Every Single Album - “You All Over Me” | Every Single Album: Taylor Swift

Episode Date: March 27, 2021

Taylor Swift revisits her country roots with a new single from the vault. In this emergency episode, Nora and Nathan give their instant reactions to the drop. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Isaac Lee Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to an emergency edition of every single album, Taylor Swift. Now, we're not here to talk about an album. We're here to talk about a song. And I've got Nathan Hubbard on the other side of this Zoom. It's been almost 12 hours since we heard you all over me from the vault, Taylor's new song. Nathan, what did you think? We have tears. We have rain.

We have God. We have references to a car. It's a Taylor Swift country song. I knew you were going to word cloud this. As soon as I heard it. I was like, oh, he's going to do the fearless word cloud with this song. I mean, having Aaron Destner produce a country song is a little bit like having an impressionist painter do your portrait.

You might not recognize the end product, but it worked. I was actually scared. It totally worked, though. And what I loved about it was that it felt really sort of throwbacky. Like, it sounded like a song that would have been on Fearless, right? And I guess that makes sense. She wrote this in 2008. you never know until you hear something.

And what I thought really accomplished that was that, so Marin Morris does back up vocals on this. And something that we talked about a lot when we were talking about the debut album, Fearless, and a little bit unspeak now, but to a lesser extent, that's when this was starting to thin out. Nathan Chapman used to do those backing vocals.

You told me about this over and over again. That would just sort of support her voice a little bit and give it a little bit more mf and a little bit more thickness and a little bit more just like bigness. And Taylor doesn't need that. anymore. But Marin was doing the same thing. Yeah. And I loved that because it just made it sound like a fearless song, like 2021 Taylor doing a fearless song. Well, it sounds a lot like superstar from the

deluxe edition of Fearless meets Time to Go from the Deluxe Edition of Evermore. But it has that full country, full chord vocals that Marin is laying on. And I don't know that we could have received this. if she'd release this after lover or after reputation, right? She got us back to this full circle through a bunch of the stripped down acoustic work from folklore and then through the end of Evermore. The intro to this song sounds like the beginning of peace to me. Yes. It has that little like pedal or whatever.

The Bonifere pulse. Yeah. And the beginning of time to go. It has that ding, ding, ding. Yeah. The sort of sicipated notes. And it has no banjo. It has no mandolin, although it sounds like mandolin,

but I think it's Desner with a fancy guitar and a capo up high on the fret, made to sound that way. And that's how we know there's no Nathan Chapman involved because Nathan Chapman never let a song get out without the mando and the banjo. Never met a banjo he didn't like. But Nora, I got to ask you, do you hear the twang? Is the twang back? Okay. I'm so glad you went there.

The twang is a little bit back. It's a little back. It's not all the way back. Reminds me of me. Yeah. Time. Like, it's something that she does with her, like, on the vowels. Yes.

Scratch it right off. Yeah. Wow. The Twang is back. The return of Twang. The Twang is back. It is back. And it works.

Yeah, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I kind of missed it. Yeah. I mean, we know now what the rest of Fearless is going to sound like. It's going to sound like mature Taylor. with just a kick-ass voice relative to where she was at the time. That's not to say she was in a bad place on Fearless at all, but just some of the vocal little inflections and coloring that have punctuated these last records,

she's poured it over into this new stuff, and she's eased back into the twang, and it works. It doesn't sound contrived to me, frankly, in the way that some of the early stuff might have. Yeah. Even the God and the country of... dirt roads and the tires.

We're okay with it. I was eating it up. I was totally eating it up. All right. Were you eating up the major clean vibes that we get from the lyrics? Yeah. Yeah. Well, so this is one of those questions that I had about the re-recordings in general, right?

Is like, what's it going to sound like and feel like to listen to these songs if they're about situations that don't carry the same emotional potency that they did at the time? Yeah. This one doesn't hurt as much as. clean for me. Like, clean, like, whoo, yikes. But she's got a line in there that showed up on clean, right? It was months and months of back and forth.

You're still all over me. Like a wine-strained dress, I can't wear anymore. I can't wear anymore. So that's what I'm talking about is, like, can't wear anymore. Clean? Clean has, like, there are scars. Yeah. This feels so much more, like, reflective.

to me. It's like there were scars once, but maybe not anymore, and now we're thinking back and talking about it. And I'm sure people have different sort of responses and interpretations of that. But that's, I'm really curious to just hear all of these songs. God, why isn't it? Can it be April 9th right now? Please, please, please, please, please. Because I just wonder if there are going to be some other tracks that feel like that. And I don't think that's a problem. That's sort of satisfying to me. I mean, she wrote this song at 16. Unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, she's got the double entendre of you all over me, right, which is both the, I need to get clean and get it off, but also like you are over me, right? And the sort of pain that comes with that. But some of these lines, the way the tires turn stones on old country roads, they leave it muddy underneath, reminds me of you. Like, that's not something that I was writing at 16. Are you kidding me? No, it's there, there are rhyme schemes that end at the, like, ends of phrases. And then she'll, she'll be. do that and then she'll flip to the chorus where it's internal.

