On a whole-of-song basis I would be very tempted to go for "Holy Ground". If I was doling out awards it probably should win "Best Song", but then "Treacherous" would scoop the balance of the prize pool: "Most affecting vocals in a Taylor song"; "Greatest second chorus in a Taylor song"; "Most arresting and perceptive lyrics in a Taylor song" etc.
― Tim F, Monday, 23 September 2013 04:49 (ten years ago) link
The fact that Alfred hasn't retained it marks him out as incorrigibly glib and heartless.
all too well
― abcfsk, Monday, 23 September 2013 05:34 (ten years ago) link
enchanted is definitely top 10 or maybe even top 5, and treacherous is a perfectly serviceable song, but to put the two even in the same circle
man
― 乒乓, Monday, 23 September 2013 12:06 (ten years ago) link
Imagine Swift songs called:
IncorrigleIncorrigibly GlibHeartless
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 September 2013 12:14 (ten years ago) link
I Knew You Were Incorrigible When You Logged In
― Tim F, Monday, 23 September 2013 13:06 (ten years ago) link
This album has so many pleasing little lyrical flourishes, like the shift in "Stay, Stay, Stay" from "I've been loving you for quite some time" to "I'll be loving you for quite some time".
― Tim F, Tuesday, 24 September 2013 00:40 (ten years ago) link
Voted "Red" here over "Begin Again"
― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Tuesday, 24 September 2013 01:35 (ten years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Friday, 27 September 2013 00:01 (ten years ago) link
Just noticed how great "All Too Well" is the other day. Wide screen narrative.
― MikoMcha, Friday, 27 September 2013 23:31 (ten years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Saturday, 28 September 2013 00:01 (ten years ago) link
Ah, OK, I had no idea "All Too Well" was such a favorite!
― MikoMcha, Saturday, 28 September 2013 08:33 (ten years ago) link
Surprised state of grace didn't get more love
― monotony, Saturday, 28 September 2013 10:41 (ten years ago) link
I'm glad I put in a vote for "Begin Again", just so it charts. But yeah, there's tons of great tracks on here.
― MikoMcha, Saturday, 28 September 2013 11:00 (ten years ago) link
Poor "I Almost Do" :'-(
― Tim F, Saturday, 28 September 2013 15:20 (ten years ago) link
excellent results apart from the bizarre "starlight" overrating and presumably the joke "everything has changed" vote
― lex pretend, Saturday, 28 September 2013 18:03 (ten years ago) link
"everything has changed" isn't that bad. but then again i may have been brainwashed by all the play it is getting on my local hot ac station. i like it better than "stay stay stay" which sounds like an unpleasant spotify commercial.
― dyl, Sunday, 29 September 2013 14:45 (ten years ago) link
7. "I Almost Do" 0
yeah this is crazy; and it hits so hard & w/ pinpoint accuracy after a breakup :{
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 1 July 2014 12:42 (nine years ago) link
listened to this album for the first time in a while tonight...so completely killer. i even like the duets OK, esp. the Sheeran one. i don't hate the Lightbody one, but then i kinda like the one Snow Patrol CD I have (Final Straw).
still, when the Lightbody duet and Sad Beautiful Tragic are the worst songs on a 16-track album, you've put together something pretty special, I'd say.
― alpine static, Sunday, 21 June 2015 05:44 (eight years ago) link
sad beautiful tragic is seriously magical
― nose, Sunday, 21 June 2015 15:10 (eight years ago) link
what an album
― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Tuesday, 14 November 2017 00:34 (six years ago) link
today i am seriously vibing with "the lucky one"
I had forgotten that "Treacherous" actually won this poll.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 14 November 2017 02:12 (six years ago) link
where she fell off
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 14 November 2017 02:34 (six years ago) link
Listened to this for the first time in years yesterday and wow it's even better than i remember it. Begin Again is such a heartbreaker
― josh az (2011nostalgia), Thursday, 16 November 2017 20:11 (six years ago) link
"where she fell off" = crying laughing emoji
― alpine static, Thursday, 16 November 2017 20:22 (six years ago) link
this album is really frustrating to me because i think it might be her best album if those terrible duets weren't on it, and neither were the martin/shellback tracks which aren't bad but are all a little underwritten and feel like they're from a completely different album. removing those brings it down to 11 tracks which is a much more manageable length too.
the highs among the remaining tracks are so high though! like "red", "treacherous", "all too well", "holy ground", "starlight", "begin again" - all incredible
― ufo, Saturday, 27 April 2019 11:28 (four years ago) link
only recently came across "Ronan"; my favorite Red-era songs are probably that and "Girl At Home". Swap those with the lame duets.
