The song that claimed the season of fall, the song that romanticized the light in the refrigerator, the song that has left us feeling OK but not fine at all is back and longer than ever. Coming in at a painstaking 10 minutes and, you guessed it, 13 seconds, the newly released Taylor’s Version of “All Too Well” is the result of Swifties begging Taylor Swift to crush their hearts even more by unearthing this hidden gem from the vault. And she did not disappoint.
Beginning with a chilling spin on the original melody, the guitar strings cut through that familiar sound that we know, dare I say, all too well, and sets up what will become a carefully crafted roller coaster of emotional heartbreak and meticulous storytelling. Swift pleads her vivid lyrics with a deeper voice, controlling inflection, and jarring details — leaving nothing to the imagination of what a 21-year-old Taylor was going through as she wrote these words in her journal over a decade ago.
There are a ton of new lyrics to unpack in this version of one of Swift’s most acclaimed songs, but the most hurtful one of all might just be, “You said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would have been fine, and that made me want to die.” That’s something we would expect from the song that also gave us, “You call me up again just to break me like a promise / So casually cruel in the name of being honest.” —Alissa Godwin