Like, that is such a trick. Yeah. And I want to go back to other songs from this era and study that a little bit more and see how much of that she was doing. I have to do that at some point. But there's something about seeing, like, having it released now and then just remembering, like, yeah, we're getting this from 2021, Taylor, but 2008, Taylor was doing this. I know.

Well, she wrote it with Scooter Caruso, who is a. tried and true, like, full red-blooded country songwriter. He's written a bunch of stuff for Kenny Chesney. And so he's obviously had an impact on this. Don't know how much of it was Taylor, how much of it was him. Certainly, this was not a song written in the way that Taylor and Aaron Dessner have collaborated, where Aaron creates a bunch of the music and she sits down and handles all the melody and vocal coloring and lyrics.

This feels more like a song that she had with her guitar, writing in the key of D, which was comfortable for her vocal range at the time. But I have to ask you about the Easter egging component of this, because there was an Easter egg in the announcement, in the umbrella. Are we to just assume that that was about the rain? Well, are we to assume anything when it comes to Taylor Easter egging? Like, yes, I think you can draw. That's the linear argument, right?

That's the thing horse is not zebras. But I put nothing past her. Do you have alternate theories? I just want to know, like, what was up with the photo? The same dress that she posted with the folklorians quarantining together. But now she's in the bar. She's on her second drink. There's, like, weird, smoky red, blue light.

What is that about? I feel like we didn't get a full answer from this song. Something else is happening. Well, so here's my question. She's making me crazy. God. She literally, she's ruining our lives. Like, Taylor has destroyed our lives.

Why am I thinking about this? So, okay, I want to do two things here. So first, direct to your point, those photos were taken the week of the Grammys when they were all in L.A., correct? Yes. Marin Morris also at the Grammys. Yes.

Any chance they laid this down during that week? Yes. I think yes, right? If she could do happiness on the Thursday before she released Evermore on a Thursday night or whatever, she can do the Marin Morris vocals because I promise you,

Mary Morris is a one-take singer. That girl came in and laid that stuff down in about 45 minutes. I love Marin Morris. Yeah, she's terrific. I just, it feels like we're gearing up for something else, and I don't know what I'm missing, and I don't want to go insane trying to think about it,

but it is, you know, today is March the 26th. We basically have two weeks until this thing is out, and we're going to get some more in between, there's some more breadcrumbs and little bits that are going to be dropped over the next two weeks. I'm just going to tie myself to my couch. It's just over. Like, congratulations, Taylor. You are living rent-free inside my head for the rest of your life. Nathan's two. Like, that's just where we are. Here's what has been just, like, stunning me and then I can't get over. So the song is called You All Over Me.

There is a line in the song Endgame that has the phrase, You All Over Me. It's Drinking on the beach with you all over me. Why is she doing this, right? Why is she doing these re-releases? Her end game is to regain ownership of her work. Yes. Now, that's a song of reputation. That was a lot of years ago.

You think this is all premeditated. I just don't know. I'm losing my mind. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot that's happening. Let me ask you something about this song. We play this game on the normal pod. which is we force ourselves to cut a song from each album.

Yes. Which pisses people off because they think that what we're actually doing is like saying, oh, this song sucks. No, but it's a fun game to play. Don't get defensive. Force yourself to cut a song from an album. And we are going to play that game right now with Fearless because this song did not make fearless. Before we play the game, why?

Like, why do you think it didn't make fearless? That's what I meant. I think it might not have made fearless because it sounded somewhat, like Superstar and she decided not to put Superstar in the album. I mean, here's the biggest like Wanda Vision wink gif that the fan base has been dealing with for the last couple of days. This song leaked and you can find it, the sort of demo version of it, in the dark corners of the internet.

So the core fan base has heard this song before. And the answer to your question is, it didn't sound anything like this. Right. And that version also doesn't sound like what would, if this song had ended up on Fearless, it wouldn't have been that version of it, it wouldn't have quite sounded like that. Like the production on that seems very sparse

and doesn't match what they were doing on Fearless. Yeah, it's not a highly complicated, intricate song musically. And what carries it is, I think, her voice in this version. And maybe at the time, that instrument just wasn't ready to nail it.

That, and I'm not stalling on your question. We're going to do the Fearless thing. Yes, you are. Okay, fine, but we're still going to do it after I stall. Do you think that means that of the other from the vault tracks? Because I think people had the question once she was saying, you haven't heard this before,

that songs like, I heart question mark or I'd lie, those other quote unquote unreleased songs, but like people have heard those, that they weren't going to be a part of it. I don't know the answer to that. I sort of feel like they will be or at least could be. I think she's just saying haven't heard them as though like they weren't on the album.

