15 Years of Speak Now by Taylor Swift
- Aimee Goldblum
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Fifteen years on, Speak Now stands as one of Taylor Swift’s most ambitious and self-written albums, blending country, pop, and pop-punk influences. It marked her artistic independence and lyrical maturity, even if it’s now an underrated gem in her discography. The Mic's Aimee Goldblum Reports
15 years on from its original release, Taylor Swift’s Speak Now is still one of her most ambitious projects to date – no mean feat, considering her now extensive discography. It is undoubtedly a quintessential Swift record, with its sprawling narratives and adept lyricism, every song entirely self-written. Folklore may have brought her high-brow acclaim, but Speak Now demonstrates, much earlier in her career, the elements which captured the eye of indie-folk bigwigs.
Released in 2010, Speak Now sits firmly in the period of Swift’s career during which she was signed to Big Machine Records, promoted solely as a country artist. Staunch fans of the genre have never been too welcoming of Taylor Swift; when she debuted, she was a 16-year-old girl from Pennsylvania with an unsettling fake Nashville accent, who sang about boys in trucks and silly teenage flings. A genre dominated by older men was not a place where 'Taylor Swift' types thrived – Carrie Underwood had won American Idol just one year before Swift’s debut, but female stars such as Shania Twain and Dolly Parton were moving past their commercial peaks. At Speak Now’s time of release, one publication even dubbed it ‘deserv[ing of] two guns down, 0 of 5 stars, and disqualification for even being considered as a legitimate work for review.’
Whilst Red, her next offering, gave Swift the opportunity to delve straight into pop with
collaborations with Max Martin and Shellback, there’s a distinct pop-punk edge to Speak Now not present on some of Swift’s earlier efforts, or truly replicated in her later discography. Perhaps it’s the result of her friendship with Paramore’s Hayley Williams - who had just released pop-punk bible Brand New Eyes - a burgeoning connection at the time of Speak Now’s conception. Or maybe it’s Swift’s admiration of Pete Wentz, bassist and front man of Fall Out Boy, that seeps through onto the record. Either way, fans clamouring for Swift’s 13th project to be a rock album need look no further than a record we’ve had for 15 years. ‘The Story of Us’ and ‘Better than Revenge’ are the pop-rock anthems they dream of.
Despite a few scathing reviews from country purists, Speak Now provides many timeless hits. ‘Dear John’ is a particular highlight of Swift’s discography: a meandering lamentation on an age-gap relationship, marrying her characteristic specificity (blatantly naming ex-partner John Mayer in the song’s title) with the ambiguity of a Dear John letter. Throughout her career, Swift has been able to make the personal universal, and no song encompasses this juxtaposition more succinctly than this. It sits at track five of the album, a slot usually reserved for the emotional centrepiece of a Taylor Swift record. ‘Dear John’ is no different, shattering the fairytale presented on ‘Sparks Fly’, of being ‘captivated by you, baby, like a fireworks show.’; in ‘Dear John’, she is ‘shining like
fireworks’ over the recipient’s ‘sad empty town.’ Her lover is no longer electric, but she is, finally taking back her agency. ‘Don’t you think nineteen’s too young to be messed with?’ Swift questions, confronting the listener with her age. Her vitriol prevents the track from feeling helpless or pitiable, though, a clear maturation from the drama of ‘Forever and Always’ on Fearless.
Not that Speak Now is devoid of theatre – ‘Haunted’ begins with a monumental orchestral arrangement that conjures images of Gothic mansions plagued by ghosts, paired with an equally melodramatic performance on the Speak Now World Tour. If there’s a song deserving of this, though, it is ‘Haunted’. The jutting melodies of the chorus, paired with the frantic strings, evoke a sense of desperation that rounds out the back half of the record, needed amongst the fun snark of ‘Better than Revenge’ and sombre ‘Last Kiss’. It’s a burst of energy before the record’s finale, ‘Long Live’, which brings us back to the fairy tale world Swift has spent the album’s duration dismantling. It's the perfect closer to the Speak Now story, which, while simultaneously acts as an album about maturing into a young woman, also emphasises the importance of, well, speaking now. 'Long Live’ encapsulates this, interweaving a fictional story of dragons and princes with messages of making your mark on the world. ‘We will be remembered’, Swift sings. This song has become especially important to the Taylor Swift mythos, developing into an anthem between fans and artist, a representation of the close relationship she maintains with her supporters. Songs like ‘Never Grow Up’ chronicle the disillusionment of growing older, while ‘The Story of Us’ explores what happens past the last page of the happy ever after.
Swift does keep the fairy tale alive on some tracks. ‘Enchanted’ is a sprawling love song written after just one encounter with her love interest, plagued with an underlying anxiety that carries through Swift’s discography. ‘Please don’t be in love with someone else,’ she whispers, before exploding into the final euphoric chorus. The real situation she is writing about – a chance meeting with Owl City lead singer Adam Young – quickly fizzled out, but the way Swift captures this in song reveals something eternal. The spark of attraction is a driving force of her music, and nowhere is this better accomplished than in ‘Enchanted’.
There are very few weak moments on Speak Now. ‘Mean’ is a little juvenile, but fun, and
although ‘Innocent’ hasn’t aged well in terms of its subject Kanye West, the melancholy remains timeless. ‘Superman’ is the only track I can say with confidence is a little lacking. The superhero story Swift weaves isn’t touched by the maturation she demonstrates elsewhere on the album, instead a simplistic song about watching her lover go to work, ‘or save the world’. Idealising the 9-5 is not relatable - sorry Taylor.
The spark of attraction is a driving force of her music, and nowhere is this better accomplished than in ‘Enchanted’.
While critical reception to the record was generally positive, the commercial success of Speak Now was marginally lacking in comparison to its predecessor. The lead single, ‘Mine’, peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, but the lasting impact has been vastly outshined by the likes of‘You Belong with Me’ and ‘Love Story’. The record debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200, though, so it’s not like it was a complete commercial failure – or one at all, really. In fact, Speak Now was Swift’s direct response to previous criticism levied at her, after rising speculation on the balance of work between her and other songwriters credited on Fearless. After Speak Now, no one could say she didn’t truly write her own songs, Swift undertaking the entire project solo.
Unfortunately, Speak Now is quite overlooked in terms of her discography – even by Swift herself. The ‘Taylor’s Version’ of the album saw limited promotion when compared to Red (Taylor’s Version) or 1989 (Taylor’s Version), and on the Eras Tour, she performed only ‘Enchanted’, and briefly, ‘Long Live’, before axing it from the set list. Critics too, are more likely to look back on Fearless or Red as early essential Swift records. Speak Now will always be my favourite Taylor Swift album, though, and as I look back on it 15 years after its release, and 11 years since I first discovered it, I’m almost thankful to have an underrated – as Taylor Swift albums go – gem to claim as my own. 20-year-old me scream-sings to ‘Haunted’ in the exact same way 9-year-old me did, and I expect this will be the same in another 15 years’ time.
Written by Aimee Goldblum
Edited by Ben Dale
Pictures and videos courtesy of Taylor Swift
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