#album notes

Prologue

When I think back on the Fearless album and all that you turned it into, a completely involuntary smile creeps across my face.This was the musical era in which so many inside jokes were created between us, so many hugs exchanged and hands touched, so many unbreakable bonds formed. So before I say anything else, let me just say that it was a real honor to get to be a teenager alongside you. And for those of you l’ve come to know more recently than 2008, I am ecstatic that I get experience a bit of that feeling with you now that I can fully appreciate it in its whimsical, effervescent, chaotic entirety.

Fearless was an album full of magic and curiosity, the bliss and devastation of youth. It was the diary of the adventures and explorations of a teenage girl who was learning tiny lessons with every new crack in the facade of the fairytale ending she’d been shown in the movies. I’m thrilled that my new version of Fearless is with you now. This is Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and it includes 27 songs.

I’ve spoken a lot about why I’m remaking my first six albums, but the way I’ve chosen to do this will hopefully help illuminate where I’m coming from. Artists should own their own work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work. For example, only I know which songs I wrote that almost made the Fearless album. Songs I absolutely adored, but were held back for different reasons (don’t want too many breakup songs,don’t want too many down tempo songs,can’t fit that many songs on a physical CD).

Those reasons seem unnecessary now. I’ve decided I want you to have the whole story, see the entire vivid picture, and let you into the entire dreamscape that is my Fearless album. That’s why I’ve chosen to include 6 never before released songs on my version of this album. Written when I was between the ages of 16 and 18, these were the ones it killed me to leave behind.

This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could’ve imagined and has made me even more determined to re-record all of my music. I hope you’ll like this first outing as much as I liked traveling back in time to recreate it.

Sincerely and Fearlessly,

Taylor

new florence and the machine album is killing me, healing me, bringing back a cicatrix of scorched-over memories...

thinking of how some songs speak to each other across albums, born of the same flavour of feeling, impulse, something (at least they put me in the same mood):

I hear Breaking Down (acoustic version) in the postlude of King (Live at Madison Sq Garden);

The spell-casting incantations of Heaven is Here x Which Witch;

what Perfume and Milk, One of the Greats, and Music by Men do in a different way - by burying persistently and deep into the skull also with the force of performatives: all shall be well, all shall be well...

Always felt that Big God belonged to the sound-world of How Big How Blue How Beautiful, as a kind of companion piece to Queen of Peace, with the sudden surge of trumpets around the third verse

You Can Have It All is the triumph of Third Eye---both album enders---darkened, matured, fermented like the scream buried in the ground turned into a tree !

Louis Tomlinson: LIVE. Double picture disc LP album notes.

On my first listen through of Fine Line, I wrote down all the emotions I felt and the imagery I saw. These were just the things I experienced with each song. Everyone has different interpretations and nobody is wrong. So I’d appreciate if nobody tried to “correct” what I feel/felt. We’re all just enjoying the album together.

Prologue

I’ve always said that the world is a different place for the heartbroken. It moves on a different axis, at a different speed. Time skips backwards and forwards fleetingly. The heartbroken might go through thousands of micro-emotions a day trying to figure out how to get through it without picking up the phone to hear that old familiar voice. In the land of heartbreak, moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion are intricately woven together with grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness. Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past. And this is all to say, that this is my version of Red.

Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past. Like trying on pieces of a new life, went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.

Sometimes you need to talk it over (over and over and over) for it to ever really be… over. Like your friend who calls you in the middle of the night going on and on about their ex, I just couldn’t stop writing.

This will be the first time you hear all 30 songs that were meant to go on Red. And hey, one of them is even ten minutes long.

Sincerely,

Taylor

In Summation

At this hearing I stand before my fellow members Of The Tortured Poets Department With a summary of my findings A debrief, a detailed rewinding For the purpose of warning For the sake of reminding

As you might all unfortunately recall I had been struck with a case of a restricted humanity With explains my plea here today of temporary i n s a n i t y

You see, the pendulum swings Oh, the chaos it brings Leads the caged beast to do the most curious things

Lovers spend years denying what’s ill fated Resentment rotting away galaxies we created

Stars placed and glued meticulously by hand next to the ceiling fan

Tried wishing on comets, Tried dimming the shine, Tried to orbit his planet, Some stars never align.

And in one conversation, I tore down the whole sky.

Spring sprung forth with dazzling freedom hues Then a crash from the skylight bursting through Something old, someone hallowed, who told me he could be brand new

And so I was out of the oven and into the microwave Out of the slammer and into a tidal wave How gallant to save the empress from her gilded tower Swinging a sword he could barely lift But loneliness struck at that fateful hour Low hanging fruit on his wine stained lips

He never even scratched the surface of me.

None of them did.

“In summation, it was not a love affair!” I screamed while bringing my fists to my coffee ringed desk It was a mutual manic phase. It was self harm. It was house and then cardiac arrest.

A smirk creeps onto this poet’s face Because it’s the worst men that I write best.

And so I enter into evidence My tarnished coat of arms My muses, acquired like bruises My talismans and charms The tick, tick, tick of love bombs My veins of pitch black ink

All’s fair in love and poetry

Sincerely,

The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department

If You're Anything Like Me

If you’re anything like me, You bite your nails, And laugh when you’re nervous. You promise people the world, because that’s what they want from you. You like giving them what they want… But darling, you need to stop,

If you’re anything like me, You knock on wood every time you make plans. You cross your fingers, hold your breath, Wish on lucky numbers and eyelashes Your superstitions were the lone survivors of the shipwreck. Rest In Peace, to your naive bravado… If life gets too good now, Darling, it scares you.

If you’re anything like me, You never wanted to lock your door, Your secret garden gate or your diary drawer Didn’t want to face the you you don’t know anymore For fear she was much better before… But Darling, now you have to.

If you’re anything like me, There’s a justice system in your head For names you’ll never speak again, And you make your ruthless rulings. Each new enemy turns to steel They become the bars that confine you, In your own little golden prison cell… But Darling, there is where you meet yourself.

If you’re anything like me You’ve grown to hate your pride To love your thighs And no amount of friends at 25 Will fill the empty seats At the lunch tables of your past The teams that picked you last… But Darling, you keep trying.

If you’re anything like me, You couldn’t recognize the face of your love Until they stripped you of your shiny paint Threw your victory flag away And you saw the ones who wanted you anyway… Darling, later on you will thank your stars for that frightful day.

If you’re anything like me, I’m sorry.

But Darling, it’s going to be okay.