Every Single Album - A Post–'Speak Now (Taylor's Version)' Mailbag | Every Single Album: Taylor Swift

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

A little over a week after the release of 'Speak Now (Taylor's Version),' Nora and Nathan open up the mailbag to answer some questions and to continue processing their feelings about the album. They talk about why it seems like there has been less hype around the 'Speak Now' rerecord compared to previous ones (1:00), whether "I Can See You" undermined "Cruel Summer" as the song of the summer (31:59), and if we'll get a live version of this album (42:06). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer, and this is a podcast called The Rewatchables. We have been doing it. Really since 2017, it started with how much we love the movie Heat. We decided to structure a whole podcast with categories, most rewatchable scene. Who on the movie, Apex Mountain, what age the best? But here's the thing. If you want the full archive, you can hear them only on Spotify for free, by the way. So make sure to follow the rewatchables on Spotify.

Hello, and welcome to every single album. Taylor Swift. I'm Nora Princeati. As always, I am joined by Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, say hello to the people. Nora, this is not getting old. I was worried when we had this idea of summer of Taylor Swift, that by mid-July, it would be like what it feels like when I'm in the last bit of running a 10-K over the 4th of July in the heat, which is my body's like, please, stop. Is this you telling the people that you ran a 10-K over the 4th of July? Please stop. And, And maybe the people are saying that, but we're not saying that. There's so much to discuss.

Okay. So speak now, Taylor's version. Fascinating album. Like, we are a little over a week removed from doing our whole big album episode, breaking down that album. We're going to spend today responding to a bunch of listener questions because people had a lot of thoughts about this album. I'm not sure that this album.

that this album has like broken onto the scene and created a cultural moment on the level of like Red Taylor's version for example. But within the fan base, this is a massively interesting and in some cases contentious. Controversial contentious. Yeah. Yes. There is debate. There is raging discussion. There's raging debate. And so we're going to incorporate as many questions as possible into that conversation on this pod. Starting now. Can I just start with Katie's question? Go. Okay. Even though Speak Now is more recent than Fearless, Fearless felt more similar and I connected with it more. Why do you think Fearless felt more similar? Was it hype of not knowing what to expect for re-records? How does Speak Now, Taylor's version affect your opinions on how debut is going to go? Okay, let's talk about the first part first.

So Katie is saying that in listening to Speak Now, Taylor's version, there's something that felt more disconnected with the original album than for Fearless, which is in some ways surprising just because we have more time separation from when original Fearless came out to when Fearless Taylor's version came out. Agree? Disagree? Thoughts, feelings? I think Katie might be right about this one.

I think we have all been much more discerning this go-referring this go-react. round, again, because of the subject matter and material and what this album was about. And for the same reasons that we talked about on last week's pod, this album was not made for me, but the re-record helped me discover it. This album was decidedly made for you, Nora, and the re-record has made it, you know, it's been a process for you. I mean, you and I've been really talking this one out on and off the air. there.

So, yeah. And I think that, yeah. Well, there's just like a lot to unpack there. So, yeah. It's in love it, it's an hate, it's just indifference. So, yeah. Two things there that I think are right. One is like when you say that that speak now is not necessarily for you in the same way that

fearless was, the thing about fearless that we talked about is that fearless was like for everyone. Fairless was these big 10 shiny, awesome sing-along songs like Love Story and You Belong with Me, the biggest songs from that album that just are at their pinnacle effectiveness when tons and tons and tons and tons of people are scream singing them at the same time. One that's like very universally accessible, but it's also pretty replicable, right? because it's just about that communal experience, which I think translates pretty easily to like,

I'm going to do it again. I'm always going to sing love story on tour. I'm going to recreate it in 2021 or whatever year it was when Fearless Taylor's version came out. Speak Now is so like internal and so just like you would listen. My personal, like if I'm transported back to Speak Now coming out, the experience, I think, of is like going on long runs and listening to it, like by myself.

