Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” Has Got Me Experiencing All These Breakup Feels
(A feat, especially since my breakup record is zero)
I’ll be the first to confess this: I wasn’t a fan of Ms. Taylor Swift back when her album Red was first released back in 2012. Sure, I went through a little infatuation with her album Fearless (involving many replays of my favorite-of-the-time, “Love Story”), but I never actively followed her career. Besides, the media in the early 10’s focused far too much on her dating history, and I followed artists for their creations, not their drama.
But there’s something about Taylor Swift that you can’t quite ignore — even when you try to do so. Back in her 1989 and Reputation eras, I found myself listening to her music more and more often: there were “Blank Space,” “Wildest Dreams,” and “Out of the Woods” from 1989 and “Look What You Made Me Do” and “Gorgeous” from Reputation. By the time Lover came along, I was hooked — but I didn’t admit it even then.
I never went back and listened to Red in its entirety, though — something I regret a bit since, having listened to Red (Taylor’s Version), I’ve been missing out.
The big talking point of this release is, of course, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” — the song on (what seems like) everyone’s minds right now.
You can go Google all the purported drama surrounding this song — it’s all right there out on the internet, from speculation to dissection — but, for me, this song has the storytelling that I fell in love with in Taylor Swift’s 2020 releases Folklore and Evermore. It’s no wonder Taylor decided to make a short film inspired by the song.
Even without allusions to purported real-life happenings, the song is a universal story where an ill-fated relationship burned through two people’s lives. Who hasn’t had those kind of whirlwind feelings, even without the constraints of a romantic relationship?
The lyrics go from the first embers of a newfound love (“You told me ‘bout your past thinking your future was me”) to those last ashes of the relationship’s end (“But maybe this thing was a masterpiece ’til you tore it all up”). Through a ten-minute runtime, you go through all the stages of a…
