Speak Now (Taylor's Version) is better than revenge

25:00Speak Now (Taylor's Version), and other contenders for song of the summer

Today, Taylor Swift released her version of her 2010 album Speak Now — a remarkable and fan-favourite album, as it was the first record Swift wrote entirely on her own.

To mark the occasion, culture writers Tyler Foggatt, Joe Coscarelli and Jen Sookfong Lee joined host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to unpack the highlights, updates and letdowns of the latest re-release — and discuss how Swift has managed to get even more popular over the pandemic.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. To hear sparks fly between the panelists on the extended cut of the discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin:  Joe, let's talk about Speak Now and its place in the discography. How would you say this album set a foundation for what was to come?

WATCH | Official lyric video for Speak Now (Taylor's Version): 

Joe: So Mean notwithstanding, in sound Speak Now is a little less country, but not quite pop, sort of paving the way for what comes after Red and eventually 1989 — her full crossover moment. But I think Speak Now is most important lyrically because it's the first album Taylor wrote as a full fledged A-list celebrity.

On songs like Mean, which is about a specific critic who panned a performance of hers, she's beginning to respond to very public narratives about herself — that's tabloid romances on Dear John, or the Kanye West moment at the VMAs and Innocent. And this dialog between Taylor's persona as a celebrity and her confessional songwriting, where she either corrects the record or sets an agenda, becomes a huge part of her artistic project.

WATCH | Taylor Swift perform Mean at the 2012 Grammys:

Elamin: Joe, what's your read in terms of the time that Speak Now came out? Because it came out the same year that she won the Grammy for album of the year; she won that with Fearless. So there's already mounting pressure on whatever she follows it up with. But then also, it's a year after Kanye West interrupted her at the Video Music Awards. So what's your read on the work that Speak Now had to do when it came out?

Joe: I think it really had to both announce her as a serious artist and clear up the sort of mess that came right before. It's the first album and only album, I think, that she's ever written where she's the sole songwriter. That in of itself is saying, "I am not a manufactured pop girl. I am not a product of a factory. I'm going to strip away all the things that people are giving credit for my success. And now that I have the big stage, I'm going to show you that it's all me."

WATCH | Official lyric video for Innocent (Taylor's Version):

Elamin: So, Tyler, I think there are songs to me that benefited from the re-recording on Red [and] on Fearless. When you listen to Speak Now (Taylor's Version), what jumps out for you?

Tyler: I feel like there are a couple of ways in which a song can benefit from being re-recorded. The first is that it can literally just sound better, because Taylor's voice has gotten stronger and more mature over time. I really noticed that when I was listening to Haunted and to Last Kiss, which is a six-minute masterpiece of a song that didn't get that much attention the first time around. I think that sort of leads into the second way in which a song can benefit from being re-recorded, which is that it can just get a larger audience than it did the first time around. I think that Long Live is another example of a song that is a fan favorite, but it didn't really get that sort of widespread attention it perhaps should have.

WATCH | Official lyric video for Last Kiss (Taylor's Version):

I think one issue that I had with the new Taylor's Version album is that I feel like it's lacking in some of the emotional depth of the original. I feel like the original Speak Now is so angsty; it's the perfect album to scream in your bedroom. I do think that when you listen to the newer versions of the songs, she just sounds older and a bit more detached. I think sometimes that really works, like when you listen to the new version of Mean and even Never Grow Up, it's kind of cool to hear an older, more mature Taylor look at these songs again. But I feel like with a song like The Story of Us, I really notice that this is a more mature person singing.

Joe: Yeah, and I think there's some times where the bratty-ness of her voice on the original version of this album really sells the songs…. I feel like her heart's just not in it this time.

Elamin: Yeah, and her relationship has clearly changed, right? Jen, we should talk about Better Than Revenge. Because in addition to the fact that there's a little bit less sass, a little bit less bratty-ness, she's also revamped the lyrics. The original lyrics are: "She's better known for the things that she does on the mattress." And we don't say things like that anymore, Taylor Swift — and Taylor Swift also agrees with that notion. So she's changed that lyric. The new lyric is: "He was a moth to the flame. She was holding the matches." Is it a bar? I don't know, kind of. It's not bad. But also, are you surprised that she re-did that line, Jen?

Jen: No, not at all. My first book came out 16 years ago, and there are definitely lines in there that I regret and that I would change if I could. So I think if I had the power and influence of Taylor Swift and was allowed to go back and change those things, I think that I would. She's 33 [years old]. It would be very hard for her to say that line at 33. Only Taylor Swift can do this, though, I should say.

WATCH | Official lyric video for Better Than Revenge (Taylor's Version):

Tyler: She's also, as she says, she's a pathological people pleaser. I think on one hand, she's human. Anyone who has the opportunity to revisit their old work and change it, it'd be kind of weird for them not to take it. But I also think that she is very focused on how new audiences take in her music at the same time. Perhaps too focussed.

Joe: I think it really undermines the project. Songs are nothing if not a moment in time. She wrote these as a teenager, and we've gone through this with, funnily enough, a band that's opening for Taylor right now: Paramore. They have a song Misery Business, which is very similar to Better Than Revenge; I think probably a direct antecedent. And for a time they stopped playing it because they felt the lyrics were anti-feminist. Then they took that back and they were like, "We panicked, and we were wrong. This is our best song, and everyone loves it. It represents a moment in time. We're playing Misery Business again."

WATCH | Official music video for Paramore's Misery Business:

Elamin: I do think that those two songs do different jobs, right? You go to a Paramore show for a Misery Business moment; I don't think you go to Taylor Swift for Better Than Revenge. And so I don't think she would have thought that this is a really big loss in that way. But Tyler, does it feel to you like she's kind of rewriting history, and it's kind of missing the original purpose of the song?

Tyler: Yeah. I mean, you don't go to a Taylor Swift concert to hear her play Better Than Revenge. But you do go for honesty in that extreme diaristic style, and I think the original line really captured that. That being said, I do think that I actually don't really mind the new lyric. I think that it's probably more elegant than the original one. For a while there was a lot of speculation that the line she was going to change it to was, "She's better known for the things that he does with my masters," which would have been so bad.

Elamin: Yikes. That would have been—

Tyler: Unforgivable.

Elamin: Yeah.

Tyler: So I was actually pleasantly surprised by what she did change it to.

Elamin: Crisis averted.

Tyler: But the weird thing is that changing this lyric doesn't fix the core problem with the song. I do think that there is a core problem, which is that it's all about Taylor complaining about another woman stealing her boyfriend. I don't think the song is misogynistic for its slut shaming. I think if it's sexist, it's because it's holding another woman accountable for the wrongdoing of men. And so even though the mattress line might be the most sexually suggestive, it's not even the meanest line in the song. I mean, I think when she sings, "No amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity." That's a line that makes you think.

Elamin: Yeah, that's still an all-time bar.

Tyler: And it went totally untouched.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.