Speaking of a 10K. Towards the end of a 10K in my headphones. And so like one, I just think that's a very specific and very intimate experience. Right. But that album lends itself to that opens up these avenues for like, oh, it's not quite hitting the exact same way. So don't you worry your pretty little mind. Where just the soaring chorus of love story,

it's kind of hard for that not to hit the same way because it's built to be like big and everybody can sing along. The second piece of this is like, is it goes in a different avenue, which is just that I think we all, I know I do this and I think a lot of fans do this too, we analyze things in terms of how we think they are going to work for Taylor and if we think they are successes or failures for Taylor,

and if she's going to be happy with them and if they are going to be like another shiny trophy for her to add to her case, which is a little unhinged because she's like the most successful person in the history of music maybe. So we might all be well served to take a breather and just be like,

she's fine. She's doing great. But to me, when I think back on this summer and I think back on what Taylor Swift did, I will think Taylor Swift went on the Aeros tour. Taylor Swift did the Aeros tour and it was like the coolest thing

thing that's ever happened. I'm not really good. going to think, oh yeah, and that was the summer she released Speak Now, Taylor's version. It's just going to be second fiddle. And I think in some ways, some of us are maybe having a hard time accepting, like, this is not the biggest thing she's going to do this summer. And that doesn't mean that it's not of success. Okay, but you also didn't even remember what year fearless was. But I don't ever know what year it is. That's true. You're a little checked out. But let's be clear. These are the records

broken by Taylor Swift this week, and I have not committed these to memory, so I'm one million percent reading these. She's the female artist with the most number one albums on the Billboard 200. She broke Barbara Streisand's record. She's the first female artist to simultaneously chart 11 albums on the Billboard 200. She's the first

living artist to simultaneously chart four albums in the Billboard 200's top 10. She's the first artist to debut 12 consecutive albums at number one on the Billboard 200. I can go on and on and on. Biggest debut of the year on the Billboard 200, that's Speaking Out TV. Like, it just goes and goes and goes.

This thing is a huge success. I think we're the problem. It's us. That's what I'm saying. We are over-analyzing this. There is the emotional part of the album. And I get it. The voice is different.

It's different. It doesn't have the bitterness. It doesn't have the anger. It doesn't have the youthful angst. It doesn't have the heartbroken bit about it. And that I still feel. think in a lot of ways for me, again, it unearthed what's good about these songs, that they can stand alone on their own by a woman who can stand on stage in Minneapolis since I'm 33 years old.

And I've let go of a lot of the feelings that were behind these songs, whether or not she actually has. Let go of exactly zero feelings in my entire life. But, okay, Taylor. But look, the point of this is her reclaiming her art. let us not forget that. I know we're going to talk about 1989 today a little bit further, but you got to be behind the core project,

which is Taylor believes that artists should own their art and that she made the record company plenty of money and that, frankly, she shouldn't have been put in a position where she had to give up control of her master recordings and that certainly once she delivered on behalf of Big Machine, that they should have reverted back to her. or that she should have had a chance to put together a financial group

that was going to buy them. So that's the mission of these things. And the data says, fans are supporting it. I think we all feel like we need something to chat about and to get into the dark corners of the internet and talk about.

And fine, we can go back and forth. This album is not beloved until you get to the vault. It's always going to be that way. On the other hand, I think we're going to see streaming data as we talked about last week, that is analogous to fearless,

where two out of every three streams of Speak Now is Taylor's version. And for her, that's a W. That cuts deeply into the people who are monetizing her catalog right now in a way that she feels violates the fundamental principles of what artists should own.

And so in the big tent purpose of this project, it is definitely a success. Broadly, everything that she's doing right now is a massive success. Speak Now is always going to be one of the core Taylor Swift Superfans' favorite Taylor Swift albums. And we are the people who will defend her to the ends of the earth, but also sometimes in our own way and hopefully in a respectful and thoughtful way,

sometimes her most sort of perceptive critics because we get into all the nooks and crannies. The fact that that's happening with this album makes a lot of, of sense to me because that is the type of album that speak now in a lot of ways always has been. And it's this treasured thing among a lot of a lot of the fans. So we're kind of doing what we do. Does the charting position, I mean, the entirety of the album has debuted in the Billboard Hot 100. Do the positions of those songs tell you anything? I mean, I can see you debuted at number five. the next closest song is mine at 15 there are a lot of vault songs that are ahead of songs like

Mean Story of Us Haunted Long live No surprise Superman is dead last But that was a surprise to me Innocent is charting higher than Superman right now So like justice for a superman.

