming a life from the wreckage.
Key lyric: “I cannot be your friend so I pay the price of what I lost and what it cost – now that we don’t talk.”
SUBURBAN LEGENDS
Uplifting and exhilarating and hopefully bound for a future inclusion in the live set as Swift recalls the dizzy highs of a crazy love with the wrong guy.
Key lyric: “When you hold me it holds me together and you kiss me in a way that’s going to screw me up forever.”
IS IT OVER NOW
Dark and moody contemplation of a volatile relationship beset by the spectre of infidelity on both sides and its potentially disastrous consequences.
Key lyric: “Was it over when she lay down on your couch, was it over when he unbuttoned my blouse?”
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