Taylor Swift Swaps Out Problematic Lyric On Re-Recorded Version Of Speak Now
Ever since Taylor Swift announced that Speak Now would be the latest of her albums that she’d be re-recording, fans have been speculating whether she’d be swapping out a certain lyric.
Taylor is currently in the middle of re-recording her first six albums after music manager Scooter Braun infamously became the owner of her masters when he purchased her old record label, Big Machine.
On Friday, the Grammy winner unveiled “Taylor’s Version” of her third collection Speak Now, which contains the album cut Better Than Revenge.
As the title suggests, Better Than Revenge sees Taylor singing about getting her own back on a romantic rival, with the original chorus including the lyric: “She’s not a saint and she’s not what you think, she’s an actress, she’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.”
Since Speak Now’s first release in 2010, this particular lyric has been criticised for slut-shaming, with many fans wondering whether Taylor would rewrite the line on the new version of her album.
Well, Swifties finally have an answer.
It’s now been revealed that the re-recorded version of Better Than Revenge includes the tweaked line: “She’s not a saint and she’s not what you think, she’s an actress, he was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches.”
Although she never confirmed this to be the case herself, Speak Now has long been rumoured to be about Taylor’s brief relationship with John Mayer, most notably on songs like Dear John and The Story Of Us.
Prior to the re-recorded version’s release, Taylor told fans at one of her Eras tour shows: “I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote and the memories we made together.
“So what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m not putting this album out so that you can go and should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 million years ago.”