― L'assie (Euler), Saturday, 27 April 2019 12:11 (four years ago) link
as i said upthread i think, no one rates "the moment i knew" but i do and i wish it were in "the last time"'s place, and "girl at home" rules
but then "the last time" has pretty great strings, and honestly "everything has changed" is a good song that happens to have ed sheeran on it
― american bradass (BradNelson), Saturday, 27 April 2019 12:43 (four years ago) link
so it's still my favorite taylor album
love this album... its songs range from v. good to great, IMO.
― get your hand outta my pocket universe (morrisp), Saturday, 27 April 2019 13:48 (four years ago) link
i do think the duets are among the weakest tracks on this album, but they're not *terrible* ... if i was gonna trim, i'd start with Sad Beautiful Tragic and The Last Time
imo there are like 7-8 songs here that i could vote for for #1 but i'm guessing i chose between the amazing "Red" and the also amazing "All Too Well"
this is peak TS and one of the best albums of the 21st century so far
― alpine static, Saturday, 27 April 2019 16:13 (four years ago) link
ok actually fuck y’all i love “the last time”
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 30 April 2019 02:31 (four years ago) link
still adore "Starlight"
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 30 April 2019 02:39 (four years ago) link
well, you need love in an increasingly terrifying world
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 30 April 2019 02:41 (four years ago) link
“the lucky one” is a rilo kiley song
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 30 April 2019 02:44 (four years ago) link
oh mywhat a marvelous tune
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 30 April 2019 03:01 (four years ago) link
honestly "everything has changed" is a good song that happens to have ed sheeran on it
an accurate statement of underacknowledged truth
― dyl, Tuesday, 30 April 2019 03:47 (four years ago) link
the beginning with 'state of grace' kills me everytime.
― Nourry, Tuesday, 30 April 2019 09:20 (four years ago) link
Since we've been talking so much about Taylor Swift's lyrics, and there doesn't seem to be a Taylor Swift: Classic or Dud thread, I thought I'd come in here and say how much I like the song "Begin Again." I have mixed feelings about Swift's work, and I'm not crazy about her last two albums, but this is one song where I think all the Swifty details - the high heels, the James Taylor records, the general upper-class-ness of the whole cafe scene - add up to something intensely perceptive about the human experience.
"On a Wednesday/in a cafe/I watched it begin again" is such a beautiful line on its own; there's something very appealing to me about that that contrast between the mundane, the ordinary, and that unexpected sense of life renewing itself. The word "watched" is a nice detail, with the way it puts her outside of herself, watching herself come back to life; it's like she's at a place where she can see it more than she can feel it. It reminds me of John Prine singing "And I find it real surprising/for myself to hear me say/that everything is cool/everything's okay."
But this is also a really nuanced portrait of what seems like mild PTSD from a toxic, borderline abusive relationship. This is where I think all the biographical stuff that surrounded this album really got in the way. If you forget all that, and just think of this as a song about someone getting out of a relationship where her interests, her personality and her general worth were constantly dismissed, it becomes a really beautiful "this is your brain on PTSD" character sketch: her passionate gratitude for basic politeness; her intense surprise that someone could find her funny, the way every interaction with her new date sends her brain circling back to the ex and how he saw her, so that even as she's giving us this charming image of her date laughing, her interior monologue keeps making it into a reflection of everything that was missing in her old relationship. And then that moment at the end when the new guy is carrying on a perfectly ordinary conversation about movies, and you realize this is the first time she's been able to stop thinking for long enough to actually hear him. I don't think I would have to know anything about the biographical details behind this to know that this new relationship isn't going to last; this isn't really a love song so much as it's a song about slowly coming back to a sense of your own self-worth. And there are a million songs about that out there, and many of them suck, but this one rings true to me.
It's funny that I like this song so much, because Taylor's tendency to always cast herself as the victim and her ex as the bad guy is one of the things I find frustrating about her early work, and I like Lover in part because it's a shift away from that. But hey, sometimes there really is a bad guy and a victim, and I think this is a perceptive and beautiful song about the aftermath of a relationship like that.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 17 December 2020 19:49 (three years ago) link
that's a really great analysis!!! i sometimes forget how much i love that song and reading that totally put me back in touch with it
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, 18 December 2020 03:09 (three years ago) link
Thank you for saying that! I was starting to feel kind of embarrassed about that post. It's frustrating when I find myself using a million heavy words to describe a song that I value precisely for its lyrical economy and lightness of touch.
