Taylor Swift is currently re-recording all her previous albums that Big Machine Records has ownership over, and “1989” is the fourth album that she has re-recorded.

Released on Oct. 27, “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” hit 1.359 million in sales in the first week and has 17 re-recorded songs and five “from the vault” songs. The five new songs are “Slut!,” “Say Don’t Go,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Suburban Legends” and “Is It Over Now?”.

To start with, “Slut!” is not what you would expect; it is a slower song about her dream partner not caring about how the media talks about them. Throughout her career, many people have discussed Swift’s personal life and how many men she has dated and has written songs about. This song explains how she is not going to be ashamed about what the media or the public says and how they will talk about her whether she dates someone or not. So she says she would rather date someone in hopes that it will work with them.

The second new song, “Say Don’t Go” reminds me of one of her other songs, “How You Get the Girl,” but has a darker feeling to it. She sings about how she wants this person, but they do not want her, and how she feels she was led on. The introduction to the song was good, but I wish the rest of the song had more to it. I find it very repetitive, and it is not one of my favorites. The song is catchy, and I like what is there, but I want a wider variety from it.

“Now That We Don’t Talk” is about a relationship after she and a partner stopped talking. There is speculation that this song is about Harry Styles, as some lyrics hint about it and as when she recorded it would have been around the time they were thought to be dating. This song seems full of revenge to me because most of the verses end with “now that we don’t talk” after complaining about their relationship.

The fourth new song, “Suburban Legends,” is about her dream of being with her high school sweetheart, but she acknowledges that they could not make it work and that it was just meant to stay where they grew up. She uses a lot of words that make you imagine high school and how this is a relationship that is destined to fail. With it all, she had to put a stop to what they had for their own good, and their relationship will live in the past.

To end the new songs, “Is It Over Now?” is about relationships that ended, and once they ended, the guys found girls just like her to date. This song is also speculated to be about Harry Styles because it was thought to be that both were involved in a crash, and there is a lyric, “When you lost control, red blood, white snow.” The way the lyrics flow with this song is beautiful and is my favorite one out of the vault tracks.

With all the songs together, I would give the new version of the album a 7/10. “1989” was not a favorite album of mine, but I do enjoy most of the songs out of it, and they are very well written.

26kfischer@usd489.com