That's just because it's before it. That's just because it's before. Okay, that's what I was going to say is that some of these, some of the chart positions reflect just like if you go to to speak our Taylor's version. Bottom three are innocent, ours Superman. And I think people by that point were like,

fuck this. I want to go see the vault. And they jump over. Right. But it is reflective of the strategy here. The strategy is she's really secretly putting out half or all of a new album every time she puts out a Taylor's version. And that's the brilliance of it. But I think that also tells you what this is really about for the fan base. I mean,

they're getting behind the re-record stuff for sure. But if she doesn't release the vault songs in parallel, she's not going to get the same hype. She's not going to get the same stream. She's not going to get the same focus. So I'm just, there's no surprise for you that I can see you out charts dear John? None, none whatsoever. I really do think that the strength of, of the moments around the re-recordings, which is separate, right, from the overall, okay, how many of these songs am I tempted to cheat on the re-recordings with the originals with, right? But like the pop cultural moment around the re-recordings, which I do think impacts how people feel because there's just, like, the bar that she set with red, where we had short film, we had,

all of the film festival appearances. We had a Saturday night live performance that was just like, I remember our coworker Julia Littman described it as just the most like triumphant thing that she'd ever seen someone do on stage. Replicating that moment or a moment like that in terms of... The all too well 10 minute version. Yes, the all too well 10 minute version. Stuff that when she was performing it in front of the short film.

film on that stage, just in terms of creating stuff that people are going to talk about, which in turn leads to people covering and talking about the re-recordings. Because at a certain point, right, let's face it, you run out of, we can play, track the differences in minute detail. But for most people, you do get to a point after three re-recorded albums, maybe four re-recorded albums, right? As she thinks about how to go along with this, where it's just sort of like, oh yeah, Taylor Swift's doing

this thing. They sound pretty similar. Yeah, it's because she's doing it too well. Because she's so good in it. Yeah. You run out of stuff to talk about. The band sounds good. There's not that much to compare. It's not like somebody's, I mean, other than the shaky breath, there's no like, oh my God, look what they left out. And I hope the sun shines and it's a beautiful day.

and something reminds you And I hope the sun shines And it's a beautiful day And something reminds you She performs and creates For an audience that goes Far beyond the people Who are paying attention to the shaky breath

So my point is that I think a lot tends to hinge on the vaults Because they're just new and fresh And give us stuff to talk about But that means that they have to be good so that we actually do it. So when there's good stuff in the vault

and I think that I can see you is a great song that clears the bar for this album, people stream it and people care about it. And it becomes a rising tide that makes more people interested in the project as a whole. I do think that you can tell

based on your original question was do I take anything away from how those songs are charting. I take that away with I Can See You. I do take away, again, nothing from this is having the moment that All Too Well Ten had, right? That was a 10 minute song that went to number one. And had its video and had blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't mean the album as a whole isn't generating a lot of interest, but I do think that there's a difference between having something like that that becomes a phenomenon. So I am certainly not saying that this is not a success.

I'm certainly not saying that this isn't succeeding and pulling away the revenue stream from the original version. But I do think that it is, nothing has gotten to that level, which is only something that we talk about because she just sets exceptionally high bars. So I take that away from that data. as well. Okay. Next question. From Kat. Do we think that the rest of the re-records will drop before the end of tour and mark the end of the era's era?

Kat also added, also could Foolish One be inspired from the 2009 film? He's just not that into you with the references to not being the exception and waiting by the phone. I will take that second part. Absolutely. I kind of bet it was. I hope someday we hear from Taylor on this stuff. Maybe we can drop the clip in from that movie. All of my friends used to tell me these stories about how things might work out with these dipsticks because they knew someone who knew someone who dated a dipstick just like mine. And that girl ended up getting married and living happily ever after.

But that's the exception. And we're not the exception. We're the rule. It is an uncanny reference. It was so cool to see a bunch of people spot that. I had completely forgotten about that movie. But once people were posting about it, I was transported immediately back to when that came out. I don't remember why, but I just remember that that movie being like very culturally important

in a very specific time that was also Speak Now. So my answer to the second one is yes. First question was rest of the re-records out before the end of the tour. Thoughts? Well, it's very influenced by what you just said earlier, which is that the Speak Now album at this point and this whole project, people are like, yeah, yeah, I get it. So that sort of implies that, first of all, there may be a little bit of decay in her ability to generate hype. The only counter to that is that 1989 has 30% of the

