Taylor Swift‘s re-recorded version of her hit song “Love Story” is faithful to the original, but fans who have been listening for years will notice a few subtle differences in the newly released track. The country-turned-pop superstar debuted the complete reimagined rendition on Friday (Feb. 12).
Written by Swift and Nathan Chapman and released as the lead single from Swift’s 2008 album Fearless, “Love Story” has sold more than 18 million copies worldwide and hit No. 1 on a variety of charts in numerous countries, including Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs, Adult Contemporary and Mainstream Top 40 charts. The smash-hit story song earned CMA and CMT Music Awards, as well as an ACM Awards nomination, for its music video.
Swift teased this new version of “Love Story” in late 2020, when it soundtracked an add for the online dating platform Match that was directed by her friend, actor Ryan Reynolds. In full, it has a slightly more organic edge to it than the original:
The 2021 rendition of “Love Story” leads Swift’s newly recorded version of Fearless, originally her sophomore album. In a coded Instagram message posted on Thursday (Feb. 11), the singer revealed her intentions to drop the full Taylor’s Version of the album on April 9.
“Fearless was an album full of magic and curiosity, the bliss and devastation of youth,” Swift writes. “It was the diary of the adventures and explorations of a teenage girl who was learning tiny lessons with every new crack in the facade of the fairytale ending she’d been shown in the movies.”
Released when she was 18 years old, Fearless was Swift’s sophomore album. The best-selling album of 2009, it spent 11 weeks at the top of the all-genre Billboard 200, has been certified Diamond by the RIAA and is one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century.
Fearless was a hit at awards shows, too: In 2009, it was named CMA and ACM Album of the Year, as well as Favorite Country Album at the American Music Awards. At the 2010 Grammy Awards, Swift won Best Country Album and the all-genre Album of the Year honor for the record.
Fearless contains five singles among its 20 tracks. Swift’s re-recorded version of the album, which is now available for pre-order, promises new renditions of each song, as well as six additional bonus tracks, “written when I was between the ages of 16 and 18,” the singer notes, but not included on the original album.
“I’ve decided I want you to have the whole story, see the entire vivid picture, and let you into the entire dreamscape that is my Fearless album,” Swift explains. “These were the ones it killed me to leave behind.”
Swift is re-recording Fearless and her five other albums from her BMLG days following her split from the label — after the completion of her original record deal, she signed with Universal Music Group in 2018 — and a very public battle over her master recordings. BMLG is now owned by celebrity talent manager Scooter Braun, whom Swift says has been a bully to her over the years. She also says that she was not notified of the label’s sale ahead of time, and was never given a fair chance to acquire her masters or purchase the label itself.
Swift has been busy during the COVID-19 pandemic: In addition to re-recording her old music, she released two brand-new albums, Folklore and Evermore, in 2020. One song from each album — “Betty” and “No Body, No Crime,” which features Haim, respectively — was shipped to country radio.
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