“All Too Well (10 Minute Version) [Taylor’s Version] [From the Vault]” By Taylor Swift

For 10 minutes and 13 seconds, Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” transports us back to 2012. Swift’s re-recordings have been a huge success. For those unaware, Swift wasn’t allowed to own her own music after her record label contract expired, so she decided to record the album again and ask her fans to listen to “Taylor’s Version” instead. Starting with her second studio album, Fearless, the LP charted 13 years later again with massive success.

Swift’s second re-recorded album, Red was released Nov. 12 and, just as the original album, Red [Taylor’s Version] took over the charts once again. 26 of the 30 songs on the album, including her Vault tracks (songs planned for the album but never added to the original version) charted on Billboard 100.

Number one on the charting list was “All Too Well” (10 Minute Version) [Taylor’s Version] [From The Vault]. The song is the original version of the song that first made it onto the album. The shorter version is 5:31 long. Swift had to cut down almost three of the six verses, so the song in its full length has been highly anticipated since its announcement. 

The song begins in a similar way to the original. The first verse reminds us of the transition to fall and winter weather, “The air was cold, but something about it felt like home somehow.” Of course, the infamous line remains: “And I, left my scarf there at your sister’s house and you’ve still got it in your drawer even now.” The pre-chorus and chorus are flawlessly familiar, leaving us all too reminiscent of memories that we, as her fans, never experienced. 

The first thing that changed from the five-minute version to the 10-minute version was an extended second verse. After the expected, “You taught me ’bout your past, thinking your future was me,” Swift continues the verse, surprising us with, “And you were tossing me the car keys, f*** the patriarchy”. The line exploded among fans. Swift compares the relationship in the song as something “dead and gone and buried” and while our hearts break alongside hers, she jumps back into the chorus. This chorus extends as well, giving us yet another scene to picture as we listen to the song. 

Swift’s voice changes into the well-known bridge which leads into a new fourth verse. The lyricism hidden for almost ten years in the original song is finally revealed to be filled with metaphors, wordplay and hints to other songs she’s produced. Finally, the sixth verse brings the song, as well as the autumn season, to a close when the first snow falls, “and how it glistened as it fell, I remember it all too well.” Swift shows us the close in this season of her life, just in time for the album’s end.

Accompanied with the song came a short film written and directed by Swift herself, starring actors Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink along with scenes where Swift appears as well. Fans can find the 15-minute short film on Youtube. 

Without the jumpstart as a single, this song took off on its own, and here the version is, 10 years later, with a “[Taylor’s Version]” behind it. We’ll be “singing in the car, getting lost upstate” to this song for “evermore”.