Taylor Swift fans are furious that she changed a misogynistic lyric in 'Better Than Revenge (Taylor's Version)'

• Taylor Swift released the rerecorded version of her third album "Speak Now" on Friday.
• She changed the chorus of "Better Than Revenge," which previously included a slut-shaming lyric.
• Fans are disappointed that Swift is quietly rewriting her own history instead of owning her mistakes.

Taylor Swift has finally unveiled "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)," but fan reactions have been tempered by an ill-received lyric change.

This is the third installment of Swift's "Taylor's Version" series, which are all modern revivals of her pre-"Lover" albums. The decision to rerecord and rerelease her back catalog was sparked by the sale of her master recordings to Scooter Braun.

Swift originally wrote "Speak Now" entirely by herself when she was 19 and 20 years old. It was released as her third studio album in 2010, shortly before she turned 21.

The album's primary themes of idealism, regret, and innocence — losing it, wanting it, and weaponizing it — are all captured in the fan-favorite track "Better Than Revenge." The emo-pop banger is Swift at her most bratty and reckless, projecting all her feelings of hurt and betrayal onto her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend.

"She's not a saint, and she's not what you think, she's an actress / But she's better known for the things that she does on the mattress," Swift sings in the song's original chorus.

Swift has admitted that she was "mouthy" back then and regrets putting some people "on blast" in public. The very title of the album is an ode to the messy, impulsive behavior begotten by youth.

However, "Better Than Revenge (Taylor's Version)" has undergone a striking revision. Now, instead of the infamous mattress line, Swift sings: "He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches."

—verônica (@folkspink) July 6, 2023

It's easy to see why Swift, at age 33, made this switch. The original lyric is a clear example of slut-shaming, and isn't a great look for someone who has publicly aligned her brand with feminism.

But as many fans have pointed out, "Speak Now" was never meant to be a feminist document. It's the product of a young girl in the spotlight, feeling all her feelings, trying (and often failing) to grow up.

The internalized misogyny that permeates "Better Than Revenge" isn't pretty. But it is a common symptom of girlhood, one that Swift has since outgrown. For her to quietly change the lyric now — instead of apologizing, perhaps, or using this as a teaching moment — comes off as an attempt to erase her mistakes instead of owning up to them.

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It also seems like a bad business decision.

Until now, the "Taylor's Version" albums have been shot-for-shot recreations of the source material. Changing the lyric could devalue the new song and give people an incentive to stream the original version — the very thing Swift is trying to avoid by rerecording her music.

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It seems Swift is going against her own previous advice on handling mistakes. In an essay for Elle just before her 30th birthday, she herself declared, "It's good to mess up and learn from it and take risks."

"It's especially good to do this in your twenties because we are searching," she wrote. "That's GOOD. We'll always be searching but never as intensely as when our brains are still developing at such a rapid pace. No, this is not an excuse to text your ex right now. That's not what I said. Or do it, whatever, maybe you'll learn from it. Then you'll probably forget what you learned and do it again.... But it's fine; do you, you're searching."

When reached for comment, a representative for Swift cited a scene in the 2020 Netflix documentary "Miss Americana," in which Swift spoke about "trying to deprogram the misogyny in my own brain."

"There is no such thing as a slut, there is no such thing as a bitch, there is no such thing as someone who's bossy — there's just a boss," she said. "We don't want to be condemned for being multi-faceted."