Come(ing) Back, Be(ing) Here: Red (Taylor’s Version) and Growing Up

I grew up with Taylor Swift.

I saw her face on the covers of the Tiger Beat and Bop magazines my mom would let us buy to make us feel like grownups. Her music videos were some of the first YouTube videos I have any memory of seeing. And she was on the radio all the time; first it was “Love Story,” then it was “You Belong With Me,” then “Our Song” (god, so many girls sang “Our Song” in the fifth grade talent show.) She was everywhere. And so was the media circus that always followed her. Even without unfettered internet access, we still heard all the critiques. “Taylor Swift is a goody-two-shoes.” “Taylor Swift isn’t real country music.” And of course, “Taylor Swift only writes about guys.” We took part in snickering over the speculation of who she would date next, how long they would last, and how much mileage she would get out of the breakup that would certainly come. Eventually, that was what came to define Taylor in my eyes. Her value had become reduced to that of the man who she was last photographed with.

Thankfully I was able to find room in my child-sized heart to be excited when gifted tickets to see Red in concert. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room in my child-sized brain to properly retain everything. Remembering it comes in…well, “flashbacks and echoes.” Ed Sheeran opening the show and playing the guitar so hard that one of the strings broke, then joining Taylor onstage for “Everything has Changed;” The chorus of “Red;” snippets of “The Lucky One;” the mom who bought our tickets blowdrying her hair in hopes that she’d see Jake Gyllenhaal despite the fact that they’d already broken up and we would be spending the night in Gillette Stadium. All good memories, but all distant ones. Nothing to really hold onto. This year was the first time I listened to Red all the way through. And it’s great.

The original Red oscillates between sorrow and joy at a mile a minute and remains sonically stimulating the entire time. Her lyrics are either a ton of fun, incredibly poignant, or both, and her melodies get stuck in one’s head in the best way. The features also work wonderfully. Each guest brings something unique and special to their track without overshadowing her or fading into the background. They do exactly what they should do. The only bad thing I can say about Red — and to be clear, we’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel here — is that a few of the songs are just okay. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” is an extremely basic pop song. It’s catchy and fun to sing, but it has no substance (not that it claims to, but still.) The same can be said for “22” and “Stay Stay Stay,” fluffy and sweet and nothing else. These moments are not duds, but they distract from how good the rest of the album is.

Now we’re here. Almost a decade has passed since Red was originally released. Taylor is 32 and I am (feelin’) 22. The girls who listened tirelessly back then are women now, and we no longer rely on pop stars to tell us what life is like. We’ve lived it. We know firsthand.

So how does a new version of Red fit into our lives?

My worry going into this album was that it would end up being a re-hash; the sonic equivalent of a Disney live-action movie, dressed up all pretty but ultimately containing nothing that warrants its existence. I could not have been more wrong. Red (Taylor’s Version) is not just an album, it’s an event. It’s over an hour longer than the original release and includes new music videos, new tracks, and a 14-minute short film. Red (Taylor’s Version) makes its presence clear and demands to be taken seriously, then proves itself through impeccable sound. The production is heightened, tightened, and altogether more polished, all while adding in new flourishes that make the songs distinct entities. Taylor’s voice has improved, too. In addition to stronger technique and a physically more mature voice, every note Taylor sings carries the weight of her life and career with it. Her voice exists in the past, present, and future simultaneously. Even the dubstep drop in “I Knew You Were Trouble” no longer sounds dated. Taylor made a dubstep drop sound refined. How does that happen?

But the best part about Red (Taylor’s Version) is the new significance it holds. As stated previously, the people who listened to the original Red are not the same. We’ve grown up. We’ve learned how to feel. Boys have become men, children have become adults, and girls have become saddled with the beautiful affliction of womanhood. Being a woman in modern society means carrying a different set of emotions, a different perception of self, and a different kind of pain — a pain that very much resembles the state of perpetual heartbreak. Nobody articulates this better than Taylor herself:

“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.”

In simplest terms, Red grew up. And Taylor grew up. And we all grew up. And now we look back together and we thank the girl whose shoes we grew out of. We know that she will hurt, and that she will always wonder why being a woman has to be like this, but we also know that she will find beauty that transcends words. And we know that she’ll be alright.

And we also do a lot of crying.

Taylor Swift is not perfect. She hasn’t done everything right at all times of her career, and she has privileges that both she and her fans need to be aware of. She is not above criticism. But after over a decade of sharing the earth with her, she does deserve critical recognition of her skill. Taylor: I am sorry. I am sorry that I allowed the tabloids to warp my perception of you. I am sorry my internalized misogyny hurt you in the same way that it hurt me, and I am sorry it took me all these years to realize. But more than that, I thank you. Thank you for saying the quiet part loud. Thank you for choosing to grow through the years and urging us to do the same. Thank you for continuing to tell stories that honor the past and welcome the future.

Thank you for giving all of us the space to begin again.