On April 9, Taylor Swift released the first of her six album re-recordings, but this time the albums would completely belong to Swift. Swift started out her re-releases with her Grammy Album of the Year awarded country album “Fearless.” With the re-release of “Fearless,” Swift announced there wouldn’t only be the original 13 tracks, but also the additional six tracks featured on “Fearless” Platinum edition, separately released single “Today Was A Fairytale” from the 2010 movie “Valentine’s Day” and lastly six unreleased songs “from the vault” written for “Fearless” in the mid-2000s. 

Before the album re-release, Swift released one of the new from the vault songs “You All Over Me” featuring Maren Morris. Then after releasing a video with 103 words out-of-order and letters scrambled that spelled all the words in the titles of the six tracks, the Swiftie FBI Agents took less than 15 minutes to figure it all out; I will not confirm nor deny if I dropped everything I was doing and solved the puzzle during those 15 minutes of chaos on various Swiftie social pages with everyone else. The six from the vault songs are as follows: “You All Over Me” featuring Maren Morris, “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” “We Were Happy,” “That’s When” featuring Keith Urban, “Don’t You” and “Bye Bye Baby.” 

“You All Over Me” is a sadder country song written by teenage Swift. The song describes the feelings and self-consciousness following a break up. In lyrics like, “But like the dollar in your pocket, it’s been spent and traded in. You can’t change where it’s been, reminds me of me,” it shows the insecurities teens experience following break ups or just the ends of any type of relationship. The track has a catchy chorus with “I lived, and I learned. Had you, got burned. Held out, and held on. God knows, too long. And wasted time, lost tears. Swore that I’d get out of here. But no amount of freedom gets you clean. I’ve still got you all over me.” Despite the more sorrowful verses, the chorus holds more of a looking back and reflecting on past relationships point of view.

Another early release from the vault track was “Mr. Perfectly Fine.” For starters, the fact this track wasn’t on the original album let alone added for the Platinum edition, is a crime. “Mr. Perfectly Fine” is a catchy, classic “yeehaw Taylor” song, and it took over 11 and a half years to be released for the public! The Audacity! “Mr. Perfectly Fine” is about a post break up where your ex isn’t as heartbroken as you and is “perfectly fine.” The track also has “Miss Independent” by Kelly Clarkson vibes, which is the only thing I can find that would explain the track never being released. Given that “Miss Independent” was released in 2003 and “Fearless” was released five years later in 2008, the track might have been ridiculed for being too similar. However, past the Mr. and Miss titles, the two songs aren’t about the same thing. With the chorus, “Hello Mr. Perfectly fine. How’s your heart after breakin’ mine?… I’ve been Miss Misery since your goodbye and you’re Mr. Perfectly fine.” and “It’s such a shame ’cause I was Miss Here to stay. Now I’m Miss Gonna be alright someday. And someday maybe you’ll miss me. But by then, you’ll be Mr. Too late,” this song is catchy and has been going on repeat in my head and car since it’s early release and I’m not mad about it.

“We Were Happy” is a cute and simple track reflecting on the good times of a relationship when “we were happy.” In the track, it reflects on times of making plans for the future with, “talking about your daddy’s farm we were gonna buy some day.” The track has a beautiful simple guitar throughout that makes me excited for a day when we get to hear Swift perform the song acoustically. 

“That’s When” features Keith Urban and is for all the “Yeehaw Taylor” fans because immediately all I thought was “the country fans are gonna be thrilled.” There’s a twang guitar riff in the background and lyrics in the storytime style that’s essential to a country song. This track is about when your relationship takes a pause or one of the people in the relationship needs a break, but that person comes back asking when they can “come back.” Which the response from the other is, “That’s when, when I wake up in the morning. That’s when, when it’s sunny or storming. Laughing when I’m crying. And that’s when I’ll be waiting at the front gate. That’s when, when I see your face. I let you in, and baby that’s when.” With Keith Urban dueting in the track, this song is successfully bringing back the “Fearless” era.

“Don’t You” is about running into your ex, but when you bump into one another your ex is sweet and happy leaving you to think “don’t you” mess with my emotions like this. With lyrics, “But don’t you, don’t you smile at me and ask me how I’ve been. Don’t you say you’ve missed me if you don’t want me again. You don’t know how much I feel I love you still. So why don’t you.” Also based on the verses, this ex has a new girlfriend, which makes everything they’re doing worse. Unintentionally or not, this track is about the mess of your emotions after your ex talks to you again like this. It’s an experience worse than words can describe, yet Swift manages to describe a specific type of emotional turmoil perfectly in this track.

“Bye Bye Baby” is written giving closure to a relationship. This track goes on to be directed towards “baby” and saying goodbye, despite the belief the relationship would be forever. With the heartbroken lyrics with a more upbeat instrumental, “I still love you, but I can’t. Bye bye to everything I thought was on my side. Bye bye baby. I want you back, but it’s come down to nothing, and all I have is your sympathy. ‘Cause you took me home, but you just couldn’t keep me.” 

It’s exciting to get the chance to hear Swift’s previous works that never saw the light of day, and overall I would say “Mr. Perfectly Fine” is probably my favorite with “That’s When” potentially taking that title in the future. Along with the new songs, listening to Swift sing her works from when she was 18-years-old is a fun experience comparing then and now. It makes it even better that all these songs are now completely owned by the artist that created them, and no one can use them without Swift’s permission.