International country/pop sensation Taylor Swift re-released her 2012 hit album Red this past month. It is the second of 6 she has planned to re-record and release in order to own the rights to her own music, specifically her own masters. Masters are the original recording of a song that allows other versions to be created. The reason Taylor lost the rights to her 6 previous albums (everything before her 2019 album Lover) is because her contract she signed at 15 stipulated that her label, Big Machine Records would own the rights. When Taylor left to sign with Universal the rights to her songs were put up for sale without an opportunity for her to bid for them. But new content actually came from this dispute! While re-recording her past albums, Swift has taken the liberty of adding new or previously unreleased content to the tracklist. The most popular by far being her 10 minute version of “All Too Well”.
The song has inflamed the internet and gone viral. Taylor even released a short film as a music video starring Sadie Sink of Stranger Things, Dylan O’Brien of Teen Wolf, and Swift herself. The film is currently #1 on trending for music on YouTube (you can watch that version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tollGa3S0o8 ) The song has a haunting, retro feel to it. Matching the sort of melancholic flashback detailed in the song. The intro has some twangy guitar that lays low in the arrangement the rest of the time. There is piano accompanied by guitar and what sounds like a drum machine combined with actual drums. The song is heavily backed up by harmonies of Taylor singing with herself. The track ebbs and flows, keeping it from getting stagnant at any point over the 10:13 duration.
However, everyone who’s paid any attention to Taylor’s music knows that people care much more about her lyrics than they do her music.“All Too Well” is about how it feels to remember a past relationship in painstaking detail, even when you wish you could forget it as she emotes in the song; “They say all’s well that ends well, but I’m in a new hell. Every time you double-cross my mind”. However, the 10 minute version gets much more specific. It details the early days of Taylor and (allegedly) Jake Gyllenhall’s relationship, and what happened to eventually tear it apart. Clearly, it didn’t go well, Taylor’s lyrics insinuating a multitude of things, including that Gyllenhall didn’t show up to her 21st birthday; “You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes, sippin’ coffee like you’re on a late-night show. But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willin’ you to come. And he said ‘It’s supposed to be fun turning twenty-one’”. That’s a pretty serious lyric, just like this one which really encapsulates the song; “Well, maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much. But maybe this this thing was a masterpiece ‘til you tore it all up”.
All in all this is a timeless Taylor Swift song brought back to life and more. With heartbreaking lyrics and a classic Taylor composition, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” is a internet sensation and a smashing success.