― Lily Dale, Friday, 18 December 2020 06:17 (three years ago) link
lol i mean i feel like that's what criticism is
you def clarified the way i personally connect to the song (as the ptsd aftermath of a really bad relationship), i just had never put words to it
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, 18 December 2020 14:59 (three years ago) link
Shame there were no votes for One More Red Nightmare.
― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 19 December 2020 14:54 (three years ago) link
And here ya go
The next album that I’ll be releasing is my version of Red, which will be out on November 19. 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🧣 https://t.co/FOBLS5aHpS pic.twitter.com/6zWa64Owgp— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) June 18, 2021
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 18 June 2021 17:59 (two years ago) link
Cool!
― search term: buttrock (morrisp), Friday, 18 June 2021 18:11 (two years ago) link
:D
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, 18 June 2021 18:46 (two years ago) link
ten minute long Red-era Taylor let'sgoooooooo
― self-clowning oven (Murgatroid), Friday, 18 June 2021 18:49 (two years ago) link
it was always spiritually a double album, to me
― J0rdan S., Friday, 18 June 2021 18:55 (two years ago) link
it's a 10 minute We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Oops! All WEEEEEEs remix)
― peace, man, Friday, 18 June 2021 19:05 (two years ago) link
It occurred to me today that even after hearing, as ambience, "Blank Check" and "Wildest Dreams" and so on some thousands of times over the past seven years, I still so strongly associate Taylor with "You Belong With Me" and "Love Story" and "Fifteen" and all of Speak Now
And yet, "We Are Never Getting Back Together" is chronologically, at this point, mid-period-- six years after her debut, nine years ago.
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 00:05 (two years ago) link
"Blank Check" --> "Blank Space"? Ha ha (I like yr title, tho)
― heterologous booster (morrisp), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 00:10 (two years ago) link
Ha lol whoops. I never listened to 1989 through Lover for pleasure, just research I guess
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 02:09 (two years ago) link
https://www.stereogum.com/2167771/taylor-swift-iheartradio-taylors-version/news/
“Whenever Taylor re-records a new track, we immediately replace the old versions. Our stations will always deliver songs that artists are eager to share and fans want to hear,” said Tom Poleman, Chief Programming Officer for iHeartMedia. “Listeners have made it known that they cannot wait to hear Taylor’s Version of each track. We are thrilled to provide a platform to share those with them, as well as the stories behind the songs from Taylor herself.”
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 14:10 (two years ago) link
She and iHeartRadio are pretty sympatico.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 14:27 (two years ago) link
I find it annoying that the implied choice (not on ILM per se, just in general) is between caring about all the autobiographical detail and not being invested in the songwriting at all. One of the best aspects of the shift in her songwriting in the last two albums (especially on Evermore) is the sense that that binary is no longer applicable. "Ivy" and "Cowboy Like Me" are two of the very best songs she has ever written, and both clearly have nothing to do with her own life.I was discussing with Brad a while back all the questions I wish TS would get asked in interviews, basically all of which would dig into her songwriting craft. A big question I had coming out of Evermore is whether she feels like, if she is writing from the POV of a fictional character, her lyrical vocabulary changes. Which of course she would never actually be asked by an interviewer.― Tim F, Monday, November 15, 2021 4:10 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink
I was discussing with Brad a while back all the questions I wish TS would get asked in interviews, basically all of which would dig into her songwriting craft. A big question I had coming out of Evermore is whether she feels like, if she is writing from the POV of a fictional character, her lyrical vocabulary changes. Which of course she would never actually be asked by an interviewer.
― Tim F, Monday, November 15, 2021 4:10 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink
otm
― Indexed, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:01 (two years ago) link
"Ronan" may be the saddest song I've ever heard.
― distortion’s secret telеphone (morrisp), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 16:36 (two years ago) link
it's been pretty funny/cute seeing my 12yo niece "discover" Taylor Swift
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Thursday, 18 November 2021 20:35 (two years ago) link
don't think she was really into music much before this
https://www.twitter.com/bloodbuzz/status/1460047771537494018
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Saturday, 27 November 2021 03:24 (two years ago) link
"Holy Ground" should've done better.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 20:12 (one year ago) link
Agreed, but I feel like the really underrated deep cut on this album is “I Almost Do”, which I think is also secretly really sharp songwriting.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 17 January 2023 21:06 (one year ago) link