Taylor Swift has undeniably left an indelible mark on the music industry, captivating audiences worldwide with her heartfelt lyrics, infectious melodies, and ever-evolving musical style. From her early hits that defined her to the chart-toppers that solidified her place in pop culture, Swift’s discography is a testament to her artistry and storytelling prowess.
In the vast landscape of music, few artists have managed to achieve the level of success and acclaim that Taylor Swift has garnered over the years. Her journey from a young country singer to a global pop sensation is marked by a series of chart-topping hits, critical acclaim, and a profound connection with her audience.
The All Time’s Best Songs of Taylor Swift
10. GOLD RUSH
You may immediately assume that “Gold Rush,” like several of the other songs on the “Folklore” album, is character writing if you were to listen to it. Swift can’t be experiencing this often as one of the most sought-after music performers in the world, else why would she write a song about someone who is even prettier than she is and whose pure charisma consumes all the air in a room? Unless she actually had a love partner in the past who met those criteria… an individual whose “hair (was) falling into place like dominos”… Everything begins to make sense. It’s a fantastic song about the cost of being around someone with that kind of magnetism, even if you don’t read that much into it.
9. ANTI HERO
If you hadn’t been paying attention to video premiere announcements when “Midnights” originally came out, you might have thought that “Anti Hero” was one of the album’s odder songs and not a surefire out-of-the-box hit. Even the first slight debate over the “sexy baby” line—whether it was lifted from “50 Rock” or constituted infantilization—diminished since most people found it to be amusing during the verse when Swift imagines herself as a monster that needs to be destroyed. According to her, the song is about self-hatred, imposter syndrome, and whether anything is clinical or not.
8. RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT ME
Swift, who is assuming the persona of someone other than herself for this song, recalls how she was abandoned by a boyfriend at a dinner meeting and then simply never got up from the table herself, remaining there as a ghost for years.
Swift’s talky verses indicate the cadences of someone who genuinely has just been talking to herself for too long. At the very end, there is a brief passage of mournful, distorted guitar that seems like it could be coming from the parallel reality the protagonist is slowly slipping into.
7. WE ARE NEVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER
Swift has several excellent examples of breakups that sound like the end of the world in her numerous albums. However, there aren’t many of them that make a party sound. The strongest bacchanal in her discography is “We Are Never…” Because furries are dangerous, I’m not sure whether I want to participate in the specific celebration that is depicted in her song’s music video. Swift is however capable of hosting a freedom soiree by alone, as evidenced by the way Max Martin and Shellback layered her vocals on this fizzy pleasure of a tune. Starting with the oddly stop-and-start beginning guitar riff and ending with the cheerleader-style yell that makes the chorus one, everything works together to create a start-to-finish the flawless pop tune.
6. CLEAN
A notion of healing from pain appears in a number of Swift’s songs, most notably the closing track from “1989,” which she co-wrote once with independent musician Imogene Heap. Although both senses of the word “clean” are employed here, they both essentially work toward the same goal. It’s clean like the sensation of taking a lengthy shower after the muck of a bad relationship has built up, or like getting clean, quitting a bad love habit.
Nobody really knows what inspired Swift to co-write this soothing, cathartic ballad, but many listeners have used their own painful memories or addicted experiences to appreciate this bath-salt ballad.
5. MIRRORBALL
The Velvet Underground once sung, “I’ll be your mirror,” and this is Swift’s response, “Let me count the ways.” For want of a more apt term, the Antonoff-cowritten “Folklore” tune truly qualifies as “shimmering.” Although she seems quite pliant about the idea inside the bounds of the wonderful music, Swift definitely doesn’t want to imply that acting as a pure reflector to the world’s different wants and needs is a good thing. This song has been compared to the Sundays and other pretty guitar-based indie pop acts from the past. It contains a lulling electric guitar and an absent drumbeat that makes you keep waiting impatiently for the song to pick up speed. Everything is great, even the humour.
4. STYLE
Swift’s love interest in this extremely sensual song is, at least in her head, cosplaying as James Dean while also cosplaying as Taylor Swift. Although there isn’t a duet for him to hear her side of view, she does confirm that he like her “good girl faith and a tight little skirt,” and there is no reason to think that she is misrepresenting what makes him tick. Truthfully, Swift has never created a song that is less profound, and profundity has never been less important. When the track’s light-disco-martial beat begins, it also has the effect of an open-top drive through Miami with a lusty hetero-cis couple instead of Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas.
3. GETAWAY CAR
Unlike the majority of the rest of the album, which alternates between a defensive stance against social expectations and an embrace of secret love, “Getaway Car” is sung by a Bonnie who is going to leave her Clyde without any particular shame or remorse associated with her leaving feelings.
This song by Taylor Swift could be the toughest she’s ever written; it almost seems like a taunt directed at an upcoming ex. She is describing the dynamic of how you can occasionally require a new flirtation to get you out of a bad relationship, and how that can take the form of serial: she instructs the presumably naive man. Since there is no need for a happy conclusion, one of her most intriguing songs is this curiously lovely fusion of arena rock and hardboiled, fatalist noir.
READ MORE: HOW HOT BATH ALLEVIATE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES
2. ALL TOO WELL
When “All Too Well” was extended to more than twice its original length for the “Taylor’s Version” album, its details and memories transcended any sense of linear narrative. In its original, abbreviated form on the “Red” album, the song already seemed like a fluid story. In her perspective, the song’s narrative is almost like a “Groundhog Day”-style meditation on meditative suffering, in which the couple will simply keep breaking up indefinitely. (Well, if the sister ever returned the stupid scarf, it might end, but she doesn’t need their resolution at this point.) It becomes much more calming than it is bitter, almost like a chant.
1. YOU BELONG WTH ME
Although it is as perpetually adolescent as anything Swift has ever written, there is no need to grow out of it. Nothing in adult life compares to friend-zoning in high school, if at all. Who among us ever stops hoping that the person who can’t take his eyes off the cheerleader—whether for us that person is the boss, peers, a disinterested husband, or a seemingly uncaring deity—will see us for who we really are? We persevered until the very end, boats against the river being borne back into the stands.
But really, it’s been more monstrously hooky in the past 15 years. Swift brilliantly sets up the return to the chorus to end all 21st-century anthemic choruses. A song about remembering to take your glasses off so the kid next door realizes you’re a cutie contains all of human yearning and ambition.
