When 1989 (hereafter called 1989 OG) came out in 2014, it was a smashing success. The album sold about a million copies in its first week, and went on to earn Taylor her second Album of the Year Award at the GRAMMYs. It was called a pop tour de force and the rumored relationship at the center of the album – a short-lived fling with Harry Styles – dominated how it was discussed.

Leading up to 2014, Taylor’s celebrity star was rising. Her relationship with Styles – who may have been slightly more famous at the time – was front page news, and her surveilled whereabouts were promoted on gossip blogs for the sake of the clicks. When she implied she was done with men and decided to create a girl squad with famous models, it was the talk of the town.

Interestingly enough, although her rise to fame became kitchen table conversation, few reviewers of 1989 OG grasped what can now be understood as the point of the album: the often complicated experience of stratospheric fame and how to navigate it. Though “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space” – two lead singles from the album – directly addressed the experience of being as famous as she was – critics focused less on the meaning she was trying to impart and more on the superficial aspects of the album at the time.

I expect this void in understanding may have been because many of us weren’t taking Taylor seriously as a songwriter in 2014. Throughout her canon – what I’m now calling her oeuvre since university classes are being taught about her – she’s treated the album as a unit of art. For her, putting together an album is like completing a puzzle: as the pieces come together, the picture emerges. When we consider the vault tracks – songs she had written with the intention of putting them on their era’s album – it makes sense that they now help us better understand each album’s story.

Just as all other Taylor’s Version vault tracks have added a layer of meaning to her canon, the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (hereafter called 1989 TV) vault tracks crystallize her then-newfound experience with global fame and surveillance, as well as coming to terms with being an “object,” and create a touchstone for understanding the entire album. As I hypothesized in my review of Speak Now TV, we continue to see the vault tracks as blueprints for her future work, too. Let’s take a closer look.

“Slut!”

When Taylor first released the track list for 1989 TV, this song caught my eye. Before we dive in to the lyrics, consider how media outlets were reporting on Taylor back then (and continue to, see any article about her relationship with Travis Kelce): “Taylor Swift seen with Harry Styles outside her New York City apartment on a morning coffee run” (I wrote this but any blog at the time may as well have). I find this overt objectification – and implied shaming – of celebrity women fascinating, mostly because there’s so much plausible deniability in how the media chooses to do it. Obviously, the point of describing a photo in this way is to call attention to their sexual relationship, yet the language isn’t explicit (surely we all thought they stayed up late doing each other’s hair, right?). The inclusion of “Slut!” on 1989 TV – and the emphatic use of an exclamation point in the song title, which perfectly captures what the media is actually saying – corroborates the idea that she was grappling with her stardom on its own, as well as in the context of a talked-about relationship, and found it pretty fucking awful.

The song’s slowed-down pace stands in contrast to some of the more urgent, upbeat tracks elsewhere on 1989 OG, but the core themes remain. “Slut!” covers the tension she experienced with being a high-profile person in a high-profile relationship, and how to reconcile the two. At the end of the first verse – which includes carefully chosen markers of a life of fame and celebrity – she sings, “What if all I need is you?” The verse appears to be presenting what reporters may have been asking her: You have fame, beauty, money, model friends, a successful career – what more could you want in life?

She notes the tension between stardom and love, and demonstrates where they intersect in the chorus:

But if I’m all dressed up

They might as well be lookin’ at us

And if they call me a slut

You know it might be worth it for once

Here she’s stating that this life of celebrity will result in the media reporting on her every romantic escapade – and she’s come to be resigned to this reality. In the intimate space of her relationship, the best outlook she can have is, in this instance, it might actually “be worth it for once.” In a way, she’s trying to take ownership of the concept that’s been foisted upon her. The slightly rose-colored glasses outlook is also evident in “Shake It Off,” where she talks about “shaking off” incorrect and insulting critiques of her. It’s important to remember that her next album, reputation, was an effort to fully take back the narrative the media and public had been wresting away from her as she grew in celebrity status on the path to 1989 OG.

In this song, we’re also starting to see Taylor’s fascination with reimagining idioms and other known phrases, something she would do with increasing frequency in later albums (consider the bridge of Lover: “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? / With every guitar string scar on my hand / I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover”). She uses a few in “Slut!” notably “I’ll pay the price, you won’t” prior to the first turn of the chorus. This is a G-rated way of talking about women who have sexual relationships outside of marriage and experience consequences from doing so (and has unfortunately re-entered public lexicon given the fall of Roe and the resulting anti-choice laws that have sprung up in its void). In addition to demonstrating an approach she would continue to experiment with in later songs, it also speaks to the broader theme of the public image she had at the time in the context of being an ultra-famous man’s girlfriend. It begs the question: How can I possibly be both?

