We Broke Down Taylor Swift's Red (Taylor's Version) Song Meanings and Easter Eggs

Author:
Jessica Sager
Nov 12, 2021

For many Swifties, Red is Taylor Swift's magnum opus. Originally released in 2012, the album came to essentially define autumn for many millennials and a few Gen Z-ers, and it became a fan-favorite breakup album thanks to songs like "All Too Well," "I Knew You Were Trouble" and the title track. With the release of Red (Taylor's Version), we'll get an even more complete look at that part of Swift's life.

Swift says that Red as a whole is about heartbreak. "I've always said that the world is a different place for the heartbroken. It moves on a different axis, at a different speed," she tweeted in June 2021. "Time skips backwards and forwards fleetingly. The heartbroken might go through thousands of micro-emotions a day trying to figure out how to get through it without picking up the phone to hear that old familiar voice. In the land of heartbreak, moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion are intricately woven together with grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness."

She added, “Musically and lyrically, Red resembles a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past."

On her appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon on Nov. 11, 2021, Swift opened up more dropping Easter eggs for her fans, noting that she first dropped hints in her first album and continued the process throughout her career, escalating it more in recent years.

"I wanted to do something that incentivized fans to read the lyrics because my lyrics are what I'm most proud of out of everything I do, every aspect of my job, so I really wanted people to read the lyrics. When I was a kid I used to leaf through CD booklets and read the teeny, tiny print and just obsess over it."

Swift explained that she'd put her lyrics all in lowercase letters except the secret messages she hid in caps.

"If they circled the capital letter and wrote them down, it spelled a secret code, a secret passage, sort of—it was really fun and it would tell them a story about the album, or a hint about what the song was about. That's when it started," she said. "When it got out of control was when I started to realize that it wasn't just me that had fun with this, that they had fun with it too. And I never should have learned that, because then I couldn't stop, and all I started thinking of was, 'How do I hint at things? How far is too far in advance? Can I hint at something three years in advance? Can I even plan things out that far? I think I'm going to try to do it!'"

Swift said the first time she really went all out with Easter eggs was with her "Look What You Made Me Do" music video from Reputation, which referenced a slew of her previous eras.

Now that the re-release is finally out, here are all the Easter eggs and song meanings we've found hidden in Taylor Swift's Red (Taylor's Version).

"State of Grace (Taylor's Version)" Song Meaning

Swifties very easily deduced that "State of Grace" was about falling in love with Jake Gyllenhaal, who she dated from around October 2010 until early 2011: The song mentions "twin fire signs / four blue eyes." Swift and Gyllenhaal both have blue eyes and share the astrological sign of Sagittarius. She previously told Good Morning Americawhen the song was originally released in 2012, "I wrote this song about when you first fall in love with someone, the possibilities, and you know kind of thinking about the different ways that it could go." Even the instrumentation was key to getting her message across, with the feedback-filled, U2-esque guitars capturing the essence of being newly smitten. "It's a really big sound to me," she said. "This sounds like the feeling of falling in love in an epic way."

"Red (Taylor's Version)" Song Meaning

In a 2013 VH1 Storytellers episode, Swift said of the title track, "I was writing this song, and I was thinking about correlating the colors to different feelings I was going through," Swift said (viaThe New York Daily News). "Red is such an interesting color to me because you have the great part of red—like, the red emotions that are like, daring and bold and passion and love and affection. And then on the other side of the spectrum, you have jealousy and anger and frustration and 'you didn't call me back' and 'I need space.'"

The needing space theme harkens back to "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (see a few tracks below), so chances are it's about the same relationship: Her romance with Gyllenhaal.

"Treacherous (Taylor's Version)" Song Meaning

Up to that point, "Treacherous" was Swift's most overtly sexual song ever, and even then was merely peppered with allusions to physical intimacy: "And I’ll do anything you say/ If you say it with your hands." Swifties have speculated that the "hands" line is a reference to John Mayerand his song "Your Body Is a Wonderland," in which he sings "I'll use my hands." She also sings, "'Til the gravity's too much," which fans have also assumed is a nod to Mayer's hit ballad "Gravity."

She previously said of the track, "I think that for me, one of my favorite lines of that song is 'Nothing safe is worth the drive.' And I think it kind of defines why that song was written. Because I tend to feel like when you're looking back on the things that have hurt you in life, I look back on them and think if it made you feel something, it was worth it."

"I Knew You Were Trouble (Taylor's Version)" Song Meaning

Swift confirmed that "I Knew You Were Trouble" is about Harry Styles. When asked about her 2013 Brit Awards performance of the hit, she told the U.K. Times magazine (via E! News), "It's not hard to access that emotion when the person the song is directed at is standing by the side of the stage watching." Styles, then still in One Direction, was reportedly the gentleman standing by the side of the stage gazing at Swift.

"All Too Well (Taylor's Version)" Song Meaning

"All Too Well" describes Swift's relationship with Gyllenhaal, which she confirmed in the liner notes with the hidden message "MAPLE LATTES," which they were photographed grabbing together on Thanksgiving 2010. The song paints vivid pictures of a beautiful time in a relationship—and the heartbreaking aftermath when it ends, complete with Gyllenhaal keeping her old scarf (which she later went on to make merch about). Additionally, she mentions his "sweet disposition," which is also the title of a song by Temper Trap, reportedly one of Gyllenhaal's favorite bands.

Swift told Rolling Stone of writing the song, "It was a day when I was just, like, a broken human, walking into rehearsal just feeling terrible about what was going on in my personal life... I just ended up playing four chords over and over again, and the band started kicking in." She added, "People just started playing along with me... I think they could tell I was really going through it. I just started singing and riffing and ad-libbing this song that basically was 'All Too Well.'"

As far as the song becoming a favorite among Swifties, Swift herself was taken by surprise. "It wasn't a single, and it didn't have a video—all these ways that I was taught music permeated culture. I didn't see that happening with that song." She recalled performing the track at the 2014 Grammys, "I can't believe it now when I play it live and everybody in the crowd knows every word. I'm truly astonished by it, and I think that's one of the most beautiful things about this album for me when I look back on it. I really didn't pick that one. I thought it was too dark, too sad, too intense. It's fun when things surprise you like that."