But in a late-song tonal swerve, she asserts that her ex can’t move on from her either-why else would he not return her scarf? “Time won’t fly it’s like I’m paralyzed by it,” goes one line that helps summon the telescoping, time-travel feeling that defines so many of her best songs. The original “All Too Well” told a story that was clear-cut and also richly layered: Swift’s narrator pines for the bygone bliss of a failed relationship. Sound like a bonus for only the most curious listeners? The track is a stunner, the ultimate Swift statement, and she has audaciously made it the centerpiece of the Red 2.0 rollout. For the rereleased album, Swift added on an extended cut that nearly doubles the original’s runtime. Rather than following the playbook of singing two separate songs during the comedy show, she saved up her time for one tour de force: “All Too Well (10 Minute Version).” A breakup ballad with an epic scope, the original “All Too Well” was a fan favorite on Red. Read: Taylor Swift knew everything when she was young A walloping performance on Saturday Night Live last night showed exactly how she’s pulling that off. On Red (Taylor’s Version), her second rerelease, she continues to push herself to new places as she doubles down on the things that make her beloved. Instead, it has been a dazzling victory lap that seems likely to inspire a whole new race. When in 2019 she announced her plan to recycle her own catalog to thwart a business rival, many observers suspected that the undertaking would be a minor diversion. It also is helping extend that reign while illuminating the secrets to her success. Swift’s latest project, rerecording her first six albums, not only demonstrates how impressively long her reign has turned out to be. Even though she’d barely matured into drinking age, continued relevance wasn’t assured. When she was writing the original Red, Swift was already three hit albums into an astonishing career that began when she was just 16 years old. Many women in the entertainment business can attest to the public’s limited appetite for ingenues who continue to evolve.
In pop, success is fleeting: Conventional wisdom says that an act’s “imperial phase”-a career-defining hot streak-rarely lasts for more than a few years.
Sad as it may seem, this was a fair question for a prodigy to have been asking. “Lord, what will become of me,” she sings, “once I’ve lost my novelty?” She wonders why she seems to lose confidence with each passing year. In the song, she describes how society tells young women to have fun and then shames them for experiencing life. That’s the confession the now-31-year-old singer makes on “Nothing New,” a track she wrote for her 2012 album, Red, but released only on Red (Taylor’s Version), the new, rerecorded version that came out on Friday. When Taylor Swift was only 22, she lay awake at night and worried about her age.