listens of the six albums that she doesn't own that are out there. And I think she wants them back. And I think you and I have a sense that they've been in the bag for a while now. but probably what took a little more time was getting the vault tracks into a place where she felt like they were ready to release. I don't know that they're going to be released before the end of the tour, but I suspect we're going to hear something about it

sooner rather than later. She's got to let speak, now breathe, let it have its moment, and then as we've seen her, she's going to get a little time off after the LA shows, it would be strange to not hear much from her in the fall. And I do think she's going to get into this routine

of releasing these things because, listen, Midnights is going to be a year old this fall. And our girl has a fairly steady pattern of releasing new music every two years. So she's been in and out of the studio in New York and maybe even in Nashville, as often as we can see her out in public. So there's a lot that's being created right now.

And I don't think she wants stuff backed up for too long. I think I would be surprised if we don't get something in the fall. For all the reasons you just mentioned. And I also think that the fact that she won't be actively doing shows during that break after L.A., I think that will make a huge difference. Sometimes we talk about how saturated, we are with content from her

in terms of like, how long has it been since she did her last big thing? There was something specific to speak now where, again, just you were being flooded with TikToks

or whatever you're looking at of what are the surprise songs? What's going on? Erez tour stuff constantly. Yeah. And there is just nothing in the world that is bigger than the Eres tour.

So even if she spent off for a few weeks, I do think the fact that she just won't actively be, performing on a weekly basis will make a difference. It's got to be coming. Every sign says 1989 is coming. If that question is, will the re-records be done by the end of the Erez tour worldwide? Maybe the last one will come out shortly after it ends or something, but I would

lean yes. Because the flip side to if they're not, if the biggest moments have happened, and remember that we are with the exception of debut, which poses its own challenges and also just isn't an album that that has been listened to as many times as most of her others. The albums that she has left are the most recent ones. They're the ones that people have the least distance from. They're the ones where people were most similar to their current selves when they heard the first time. So it all depends. I really do think on what she has in the vault and what she has up her sleeve to make them feel new and fresh

and have that level of meat on the bone. But I, if there's not something on the scale, not necessarily of an all too well 10 because that's really special, but just something really, really powerful, she's probably incentivized.

If she doesn't have Harry Styles on style. Like, whatever, or something like that. Like, she should get them out. sooner. She should just get them out and not keep drawing it out because the more it's drawn out, the more we're like,

are we getting style featuring Harry Styles? Are we getting 800 new songs from the vault? Are we getting? What are we getting? What are we getting? From a business perspective, she's at the peak of her powers right now. She has the most influence she's ever had. If the point is to use that power

to squeeze every corner of the internet that she possibly can, from her fan base to streamers, to radio stations to prioritize her music over the stuff that's quote unquote owned by others. Now is the time to do it. Sooner the better. Every single stream that happens of the old catalog is putting money in other people's pockets that could be going into hers.

And I'm not even sure it's about the money for her. In fact, I'm quite certain it's not. She just doesn't want money going into other people's pockets on the back of her art. And that is why I think she's going to get these things out sooner rather than later. All right. The most important question. Still Cedar. All those pictures of Taylor at the weed dinner.

dot, dot, dot, dot. At Nathan Hubbard, smoke theory confirmed. Question mark, question mark, question mark. I mean, Gigi Hadid just got arrested in the Cayman Islands for having weed on her. Like, yes, this is the big... Your take was that she smokes cigarettes. Completely different conversation.

I said she smokes now. No, wrong. You said that Maddie Healy smells like cigarettes, and therefore Taylor might smoke now. That's true. I also think Maddie Healy smokes a lot of things. But the, I think it speaks for itself. You saw the pictures. They played Uno.

She looked happy at the end. Good for her. They played an adult, Uno. You know they were playing normal Uno. I know. Truth or Dare, Uno. She's a 33-year-old adult. It's legal.

Let her go. It's completely fine. I'm happy for her. I looked up some of the questions. Have you ever said? Actually, I'm not going to ask. Yeah, do not ask me that. I looked up some of the cards in truth or dare, adults only, Uno.

And some of the things are, give the player you are least attracted to a bear hug, hump the couch, or the one that I'm not going to say that I hope to. I'm not going to offer an opinion on this, but it's, it just, it delights the mind, I suppose. Sing a love song using your butt cheeks as your lips. Yeah, Jim Carrey style, I guess from Pet Detective, right? Excuse me, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Yes. Yeah, sure.

