1989 (Taylor’s Version) Vault Tracks - An Analysis
I am YET AGAIN talking about Taylor Swift. I promise this will be the last one for a while, unless she does something else, which is always a distinct possibility.
1989 (Taylor’s Version) was released 27th October 2023. The original version came out almost a decade ago in 2014.
1989 is widely known as a ‘pop bible’ (I forget who called it that first). It won over 150 awards and catapulted Taylor to a whole new level of fame. This album marks one of the most successful genre switches in music history.
I’m only going to be talking about the 1989 vault tracks - talking about every single track on the album would be far too long of a blog because I have so much to say about it.
A little bit of background: when Taylor re-records her stolen albums, she records all the original songs that featured on the album, plus the vault tracks. These are tracks she wrote at the time but didn’t make it onto the original album.
There’s only five vault tracks on 1989 (Taylor’s Version) but they’re all equally brilliant and I have a lot to say.
“Slut!”
I think I speak for us all when I say we were expecting something a little cuntier. HOWEVER, I still love this song, it’s just not what I was expecting.
Taylor said recently that she almost put this song on the original album instead of Blank Space. And, I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine a world where I only heard the line ‘darling I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream’ for the first time three days ago.
This is a love song. Surprising, given the title, I know.
“Adorned with smoke on my clothes/Lovelorn and nobody knows/Love thorns all over this rose”
This is my favourite lyric in this song. Not only does the end of each line rhyme, but the beginning does as well, which is fascinating to me. Doing it with two lines is impressive enough, but three? Taylor Swift lyrical genius. I also like the use of ‘lovelorn’. We get three ‘love-’s in this song, lovestruck, lovesick and lovelorn.
This is interesting as ‘lovestruck’ and ‘lovesick’, at least, imply the love is requited. Of course, you can interpret these two words in multiple different ways, but given the context, they can be taken in a positive way. However, ‘lovelorn’ is very clearly a negative emotion.
Lovelorn means to be unhappy because of unrequited love. Interesting when you consider most of the song talks about the subject is worth whatever people decide to throw at her.
This song also has two subjects; ‘you’ and ‘he’. The majority of the song is addressed to ‘you’ but in the second verse ‘he’ is the focus. The way the song is written, it implies that ‘he’ seems to be a cover story, with ‘you’ being the object of affection.
This is my least favourite of the 1989 vault songs, but I still love it.
Say Don’t Go
We love a heartbreak anthem! And this one is no exception. This song is very ‘push-and-pull’. This first verse admits she knew they were probably doomed from the start, but she falls in love with the subject regardless.
However, she realises she has to leave, but still says she would stay forever if the subject asked her too.
“‘Cause you kiss me and it stops time/And I’m yours but you’re not mine”
This lyric really captures the meaning of the song in just two lines. She’s so in love with the subject, but they don’t reciprocate. By the end of the song, she’s accepted the fact the subject will never feel the same, and they won’t stop her from leaving either.
The most heartbreaking thing about this song is that the subject is perfectly content. They have no plans of ending the relationship, they’re perfectly fine with how things are. This song has a similar feel to ‘tolerate it’, a song on evermore. In that song, she’s trapped in a relationship where the other person merely tolerates the things she does, rather than love or celebrate them.
I feel this song also like to ‘Clean’, another song on 1989 (Taylor’s Version). The beat is similar and I think they’re two songs about the same relationship, just at different points in time.
Now That We Don’t Talk
This is the shortest of the vault tracks. A reminiscent song, reflecting on a relationship now it’s over and the consequences of that decision. I feel like this song isn’t necessarily about regret, she doesn’t seem regret the end of the relationship, but she does miss the companionship and how they used to be.
“And the only way back to my dignity/Was to turn into a shrouded mystery”
This lyric feels very pointed. I’m not gonna get into the controversy and the way everyone treated Taylor between the 1989 and reputation eras, because that feels like an entire separate blog, but this is essentially what happened. If you want to know more about that, I would recommend watching Taylor’s Miss Americana documentary. However, this lyric describes what happened pretty well, and what’s been happening ever since.
