Did Taylor Swift Just Reveal ‘You Belong With Me’ Is Her Next Re-Recorded Song Headed for Release?
Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift leaves her fans hints every time she releases a new song, album, merchandise item — or, let’s face it, any time she opens her mouth to speak. During a December 2020 interview, Swift may have revealed the latest re-recorded song she’s planning to release is “You Belong With Me.”
Taylor Swift began re-recording her music in November 2020
Swift left Big Machine Records following her sixth studio album, Reputation. In the following months, she revealed that she did not have ownership over the master recordings from her records made there. Because she couldn’t buy them back due to Scooter Braun’s interference, she decided to re-record all of the songs.
Because of the contract she signed, Swift wasn’t able to begin the re-recordings until November 2020. That same month, news broke that Braun had sold her masters — but not back to the artist, as many hoped. “I’ve recently begun re-recording my older music and it has already proven to be both exciting and creatively fulfilling,” Swift tweeted.
She dropped hints about ‘Love Story’ before a clip of it debuted
On Dec. 2, 2020, fans got their first taste. “Okay so while my new re-records are NOT done, my friend @VancityReynolds asked me if he could use a snippet of one for a LOLsome commercial he wrote so… here’s a sneak peek [sic] of ‘Love Story,'” Swift wrote. “Working hard to get the music to you soon!!”
For fans who listen to all of Swift’s interviews, they know that she often uses them to plant Easter eggs. She did exactly this with “Love Story.” “So far, of the [songs] I’ve recorded, I think it’s been the most fun doing ‘Love Story,'” she said on Good Morning America on Nov. 25 — clearly a hint about what was coming.
Swift mentioned ‘You Belong With Me’ in an interview
Following the release of her 2020 surprise albums, Folklore and Evermore, Swift was named Apple Music’s 2020 Songwriter of the Year. Speaking with Zane Lowe, she mostly discussed her new albums, but she also touched on how Evermore overlapped with her beginning her re-recording of her old hits.
“There would be days where I would be recording ‘You Belong With Me’ and then I’d be recording a song like ‘Happiness’ which is on Evermore,” she said. “Looking back when I was a teenager and would write about my troubles in high school and the drama and pining away and all that stuff, that was all so valid to me at that time in my life.”
What is ‘You Belong With Me’ about?
“You Belong With Me,” for those who aren’t familiar with Swift’s early work, was the third single off her second studio album, Fearless. She co-wrote it with her frequent collaborator at the time, Liz Rose. “You Belong With Me” charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned three Grammy nominations.
“This song is basically about wanting someone who is with this girl who doesn’t appreciate him at all,” Swift told MTV of the song in 2009. “Basically like ‘girl-next-door-itis.’ You like this guy who you have for your whole life, and you know him better than she does but somehow the popular girl gets the guy every time.”
