Taylor Swift recently released the rerecorded version of Speak Now in her continued battle to regain control of her music.
The album, which was her third studio release, was focused on love and heartbreak, and inspired by her experiences with romance.
As the pop star continues to tour across the globe, many of her fans who have been listening to the reworked album have found themselves wondering who some of the love songs are about – especially Dear John, Last Kiss and Better Than Revenge.
Here is everything we know about the love songs and the people they are possibly based on.
It’s here. It’s yours, it’s mine, it’s ours. It’s an album I wrote alone about the whims, fantasies, heartaches, dramas and tragedies I lived out as a young woman between 18 and 20. I remember making tracklist after tracklist, obsessing over the right way to tell the story. I had… pic.twitter.com/I2cLH76EIH
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 7, 2023
Dear John
The power ballad is written as a love letter from a younger woman to an older man who is being told their relationship is over.
Swift sings: “And I lived in your chess game, but you changed the rules every day, wondering which version of you I might get on the phone tonight” before the chorus takes off asking “Dear John”, “Don’t you think nineteen’s too young to be played by your dark twisted games when I loved you so?”.
She later sings: “And I’ll look back and regret how I ignored when they said, ‘run as fast as you can’.”
When the song was released, it was widely assumed that it was about the star’s ex-boyfriend John Mayer.
The two reportedly dated between December 2009 and February 2010. At the time, Mayer was 31 and Swift was 19, and the break-up was said to be far from amicable.
Neither Swift nor Mayer have ever formally confirmed that the rumours are correct.
Last Kiss
Last Kiss is another love song from Speak Now that is about Swift’s heartache over a breakup.
She confesses: “I never thought we’d have a last kiss, never imagines we’d end like this, your name, forever the name on my lips”.
Swifties are convinced that the song is about Joe Jonas, whom she dated in the summer of 2008.
One of the details that have left fans convinced is the line “I ran off the plane that July ninth”, which they claim is a nod to how Swift flew over to Dallas on July 9, 2008 to attend a Jonas Brothers show.
Better Than Revenge
In Better Than Revenge Taylor Swift shares her desire to get revenge on a female romantic rival.
She sings: “I had it all, I had him right there where I wanted him, she came along, got him alone, and let’s hear the applause, she took him faster than you could say sabotage.”
Many suggest that the song is about actress Camilla Belle who dated Joe Jonas after he broke up with Swift.
The original song described her as “an actress” who is “better known for the things that she does on the mattress”.
In the re-recorded version of the song, Swift has changed the lyrics as the original one had been criticised for slut-shaming. It now says: “She’s an actress, he was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches,”
