By Lila Troum
On November 11, 2008, Taylor Swift, in production with Big Machine Records, released Fearless, Swift’s second studio album. This album contains hits like Love Story and You Belong with Me, which are popular, throwback songs that resonate with my childhood. On April 9, Taylor will be releasing Fearless (Taylor’s Version), a rerecording of Fearless, but produced over 10 years later, with Swift’s matured vocals taking over the tracks. Personally, Fearless isn’t my cup of tea, however, to compare it with what may change in Taylor’s Version, I thought the possibility of ranking both the original and Taylor’s Version and comparing would be fun, so here I go.
19. The Best Day:
This song, to me, is not great. It’s saddening, but just shifts you into a bad mood, I couldn’t cry to this. It’s the last track on the album, a spot it deserves, and, honestly, is one of my least favorite Taylor Swift songs (and that’s saying a lot.)
18. SuperStar
This track is a deluxe track, and it earns its spot as a “bonus” track because I’m not getting a lot out of it. This song is about a fangirl, and it’s not memorable in any way, shape, or form. However, Swift sounds incredibly young on this track so I’m excited to see how she matured vocals sound on the re-recordings.
17. The Other Side of the Door
Another deluxe track, and not great. I think the lyrics of this song are childish and are fairly aggravating. It’s boring, it’s one of the more boring troubled-relationship songs she’s written and deserves its spot on my list at the bottom three.
16. Change
I don’t hate Change, but I don’t love it. The message is nice, it tells a glimpse of Taylor’s story into stardom, however, I think it’s kind of a tacky song, though I think hearing 31-year-later Taylor sing this will be refreshing and kind of funny.
15. Tell Me Why
Another song about a difficult boy, Taylor wrote this song out of anger which is definitely apparent in this song. The lyrics are, again, kind of childish, though it’s not a horrible song and I’d definitely voluntarily listen to it.
14. Come in With the Rain
This song is cute in the metaphor that it poses: the idea of people realizing they’re meant to be and coming back together after their time apart, the rain, coming back in after it. It’s okay, it’s just too country for me to actually enjoy.
13. Untouchable
Upon research of this song, I found it’s actually a cover which made me appreciate and like the song a little bit more. I have yet to fully understand this song, but it’s slow and I really like the steady beat throughout the song and I think Swift’s vocals sound especially good here.
12. Jump Then Fall
This song, like a lot of Taylor’s songs (surprisingly), is about a fling, and the action of just jumping right into a relationship without taking the repercussions into consideration. It’s upbeat and peppy, which I quite like. It’s still country but I can almost sense some ‘pop’ being added in.
11. White Horse
Taylor’s track fives are her most heartwrenching, and White Horse is kind of a weakened version of that. Out of all of her track fives, this has to be the second worse. It’s sad, though I have yet to cry to it (which is saying a lot.)
10. Breathe
With Colbie Calliat, Breathe is a song about having to accept the realization that it’s time to let go of a broken relationship, though I don’t think the song matches that demeanor. It’s kind of too upbeat to be sad, but not slow enough that you’d start to cry, or I wouldn’t at least.
9. Fearless
A popular track one favorite, Fearless is a great song. It’s the feelings of a new relationship, that beginning flutter of lust and happiness, the willingness to go on adventures and do whatever it’d take to satisfy and spend time with your new partner, Fearless is fantastic.
8. Forever & Always – Piano Version
The platinum edition piano version of Forever & Always never fails to make me sob. I love the original version – which will come later, but the piano version is also one of my favorite Fearless tracks.
7. Love Story
A classic, Love Story, is a great song from Fearless. I don’t think I really need to go in-depth with it, you’ve heard it before (unless you live under a rock). Love Story was the first re-recorded track to hit the scene, and I already love it more re-recorded! If you don’t like Love Story something isn’t right.
6. Fifteen
Also, another track that makes me cry, Fifteen is one of my favorite Fearless tracks. I wish I enjoyed this more as a freshman, because listening to the lyrics now I can’t help but think oh my gosh, I could (and still kind of can) completely relate to this, and even though I’m not fifteen anymore, I still listen and cry to this track as it’s sad and speaks volumes about being a naive freshman (which I was).
5. Hey Stephen
This song is very cutesy to me. It’s upbeat and kind of just a fun melody to sing along to and play in the background and whatnot. It’s about Stephen Barker Liles and a ‘crush’ she had, and he even returned the favor by writing Try to Make it Anyway about her!
4. You Belong with Me
You Belong with Me is such a great song. The iconic music video, the iconic outfit from said music video, you can’t dislike You Belong with Me.
3. You’re Not Sorry
This song kind of tricks you, it starts out with a slow, violin introduction then blasts into a high-pace, fast-tempo song. This is a really, really good song, all about someone finally letting themselves walk away from someone who’s made one too many mistakes.
2. Forever & Always
The original version will always hold a special place in my heart, and I love it so, so much. This song is about the falling apart of a relationship even though Swift’s partner told her “forever and always,” but clearly, he was just kidding. There’re some condescending lines that never fail to make me smile, and I love how it’s such a sad, relatable song with such an upbeat tempo.
1. The Way I Loved You
This is my second favorite song of all time, I love this song. The slow build to a scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs chorus, the whole message of the song, it’s just too good! I can dance around to this song, I can cry to this song, The Way I Loved You is everything to me and will always be one of my favorite songs.
These are just my thoughts on Fearless, obviously different songs are gonna mean different things to different people, but I felt that with the rerecord coming out in a week, this was warranted. I’m excited to compare and contrast my re-recorded vs original rankings!