“Say Don’t Go”

I sincerely appreciate this song and believe it’s very successful, but I have less to say about it in the context of this review. Nothing to see here, keep scrolling.

“Now That We Don’t Talk”

For me, this vault track is the runaway winner of the batch, mostly because it shows her penchant for exploring unconventional song structures that we “first saw” on folklore. When I first listened to folklore, what made it feel like such a departure from her other work was the risks she appeared to be taking. The reining “queen of the bridge” either eliminated the bridge – the emotional center of her songs – or used what we’d commonly consider to be the “outro” as the gut punch of the song. This approach is clearly articulated on “august” and “illicit affairs” from folklore. But it’s evident that playing with song structure has long been an area of interest for her, pointing to yet another way vault songs serve as blueprints.

What’s striking about “Now That We Don’t Talk” (“NTWDT”) is its direct dialogue with Red TV, specifically “I Bet You Think About Me” (although it also touches on themes elsewhere in Red). First, Taylor’s feeling of being less-than due to her lover is obvious on “NTWDT” as it was on “I Bet You Think About Me.”

Here’s the “outro” for “NTWDT”:

I don’t have to pretend I like acid rock

Or that I’d like to be on a mega yacht

With important men who think important thoughts

Guess maybe I am better off now that we don’t talk

And the only way back to my dignity

Was to turn into a shrouded mystery

Just like I had been when you were chasing me

Guess this is how it has to be now that we don’t talk

(It’s important to note that the idea of misaligned music tastes is a memorable callout from “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”)

Take a look at the second verse of “I Bet You Think About Me”:

Well, I tried to fit in with your upper-crust circles

Yeah, they let me sit in back when we were in love

Oh, they sit around talkin’ ’bout the meaning of life

And the book that just saved ’em that I hadn’t heard of

What I totally missed in my review of Red TV was that Taylor was first experimenting with the unconventional song structure she used so adeptly on folklore in “I Bet You Think About Me.” Here is the outro of that song:

I bet you think about me when you’re out

At your cool indie music concerts every week

I bet you think about me in your house

With your organic shoes and your million-dollar couch

I bet you think about me when you say

“Oh my God, she’s insane, she wrote a song about me”

I bet you think about me

It is in these final lines of the song – and important to note that the meter shifts away from the prior verses here – where she twists the knife in “Mr. Superior Thinkin’” who made her feel so small and on the outside. “NTWDT” takes a similar approach, where the meter shifts and we get the final emotional blow as the song is ending. It is likely no surprise that she was only able to officially use this unusual and highly effective structure once she was in a position where she calls the shots on what ends up on her albums (folklore was the second album after her departure from Big Machine, and reportedly she positioned it as “surprise, I’m doing this” to her new label, suggesting they had little input on the final product).

“Suburban Legends”

I love this song. My biggest revelation from this one – which also feels in direct dialogue with Red – was that Taylor frequently uses metaphor in her songs. Looking back through her canon, the premise of a song can have both a literal, in-the-moment meaning, as well as serve as a metaphor for a more complex concept. Like many other vault tracks, the use of metaphor in “Suburban Legends” helps to lend understanding to her entire canon.

Where I see metaphor happening on “Suburban Legends” is when we get to the second verse:

I had the fantasy that maybe our mismatched star signs

Would surprise the whole school

When I ended up back at our class reunion

Walkin’ in with you

You’d be more than a chapter in my old diaries

With the pages ripped out

I am standin’ in a 1950s gymnasium

And I can still see you now

Although it’s possible this is based on a lived experience of hers, I find it somewhat hard to believe. Can you imagine two celebrities showing up at a reunion in some random suburban high school? So then I thought about: What does this particular setting conjure? I think it speaks to the fact that her lover was older than she is – someone who might find a milestone year reunion meaningful, unlike her at the time – and communicates that her lover was searching in the past to find out who he was. You can see obvious themes from Red even in this excerpt (the notable mention of astrology is a direct reference to “State of Grace”). This song also appears to be a continuation of the experience outlined in “NTWDT” where she highlights how he was constantly finding himself – unnecessarily in her view:

You grew your hair long

You got new icons

And from the outside

It looks like you’re tryin’ lives on

I miss the old ways

You didn’t have to change

Seeing her canon though the lens of metaphor changes the impact of “Cornelia Street” for me, where the cinematic details of her apartment were meant to represent the creature comforts of a relationship – and what’s at stake when that’s the case.

You might see this as obvious now, but it’s also evident that the car and road details of “Style” serve as a metaphor for how challenging it is to navigate a relationship with someone who was as famous as she was.

“Is It Over Now?”