Let's call it that. Look, if you really zoom in. Nakesas and Questlove. There were a lot of joints on the table, if you really zoom in. I'm sure they had a great time. I think it's great that she's going out and doing this. It's very hard to make friends when you're the most famous person in the world. More parties with photos like that.

It's super innocuous. I'm all in. I fully, fully, fully, fully agree. Absolutely nothing but delight and good has come of this, including the post from Bunby, who was like, she could not be more kind and personable. This was like the funniest thing I've ever read. I've only ever met two people who make you feel this scene and heard in an interaction before.

And that's Barack Obama and Beyonce, both of whom were tagged in the Instagram post, which just, I mean, delightful, delightful stuff. But that is it. She has a superpower of making people feel that way in her. She glows. She does. If you've ever seen a president, most president. Most presidents, they glow.

Beyonce, she just glows. There's this gravitational pull that is just part of their aura. And she has that for sure. And it's not an act. It's just sort of an innate part of who they are. And it's a big part of their success. I would venture to guess that Taylor glows

significantly more than most of our current or former presidents. I think Beyonce plays like adult candy land or like what? Do the other pop stars play adult kids games? We can only hope. We simply can only hope. Also, Uno, not just a kids game of like normal Uno.

Great game. Great franchise. Clearly. All forms. That was one of my favorite Taylor Swift stories in quite some time. She looked great. She looked like she was having a fun time. Thrilled for everyone involved.

Question from Grace. Thoughts on claims about Dear John not being about John Mayer and being about Martin Johnson. He's claimed love story and fearless are about him. This is like me saying style is about me. Get the fuck out of here, Martin Johnson. Yeah. I'm redirecting all of my Taylor Lautner is glomming on to Taylor Swift's fame takes to Martin Johnson, who I don't think did anything to bring this specific thing on.

somebody sent this to Des Mois. It is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Yes. The guitar. Dumois is French for shut the fuck up. Yeah, let's go with that. I feel like we don't even need to like debug this, but here it is. First of all, the guitar solo.

And thank you to the people who tweeted at us that they were like fighting the good fight and the DMs with the Des Mois account being like, you haven't heard the guitar solo. Like, I love you. One, the guitar solo. Also, two, since when has Taylor Swift ever had trouble, like, calling people out directly? What, like, where is this idea coming from that she was going to, like, disguise the song, and it's Johnson and not John Mayer? Like, get out of here.

Get out of here. Just get out. Just get out. The doors over there. You're not invited to this party. Stick to posting pictures of people at Lurr Fish Bar. You are not playing adult Uno if you come at us with this ridiculous shit. I don't have time for this.

There's too many other crazy things to talk about. Yeah. Not invited. Okay. Last John Mayer related question. Did you see, by the way? He's shredded the last deaden company show in San Francisco. He absolutely tore that up.

Good for him. Yeah. Wish him well. Here's the question from Kelsey. Grace, what's the question? John Mayer went to high school in where else, but Fairfield, Connecticut, where Bob Lefesson grew up, so please discuss, is Fairfield the biggest villain of the Speak Now era? No.

No, it's a town that produces grossly misunderstood human beings who have lots of talent and sometimes express themselves in ways that piss other people off. That's all I can conclude. I hope they get all of that on a sign and put it at like the entryway to the town main street. Because Fairfield, to my understanding, is like a sort of New England-D preppy Connecticut town. I just wanted to say like, welcome to Fairfield where grossly misunderstood human beings who have run-ins with Taylor Swift come from. All right. Scott, now that we know I can see you is a legit banger.

Thank you. agree. With a real chance to be a hit, doesn't that make the whole cruel summer is now a single thing even more baffling? Like, which would she prefer to be the bigger song this summer? I found this question really interesting,

but I don't know that I totally agree with the premise. I think it relates a little bit to what we were talking about in terms of does speak now, Taylor's version, feel like a huge moment in and of itself, not necessarily. Is it part of a massively huge summer, the likes of which we and basically no one else

have ever seen for Taylor Swift that's happening, yes? So, like, I just think she's in more as more mode. And I'm not saying that there aren't pitfalls for that. I'm not sure if Cruel Summer wasn't released as a single if, like, I can see you gets any higher than number five. That just doesn't, I don't know that that feels super salient to me.