Yeah, that to me, again, seems to be a little wink to the fan base. These are all intended to be sweeteners to get everybody to listen to her versions instead of the old ones, because, as you said, the entire point of this project is to reclaim her masters, although it does seem like now we have a 1A point of the project, which is she's having a lot of fun doing this. Yeah. And you can see it and hear it and all of the Easter egging aside, like it is fun to have a bunch of this stuff to talk about. But I'm going to make you do it. I need you to tell me, would this song replace a song on Fearless?

And if you had to cut one, what would you do? Okay, so are we talking about the Platinum Edition? You can choose that. That's fine if you want. I mean, I want to boot Superstar. I like this better than Superstar, even though it sounds like Superstar. It's just a little bit more protein to it than Superstar. even though, like, there's something about Superstar that I love,

but I think this is a better song. I would do that. I would also, I would take this over the other side of the door. Ooh. I really like this song. That's some shots fired. No, it's not. A little bit, it is.

There's some people really like the other side of the door. I also like the other side of the door. I really like this song. You're forcing me to do this. Yeah, okay. You're right. You're right. I am.

That's fine. Now your turn. Well, I told you. I thought you were going to get away with that. No, I think it would remember. play superstar. I mean, the really hard game that we would play here is what would you cut from the original Fearless? Yeah, that won the Grammy. And I don't know. I mean, that's where I look at it and go, okay, I get why she set it aside. I get why this one didn't totally make it. And maybe she was just

feeling superstar more than this. And so it ended up on the cutting room floor. But you're not going to cut, tell me why, are you? No. Okay. And you're not going to. And you're not going to cut Fearless 15 love story, Hey Stephen. I mean, look, the song that I, when we did our fearless episode, the song that I cut from this was, you're not sorry, which was like brutal. Yeah. I love that song. And I would not, if I had to choose between those, I would keep you're not sorry.

You would keep it. All right. So the answer is, we agree with her editing decisions on this. We just are overtaken with joy about the way that she released this and create. it. I can't wait to hear the re-release of Fearless. Obviously, I doubt that Aaron Destor produced the whole thing. Can you imagine? Yeah, I know, no. But based on what we heard from Love Story, we know that that's not the case. But it's going to be really interesting to hear the bonus material based on this. Can I just say one thing that I think is the cutest thing in the world that Aaron Destner does routinely?

Is that, like, Taylor will make some announcement. The entire internet will be set ablaze. And then several hours to a day later. After the baby wakes up from a nap. Yeah. Aaron will respond. Yeah. And he'll post some incredibly thoughtful note. Yeah.

And it'll just be like, I'm sure you were like, yeah, caring for your family and on a stroll in the woods. By the way. Yeah. What do you think of the hawk in this song? The hawk? I missed the hawk. You didn't hear that? No.

Okay. Listen back. There's a hawk. There's like a screeching osprey. What? Where? It's close to the beginning. It's like atmospheric. They leave a muddy underneath.

Oh, great. Something to look for. I got bent around the axle around the guitar solo, which sounds exactly like the guitar from Led Zeppelin's dire maker. And I know Aaron Destor stole that. Like on Fearless, Nathan Chapman would have given us like the traditional slide pedal steel guitar, but instead he gave us like a Zeppelin,

you know, Zeppelin sounding, It's awesome, but I miss the hawk. Yeah, go listen for the hawk. It just gives you like a little screech like you're walking through the woods. It's near the beginning. Good God. Are there going to be birds all over this album? There's birds on Evermore.

Yeah, fair enough. All right. Well, here's the takeaway. The takeaway is the future is bright. I'm more excited about April 9th now that I know there are multiple producers contributing to this project. There are old songs that absolutely hold. up and that are being produced in really interesting ways.

I'm excited because the twang feels real. It feels like she settled vocally and sonically into a believable place at 31 years old to take that voice back and recreate some of the magic from the early work. So lover's the next pod we're putting out and it's all rainbows and unicorns, isn't it? I'm so excited.

I'm in a very lover place with this one, even though it's sort of a sad song. I think we can wrap here, but before we do, let's do one bonus little category for fun. Do you have a favorite lyric from this yet? Yeah, I read it, which is the way the tires turn stones on old country roads, they leave it muddy underneath, reminds me of you. That's funny, because mine is where that flips back around,

and it's, 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. Like, that's how did 2008? 2008! Yeah. Unbelievable. It's unbelievable stuff. All right, Nathan. It's been lovely emergency potting with you, and I'm very excited for April 9th. On to the next.

And for our next episode that's going to come out, which is Lover on Monday. Can't wait.