Listen to it when you’re feeling: like you need to remember it all too well to move on.
Key lyric: “And I was never good at telling jokes, but the punch line goes, ‘I’ll get older but your lovers stay my age’ / From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones / I’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight / And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue? / Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?”
“All Too Well” may arguably be the best song Swift has ever written, and it’s certainly the glue that holds the heartbroken threads of Red together. How do you elevate a ballad that’s already so crammed with pain, loss, and detail? You give them the full story. Alongside haunting production from Antonoff, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” represents a sonic fusion between the synthy and understated styles she’s explored on her most recent records Lover, Folklore, and Evermore, and she follows through on her promise to reveal every last detail. We knew he almost ran the red, but we didn’t know he had a “fuck the patriarchy” keychain, and the hurt from omissions like “I was thinking on the drive down, any time now / He’s gonna say it’s love, you never called it what it was” still ache. It’s the third verse, however, that ties the story of Red together, as Swift recounts the birthday party where it fell apart (her dad told her “It’s supposed to be fun turning 21”) — a story previously explored on album track “The Moment I Knew” — and absolves herself of this heartbreak. Its haunting outro seems to find a new sense of peace in the relationship’s end, like she’s exhausted herself retelling it. She seems stronger from the heartbreak as she repeats, “It was rare, you remember it” before fading into silence at, you guessed it, 10 minutes and exactly 13 seconds.