This is the song we didn’t know we needed. Like so many vault tracks before it, it provides the connective tissue to unlock the meaning of the album it’s tied to.

In the vein of blueprints, “Is It Over Now?” (“IION”) shows us an approach Taylor would later “first take” on folklore: three interconnected songs circling around the same narrative. On folklore, “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty” map a love triangle that’s only uncovered as you get deeper into the album.

On 1989 TV, “IION” is the link between “Style” and “Out of the Woods” that reinforces the central theme of the album: the experience of being an objectified celebrity and trying to create a meaningful life in spite of it.

First, how do we get from “Style” to “Out of the Woods” with this song?

In the chorus of “Style,” Taylor lists the commonly described features of her and her lover (most likely Harry Styles):

You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye

And I got that red lip classic thing that you like

And when we go crashing down, we come back every time

‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style

You got that long hair, slicked back, white T-shirt

And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt

And when we go crashing down, we come back every time

‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style

Now that we have the benefit of the vault tracks, it’s become clear to me that these descriptors were not hers or Styles’ for each other. Rather, they mirror the characteristics noted by the media about both celebrities, and communicates how the media reduces celebrities to “objects” (like a sexy white tee and slicked back hair) through its fascination with their beauty. These lyrics suggest the two lovers were meant to value each other’s appearance for these objective markers. Is that really how a relationship works though? Taylor knows very well it isn’t.

In “IION,” Taylor picks up on this objectification, and speaks to how it manifests in her real-life interpersonal relationship:

You dream of my mouth before it called you a lying traitor

You search in every maiden’s bed for somethin’ greater, baby

It’s as if she’s saying, you can only relate to the public image created by the media and society of me, even here, in our bed, in our unseen interpersonal interactions. This vexing realty where public persona may or may not match reality is an area of fascination for her, something she’d further explore on reputation.

“IION” also adds depth to understanding parts of “Style.” In the second verse of “Style,” she sings:

I say, “I heard, oh

That you’ve been out and about with some other girl, some other girl”

He says, “What you heard is true, but I

Can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout you and I”

I said, “I’ve been there too a few times”

The last line is a bit ambiguous. Is she talking about off-on relationships, or was she unfaithful too?

In the “IION” chorus, she spells it out – she, too, was seeing someone else during their relationship:

Was it over when she laid down on your couch?

Was it over when he unbuttoned my blouse?

It is when we get to the second full verse of “IION” when we see the connection to “Out of the Woods” where she directly addresses the accident discussed in that song:

Whеn you lost control (Uh-huh)

Red blood, white snow (Uh-huh)

The “IION” bridge also further crystallizes how we should understand “lights” (and similar) across 1989 TV:

And did you think I didn’t see you?

There were flashin’ lights

At least I had the decency

To keep my nights out of sight

Only rumors ’bout my hips and thighs

And my whispered sighs

Her focus on paparazzi and media attention is strong, but also shows up in “Welcome to New York” (“The lights are so bright but they never blind me”) where she applies her characteristic optimism shown across 1989 OG to the experience of non-stop surveillance. (It’s important to note that New York – the so-called center of the universe, a manifest experience she knows very well – serves as a metaphor, as well.)

The “flashin’ lights” in “IION” are in contrast to the kinds of photos close friends share with each other as discussed in “Out of the Woods”:

You took a Polaroid of us

Then discovered (Then discovered)

The rest of the world was black and white

But we were in screaming color

These snapshots – unlike the ones taken by paparazzi – reveal real people, showing the two lovers in “screaming color.” And yet the tension between public and private manifests.

In a way, “IION” – intentionally positioned last on 1989 TV – unlocks the riddle to the entire album. The core 1989 OG songs try to tell this story, but we really needed the vault – in particular this song – to fully understand it. One consideration about why this song, and the other vault tracks, didn’t make the final cut is that they paint a more complex picture of her experience of celebrity (probably not great) which was in contrast to the all-American beauty image of Taylor at the time. In my review of Speak Now TV, I had a similar thought about why “Castles Crumbling” wasn’t included on the final Speak Now OG. Translation: Probably about money.

There is so much more to say about 1989 TV – such as how “New Romantics” was originally written to include the word “anti-hero,” talk about blueprints – but what’s clear about the album we’re now privileged to hear is that it describes the struggle she experienced with attempting to lead a “normal” life in the context of her growing fame. It may have felt like an entirely new conflict to navigate for her at the time. As alluded to above, her next album, reputation, features a Taylor who was no longer optimistic about her level of celebrity and hell-bent on reclaiming her life. I can’t wait until we get reputation TV – written at a particularly interesting period of her fame arc – so we may continue understanding her entire canon with more clarity.