So I think she's, just doing more is more. I'm not necessarily baffled by this. Do you agree? Yeah, I think this is like a TikTok feed that she's just swiping through and assuming that our attention spans are fairly short and trying to reload the algorithm with new stuff. I have to tell you, after last week, you convinced me about this song and I just can't think about it or see it in writing without thinking that the actual name of the song is I can see you. And then in parentheses, haven't had sex. before. I think about it every time.

I did not know where you were going with that. Every time I'm cheating in writing. Like, I just look. I can see you have a sex before. I was, I was a junior in high school who something that you just said might have fit a description of me at the time. Can you can form nor deny. But like, let's just say that.

And there is something very specific about the idea of the like up against a wall motif that is just so potent to me as like exactly what you think, like, what TV tells you is sexy before you have any idea. And it's just like so perfect to me. I feel embarrassed by how much I feel seen in that exact. Speak now in parentheses Taylor's version featuring I can see you in parentheses haven't had sex before. Taylor's version. Number five. Virgin Edition. On the Fyro Remix.

Yeah. It's fantastic. It's a great song. I love everything about it. It's definitely the highlight of this entire album. I can't believe this thing was left on the floor, except they do understand why. It didn't fit. And I'm sure there was some juzing up of this song

with Jack in the studio. It's great. But also, we got to, a couple of questions. And by the way, we got, I think, around 200 questions for this. So, like, I'm going to try to respond to some on Twitter. They're like, we're going to try to get to it. I cannot believe how many questions we got about this album. You guys have a lot of thoughts and I love it. There were a few about, like, do we believe that I can see you was actually from the vault or if it was more recent just because it sounds different. One, for reasons that we just went over,

you will never convince me that anyone other than that age Taylor wrote the song. And also, it sounds like, and there was a fairly critical review of this album, I think, in The Guardian that actually didn't like the song. So I wholeheartedly disagree with it on that note. However, the description of what was wrong with it was to call it actively bad maroon five core. I disagree with the actively bad part, but like if you are looking for a... But I understand. Like, if you're looking for a touchstone from 2010, you absolutely have them.

It's the same reason why it fits into that the TikTok video of the Gossip Girl intro dubbed over the song that I'm absolutely obsessed with and sounds so perfect. Hey, Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here. and I have the biggest news ever. It's like, this was happening at that time. I'm sure Jack switched it up a little bit and they did some work more recently on that song. But my juice ends, I absolutely buy that this was a 2010 song. Yeah, I'm with you.

Okay. Let's do a couple more and then we'll get out of here. Oh, I'm going to make you answer this. From Maria. Does it bug anyone else that she rhymes life with life in the electric touch chorus? Shouldn't the second line be got a feeling your electric touch could fill this ghost town up with light? Why does she use life again?

Are we even sure that the lyric genius is right? That was my question. That's straight off the vinyl. So like the internet seems to think that she does say light twice, but I listened back a bunch and I couldn't tell. They'd both wormed their way into my brain and I could just, if I thought about it as light, I heard it as light. If I thought about it as life, I heard it as life. you're giving the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, look, I'm having a very yacht rocky vacation right now, Nora.

And what I want you to understand is this song could fit right in with the best of the 80s rock. Electric Touch definitely sounds a lot like City of Blinding Lights by you too. It took me a long time to figure out which song it was, but that is the one. And I love the high core. this song builds and builds and builds. It gets better as it goes. It fits in right next to like a journey song. And right after like a hollow-note song.

I love this song. I don't care. Have you heard any song from the 80s? Like one of the biggest songs from the 80s was I wear my sunglasses at night. So let's not worry about whether she's rhyming light. with life. I'm just like eternally fascinated by how hard you ride for this song, but I'm happy for you. Okay.

Zachary asks, do you think she'll perform better than Revenge Live ever again, or do you think she won't not to risk crowds screaming the old lyric? She's going to perform it again because she's out of secret songs, Nora. I'm going to three shows in L.A. And what am I going to? I'm going to get the Valentine's Day song. Today was a fairy tale. I wore a dress.

You wore a dark gray t-shirt. I hope you do. I hope you get McCavity. Oh, God. I'm going to get the cat song. McAvety's a gingerbread tall and thin. I mean, you should want to get the cat song. This is, maybe this is my hottest take.

