Taylor Swift: Speak Now

I know this will shock a lot of people, but I kind of like Taylor Swift. I might be just a little obsessed with her. ;-) Here's a review on her new album. Enjoy!

Speak Now is quite possibly Taylor Swift’s best album so far. Not only are almost all the songs better than her others, but the collection of the 13, the way they’re arranged… It’s perfect. I stayed up till midnight and paid $15 for the album. It was worth ever penny.

Mine
Inspired not by a real story, but a real moment, a real vision, Mine is one of my favorite songs. It tells the story of a young girl whose parents never had a good relationship. In the beginning she is “Wondering why we bother with love, if it never lasts.” Then she meets a guy, he treats her well, and things work out. Towards the end of the song they [SPOILER ALERT!] have a fight, and when she’s “bracing herself for the good-bye,” he says he’ll never leave her alone.

Taylor says the song was inspired when she was sitting by a river with a guy that she liked but didn’t know very well, and he suddenly put his arm around her. “I saw the entire relationship flash before my eyes, almost like some weird science-fiction movie,” She says, “After I wrote the song, things sort of fell apart, as things so often do. That day I got an email from him. And I was like"-she claps her hands-" ‘Yes!' Because that one was sort of half-confession, and half-prediction or projection of what I saw. And the fact that it came across so clearly to that guy that he would email me meant that I had been direct enough."

Sparks Fly
This song describes the feeling, too often mistaken for love, of “Spark” of “Fireworks.” Two lines from the chorus, “Take away the pain/’Cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile” is a perfect example of the feeling every girl has when she’s with a guy who gives her butterflies.

The subtle line “My mind forgets to remind me that you’re a bad idea” gives the song more of a feeling of regret, if you remember it when you’re hearing about the happy moments they shared.

Back to December
This song is Taylor apologizing to (I believe) Taylor Lautner for the way she treated him. She said that “This guy was wonderful to me in a relationship, and I didn’t handle it the way I should’ve.” She admits that she’s never apologized to someone in a song before, but says that he really deserved it and she always tries to give people what they deserve in a song.

The song is absolutely beautiful, but beware if you’re emotional and listening to it in a public place. It’s quite the tear-jerker. ;-) It’s just so sad that she broke-up with him even though she loved him, and now she can’t go back and change it.

Speak Now
I was surprised at first that Taylor named the album after this one. It’s a neat song, but to me it seemed sillier than naming potential. One of the lines “[She’s] in a room wearing a gown shaped like a pastry.” But I heard her explaining it, and she said what she does is go through her song titles and see if there was a theme, and she found one. Speak Now.

This song in particular is inspired by a friend who was in love with a guy who was getting married, and Taylor speculating what would happen if somebody actually “Spoke now” when the preacher said to “Speak now of forever hold your peace.”

The other songs that carry this theme are not necessarily about marriage, but they do carry the theme of saying your feelings when they come to you.

Dear John
Nobody doubts that this song is about John Mayer. 6 minutes and 44 seconds long, Taylor has some words for this guy. In the words of this article,
“Joe Jonas, you got off easy.”

From what I’d read of this song, I expected it to be a fast, angry and bitter song. Instead, it’s more slow, sad and melancholy. I was glad, ‘cause I like that style much better than laughable bitterness. Sometimes the angry songs are good, but this one is beautiful the way it is. It’s an amazing song.

Mean
By far the countriest song on the album, this song is heavy on banjo, fiddle, and clapping/snapping. The storyline is a drunkard who has always been, well, mean. Taylor talks about him “in’ in a bar/ talking over a football game/with that same big loud opinion/but nobody’s listening….Drunk and droning on about how I can’t sing”

I personally love this song, but if you don’t like country/twang I’d advise steering clear of it.

The Story of Us
This song is about the dream every girl has about “telling the story of us,” but then the story “looks a lot like a tragedy now.” By far the best line in the song is “I’ve never heard silence quite this loud.” I think everyone’s had that feeling before.

I really don’t have a lot to say about this song. It’s really good, it’s really sad, there’s not a lot more to it. Listen to it and lemme know what you think!

Never Grow Up
Taylor’s sentiments about a baby that she doesn’t want to grow up. Later in the song it turns into wishing she had never grown up. What this song instantly brought to my
mind was the classic line, “Life was so much simpler when boys had cooties.”

I wanted to cry listening to this. It’s so beautiful. “No one’s ever burned you/Nothing’s ever left you scarred/Even though you want to/Just try to never grow up.” At the end she describes her first night in her own apartment, how life’s not what she thought it would be she wishes she’d never grown up. “I could still be little….It could still be simple”

Enchanted
I didn’t like this one as much as the others. I mean it was good; it just seemed, I don’t know, weaker than the others. Taylor meets a guy at a party or someplace and is “Enchanted to meet him.” The song is just about her wondering if he was enchanted, if he felt anything, is he taken, etc. It’s fun, just doesn’t really compare to the others.

Better Than Revenge
This song contains the two most laughably bitter songs in the entire album. It’s about a girl who steals Taylor’s boyfriend, and “Doesn’t she know/There’s nothing I do/Better than revenge.” The lines I thought were funny are “She’s not who you think, she’s an actress/But she’s better known what she does on the mattress.” Bitter much? The song is good though. It does have that angry bitter style, which I’m not typically crazy about, but I liked it.

Innocent
The most forgiving song I’ve ever heard Taylor sing, this song offers forgiveness to Kanye West. The whole theme of it is he’s made mistakes, but it’s not too late. “Who you are isn’t where you’ve been/You’re still an innocent.” It’s a good song I liked it. Not the most amazing she’s ever written, but it was good.

Haunted
This one opens up with a kind of spooky background music. The lyrics are about, (you guessed it!) Taylor breaking up with her boyfriend. She says she’s always known they walk a fragile line, but she never thought it would break. She’s trying to move on, but she’s “haunted.”

To me, the lines “He will try to take away my pain/And he just might make me smile/But the whole time I’m wishin’ he was you instead” imply that she met someone else, but, like I said, she’s trying to move on and she’s still haunted. She feels betrayed, like she’ll never recover or be able to love someone else.

I love songs like this that really make you feel what the singer is feeling. I’ve never experienced anything like this, but as I listen to the lyrics, I find myself sympathizing, almost feeling like it’s me that’s hurt.

Last Kiss
This beautiful song is devastatingly sad. It’s one of those relationships where they love each other, but it can’t work out between them.
I almost feel like a break-up would be easier if you walked away thinking “What a jerk! How could he do that?! Good riddance!” than to be thinking “Wow. He really loved me. I loved him. I still do. Neither of us ever did anything wrong. But we can never be together.” That would just be terrible!

Again, I feel what Taylor is feeling, even though I’ve never been through anything like this. Although, with this particular song, I think a lot of my “sympathy” is more fear that this could happen to me. And I don’t know how I would handle it.

Long Live
I don’t know how many people would agree with me, but I believe this is a second song to Taylor Lautner. It’s memories of times
they had together. My favorite lines are “If you have children someday/When they point to the pictures/Please tell them my name.” I don’t think she needs to worry about them knowing who Taylor Swift is. =)

It’s a beautiful song. It’s another story of “We loved each other but can’t be together.” It’s sad, but it’s a wonderful song.

So, altogether, I say the album is a success. Way to go, Taylor!! I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, (I might faint if I found out you visited my blog,) but in case you do I LOVE YOU!!! <3 Thank you SOOO much for all your song you’ve ever wrote. There’s not one that I don’t like and I can relate to every one without fail. (Sometimes it’s through misinterpretation or a line taken out of context, but it’s relating never-the-less!) keep up the good work!!! =)