Taylor Swift Explains Why She Needed 10 Years to Make ‘All Too Well’ Visuals
While Taylor Swift has plenty of well-loved songs in her discography, “All Too Well” has always been a standout. Hailing from Swift’s fourth studio album, the song has been a fan favorite since it was released back in 2012. During Swift’s original Red era, fans all but begged for a music video for the heartbreaking love song. However, it would take nearly a decade before they got any type of visuals to accompany the tune.
Taylor Swift directed a short film for ‘All Too Well’ in lieu of a music video
In 2021, Swift rewarded fans for their patience. For years, the “Blank Space” singer had been teasing fans that the original version of “All Too Well” was actually 10 minutes long. The Pennslyvania native put her money where her mouth was and released the extended version of the song when she released Red (Taylor’s Version). But she didn’t stop there. The Amsterdam actor also released a short film based on the tune starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien.
The ‘Midnights’ singer revealed that her record label didn’t fully appreciate the song
Fans were thrilled that they finally had visuals to accompany “All Too Well.” But why did it take so long for Swift to make visuals for the tune? Part of the issue seemed to be that Swift’s team didn’t see the song as being a hit. In conversation with TIFF, Swift explained that she and Swifties were the only ones who refused to underestimate the song.
“It was a song that I loved so much but it was never chosen by you know an A & R team in a conference room as being a single,” Swift shared about “All Too Well.” “Nobody saw the potential in it except for the fans who loved it so much that they made it sort of their favorite song on that album.”
Swift had a hard time performing ‘All Too Well’ when it was first released
But Swift’s record label wasn’t the only reason the song didn’t initially get a music video. According to the folklore artist, when the song was first released, she was too heartbroken to even consider making visuals for it. In fact, it was tough for her to even perform the tune at the time.
“For me, the song was so um tough because it was about something that, at that point, was very current for me,” Swift explained. “I would have like a really hard time performing it. At the time, like, I had to really like force myself to focus on other things to try to get through it during tour. So there was there would be no world in which I could have made a visual element to that song at that point in time. I needed 10 years of sort of retrospect in order to know what I would even make right to um tell a version of that story visually. And I’m so grateful that I was able to do that.”
It seems time has healed some of Swift’s wounds. We’re sure fans of “All Too Well” are grateful that Swift was finally able to deliver the visuals that they’d been hoping for.