If you go to the Ares tour and you get Christmas tree farm or McCavity, you've been part of, an iconically weird moment in popular culture. I want Christmas Tree Farm. That song is great. Everybody's singing Christmas Tree Farm. I'm like getting so excited. I can't speak. In August in L.A.

Incredible. Under the mistletoe. That song is awesome. I would crush the backing vocals for that song. But if I get McCavity, I'm going to boo. Not like aggressively, but I'm going to be like the like bummed out Yankees fans. right now that have their like fists up against their cheeks and their faces are all

smushed with one hand and the other hand is just sort of slowly bouncing a boo sign thumbs down that's what I will do if I get macavity that was vivid it was very very vivid I think we're gonna get a lot of listen we're gonna LA's there's gonna be some extra shit I'm just I'm just telling you there's gonna be some extra shit in LA she's out of she's out of these surprise songs so we're gonna get better than adventure at some point in I think she has 20 more slots to fill, and in terms of legitimate album cuts, she has around 60 left.

So she has the material. But the reason I think you'll get it is because I think she's performing these songs live so that she can release Taylor's version of the Speak Now Live version. You do? Yeah, I think she's doing it. I mean, she put out a digital edition for purchase, which has Dear John Live and Last Kiss Live. Right.

Traders who go Never thought It's a thing that's there That she doesn't own If the point is that she wants to pull away The revenue streams Why shouldn't she do this? Now that the hurdle is

Is she going to do the Back to December Apologize? Mashup And obviously if she ever did That would be the clear, clear, clear tell that's the one thing that makes me think maybe not,

because if it was just a matter of, yeah, let's do these all gradually as surprise songs, package them together and essentially be able to say that you have Speak Now Live Taylor's version, I think she would absolutely do that in a heartbeat. And if it comes down to just that mashup, I guess she could just skip it. She could have just the normal back to December,

or she could do it. And how cool would that be? But yes, I think that's happening. And I don't think, I mean, I don't know. For what it's worth, my thoughts on the lyric have not changed, but I'm happy for her. I'm happy for everyone.

I think we should be more willing to acknowledge the fact that we're all messy humans, but whatever, I'll get over it. She's going to sing it. Everybody's going to sing the old lyrics, and that's going to be her gift to everybody. She's going to be like, I get it, I know. I don't know that they will, though. Like, I feel like the crap.

Because even I, someone who really doesn't like the new lyric, I accept it. And I don't believe that, like, I'm not, I've seen people saying that they don't like the change because they think that she's trying to like pull something over on younger people and pretend that it never happened. I don't feel like it's like that. I just feel like we. We live in a society where it's a little too difficult to acknowledge that we're not always nice. And because it reflects that quality, it irks me. me and also because I just think it's worse, but I have accepted Moth to a flame into my life

enough that if I were at a concert and she performed it, I would do it as God, A.K. Taylor intended. Okay. I like to claim some credit for that. All right. Last question. We'll go out on this because this has been thoroughly unhinged. Delightful. Unhinged. This is from Skill with a Will. Favorite celebrity to appear at the Ares Tour, I'm partial to Gordon Ramsey. I actually know your answer to this. You know what my answer is. You know what my answer is.

It's just JJ Watt. Yeah. I got to stick with the bit. I think that's Flav of Flav. Flav of Flav is a great call. I was really good. I really liked that he was getting involved with trading, trading bracelets. Shout out Flav of Flav of Flav.

It was cool. Yeah. I'd like to see Paul Rudd there, you know. Okay. 13 on the hand. No. I just appreciate the male adoption of Taylor Swift this summer. I like, okay.

I hear you. I loved that Ben Stiller went. Yeah. Like when do we hear from Ben Stiller these days? What's he up to? It's nice to know. It's nice to get a little window into that. Well, that's why it,

If you're famous, you're getting that VIP tent, let me tell you. All right. Good stuff. Nice to talk about this with you. Nice to talk about this with everybody. Seriously, thank you for the extreme amount of questions about this. DM destruction.

Like, email, I have things to respond to. I will get to that. Very cool to see the enthusiasm at the very last. at the very least to debate this album and to discuss this album. Very, very cool, very fun for us. And we'll try to get to as many of those as possible that we didn't already cover here. And with that said, this has been every single album, Taylor Swift. I'm Nora Prynciotti.

As always, he is Nathan Hubbard. We will be back with more next week. Thank you to Kai McMullen for production on this episode and to you for listening.