How Red (Taylor’s Version) Perfectly Encapsulates Your Early 20’s
Taylor Swift described Red as a “heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end.” As someone who is freshly 21, I can describe my 20’s best as a kaleidoscope of emotions so far. There are high highs, there are low lows, there’s excitement, and with that excitement, anxiety; there is love, and with that love, heartbreak.
When Red first came out, I was eleven years old—I could only pretend to relate the songs to my middle school crush and looked forward to the day I could feel something as strong as Taylor did. In my 20’s, I sure got what I wished for after I went through my first love and then heartbreak. I didn’t know how complicated heartbreak could be. Red (Taylor’s Version) came out around the time I broke up with my boyfriend of three years, and I felt deeply seen and understood by the album, as millions of others do. Here’s what each song meant to me.
1. State of Grace
“Love is a ruthless game, unless you play it good and right.” State of Grace represents the unpredictability of life. Someone can catch you off guard, and when they do, it is fragile but beautiful. In your early 20’s, you are putting yourself out there more than ever, whether that’s career wise or making new friends or going on dates. It can be wonderful, but also terrifying.
2. Red
“Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong.” When first listening to this song in middle school I hoped I would one day find out how strong love could be. I did. But with that came the strong emotions after a breakup—and wishing nothing more than erasing them from your mind. Love feels burning red—passionate and painful. (We later learn from Taylor on Lover, love should not feel burning red, but golden)
3. Treacherous
After a first heartbreak, you proceed with caution. If you like someone, you don’t like it. The feeling is terrifying. You don’t want to be hurt again, but you want another shot at love. Treacherous describes the complexity of desiring love, but being scared to try again.
4. I Knew You Were Trouble
In our 20’s, we are still shopping for our personalities—trying out different styles, having different types of friends. Someone can come along, and although they seem bad for you, that is part of their appeal—they are something new, adventurous. Attention and affection can feel like enough, until someone leaves you, and you realize how much of you they took with them.
5. All Too Well
I feel like there is no explanation needed for this song, but I will include a short one anyways. Taylor’s vulnerability on this song, despite it being so specific, makes it extremely relatable. Anyone experiencing heartbreak or loss has felt emotions this strong and can scream and cry to arguably the best written bridge of all time.
6. 22
There are nights where being single has felt like the most fun ever. There are nights when I never want to interact with another man again and just have fun with my friends until the end of time. This song is that feeling. It is the liberation and joy that can come along with heartbreak.
7. I Almost Do
After a breakup, you go from spending time with someone almost every day to not speaking at all. Although I knew I made the right decision in my breakup, there were many nights I wanted to pick up the phone. There were some nights I did. And everytime I didn’t, I almost did. There is a longing for familiarity, and losing that feels like a heartbreak within itself.
8. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
In my past relationship, we did break up and get back together—as many couples do when they are young. But in most cases you will come to learn that you broke up for a reason and that it should stay that way. This is the anthem to remind us all to not go back to our exes.
9. Stay Stay Stay
This song encapsulates the beginning stages of falling love: when the love is pure and good; when you are still able to joke about the fights… it feels like the person will stay for a long time. This is the most hopeful song on Red, and sometimes you need to be reminded of that hope.
10. The Last Time
In my relationship, I gave my ex one too many chances. I let him hurt me again and again, and kept telling myself “this is the last time.” But often, it never was. There are times when we all give the person who continues to hurt us the most another chance because we love them. And we hope they won’t let us down again. But they do.
11. Holy Ground
Holy Ground, upbeat and fun compared to The Last Time (which just wrecked us), describes the excitement of a first love, of meeting someone new. It feels sacred, and holy. You don’t want to be anywhere else but with that one person.
12. Sad Beautiful Tragic
Anyone in a long distance relationship, this one's for you. I was in a long distance relationship for 2 and a half years, so the line: “Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting” would go through my head many sleepless nights.
13. The Lucky One
In your 20’s, your relevancy can come and go. People will flow in and out of your life. Taylor describes fame in this song, but it relates to everyday life as well. You always want what you cannot have, and finally when you get it, it may not always be what you expect. In your 20’s, you dream big, but sometimes the dream falls short.
14. Everything Has Changed
Everything is constantly changing in your 20’s. That is all the explanation this needs.
15. Starlight
Love can sweep you up when you are young. Starlight describes the dream-like feeling that comes along when first meeting someone new… “We could get married, have 10 kids and teach them how to dream.”
16. Begin Again
In August, 8 months after my breakup, I found myself in a cafe, on Wednesday no less, with the promise of something new. This was the first person I had feelings for since my breakup, and although it wasn’t the right time for a spark to ignite, it made me hopeful. Because for the past eight months, I really did think love just breaks, and burns, and ends.
17. Come Back… Be Here
In my 20’s, I have been constantly moving around—first California, then New York, then London, then back to California, and then New York again. It is hard to leave the people you love that you meet along the way.
18. Girl at Home (we all know that guy…)
We all know that one guy who has a girlfriend, but won’t stop flirting with every girl in sight. Please do not be that guy.
19. Ronan
In our 20’s, we become old enough to start to lose people way too soon. At this point in life, we have almost all experienced a significant loss. This song is heartbreaking and encapsulates grief of those lost too soon beautifully.
20. Better Man
During my breakup, this was the song I blasted the most. Men in their early 20’s are often immature, and I wonder if my ex and I would still be together if he were a better man. I didn’t stop loving him because I lost interest, I stopped loving him because he couldn’t treat me right.
21. Nothing New
In your 20’s, there are many nights where you drink too much and worry about the future. Will people still want me later in life? Am I only excited now because everything is new? Will there be people who stick around when I am nothing new? Taylor and Phoebe Bridgers perfectly articulate these feelings in this heartbreaking anthem. Many drunken nights I have played this while crying on the bathroom floor. I highly recommend it.
22. Babe
Sometimes you can’t believe what someone you loved did to you. You are mad at what the person did, but are also mad that they ruined something so good.
23. Message in a Bottle
Message in a Bottle describes the feeling of finding someone you are interested in, and wondering if they feel the same. When you first meet someone, you dream of everything that could be good. “You could be the one I love, you could be the one that I dream of.” There is hope after heartbreak.
24. I Bet You Think About Me
There comes a time when you realize how great you are, and it is them who lost, not you. This is the song I blast at times when I forget that.
25. Forever Winter
A lot of us know someone who has struggled with depression or attempted suicide. I know several now that I am in my 20’s, including a very close person in my life. “I’d fall to pieces on the floor, if you weren’t around” is the perfect lyric to describe losing someone to suidice, or being worried you will.
26. Run
Sometimes you want to escape everything. Life can become so overwhelming when you are young, and sometimes running away feels like the only option.
27. The Very First Night
In your 20’s, everything can become complicated—people are still trying to piece together who they are. But there is simplicity when first meeting someone new. After things crumble apart, you wish you could go back to that first night, when everything was full of hope and promise.
Cover Photo by Beth Garrabrant. Edited by Madison Case.