Taylor rarely posts on social media, aside from announcements and, more recently, posts about the Eras Tour. She used to post quite a lot and clearly the only way she could recover from everything that happened was to essentially disappear from the public eye, which I fully support.
Suburban Legends
My favourite vault track! Before I even heard it, I knew this would be my favourite vault track just from the title. I don’t know what it is about this song, but it just makes my brain buzz.
I do have to say though, when I heard ‘tick-tock on the clock’ it did throw me a little bit. The icon that is Kesha, that song is still imprinted on my brain to this day.
“When you hold me, it holds me together/And you kiss me in a way that’s gonna screw me up forever”
THIS LYRIC. I’m so obsessed. The feeling this describes is so visceral, like you just know how it’s going to end before it’s even really begun. Like whether they stay together or not, that feeling is going to stay with her forever.
The song title ‘Suburban Legends’ says a lot by itself. Obviously, the saying is ‘urban legend’ but Taylor, as she often does, has recreated a popular saying to fit her purpose. A genius, honestly. So, let’s talk about it. An urban legend is something that’s circulated as true, usually through the ‘I heard from a friend of a friend’ type of rumour or, on a larger scale, a conspiracy theory. The Loch Ness Monster, for example, is an urban legend. No one knows if it’s definitely there, but there have been several reported sightings, and a couple of low-res photos. Sounds familiar, right? (iykyk)
So, a ‘suburban legend’ would therefore be a smaller scale rumour. In the context of this song, it seems to revolve around the relationship between the speaker and the subject. Not an uncommon rumour, generally speaking. Like, when I was at school, there was a rumour one of the IT teachers left his fiancée at the altar to be with one of our English teachers (my favourite English teacher, actually). I would classify that as a suburban legend. And, the rumour continues! My younger siblings confirmed it’s still circulating. No one knows if it’s true, no one’s ever asked outright as far as I’m aware. If either of them are reading this (probably not) don’t tell me if it’s true, I don’t wanna know. But sometimes the thought that something may have happened is much more exciting than having it either confirmed or denied.
Back to the song, it seems as though she actually was in a relationship with the subject, but it either wasn’t widely known, or people just didn’t believe it. It’s a fascinating song, and if you’re only gonna listen to one of these songs, I would recommend it be this one.
Is It Over Now?
I’m gonna say it. Whoever this song is about, it was a fake PR relationship. At least partially. I’ll explain why later.
I love this song, it’s got an ‘Out Of The Woods’ style bridge where Taylor is like mad. Great for screaming at the top of your lungs. We love to see it.
Taylor also includes the lyric “I think about jumping/off of very tall somethings“ which is, unfortunately, not an uncommon allusion in her more recent work. There’s a lot of it in folklore and evermore and maybe a little bit in Midnights too.
“And did you think I didn’t see you? There were flashing lights/At least I had the decency to keep my nights out of sight”
This lyric is what makes me think it could potentially have been a fake PR relationship. Lets set the scene:
The flashing lights, of course, are paparazzi cameras. Celebrities get caught out by paps at the best of times, let alone when they’re trying to be secretive. Now, I don’t know about celebrity NDAs and what you would have to sign to be part of a PR relationship, but presumably there’d be something about not being seen publicly in a romantic setting with someone else. Which leads to the next line: “At least I had the decency to keep my nights out of sight”. The implication here being that Taylor is also out with other people, but is being successfully secretive about it. There’s only two explanations for this really: either they’re both cheating or it’s a PR relationship. Either that or it’s an open relationship, but that doesn’t fit the tone of the song.
However, the rest of the song does imply the relationship was real for some period of time. The emotion in this song is too heavy for the relationship to have been completely fake. Maybe in the beginning it was PR but then they grew to actually care for each other. Or maybe it was real to begin with, and they split up privately but pretended to be together in public for some time after. We’ll never know, I guess
Final Thoughts
Honestly, I think these are some of Taylor’s best vault tracks. Red (Taylor’s Version) vault tracks will always have my heart, but these are a close second. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
