I’m A Crumpled Up Piece of Paper Lying Here
By Sarah Fournell
Miss Taylor Swift has an absolute chokehold over my livelihood right now — I am bleeding Red (Taylor’s Version). She has strangled me with the scarf she sings about in “All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault).” However, this long and arduous title has not deterred me from listening to this ten minute and thirteen second masterpiece on repeat.
Swift did not release the ten minute version she recorded in 2012 for Red because she believed it wouldn’t have been a sustainable length for an album. In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, she explained that she wasn’t expecting her favorite song on the album, the original “All Too Well,” to be a hit, but fans took it and locked it in their hearts. It is one of her most popular songs among fans and critics alike — and rightfully so. Ever since fans found out that there was a ten minute version, they have been obsessed with its potential release. Knowing her fans like the back of her hand, Swift blessed us with the full (and explicit) version on Red (Taylor’s Version).
Cue the tears.
All of the original verses from “All Too Well” are on this version, as well as several new verses and an outro. The new verses are bolder, casually cruller, and allegedly depict intimate details of Swift’s relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal, who I’ll refer to as “him.” Lyrically, Swift takes us through all four seasons, with a springtime budding relationship turned cold in winter. In addition, she revamped the track sonically, laying her sonorous lyrics on a whimsical electric synth pop acoustic bed.
The song begins with the original first verse, about the scarf Swift left at his sister’s house and “Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place.” It was jarring, upon first listen, being met with an unfamiliar verse while singing along to my favorite song. But the feeling quickly faded as I allowed Swift to take full control. She tosses us into the turbulence even sooner in this version, with an addendum to the second verse. With the line “And you were tossing me the car keys/ ‘Fuck the patriarchy’ key chain on the ground/ We were always skipping town,” Swift establishes him as a performative feminist.
She reiterates the fact that this relationship was one sided with several lines from the added verses such as “And I was thinking on the drive down/Any time now he's gonna say it's love/You never called it what it was” and “You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath.” Once again reminding us that she fell deeper and harder than he ever did. But her awareness of this inequity, Swift still pays homage to all the good times in this tumultuous relationship, which is noted by the original line from the bridge “And there we are again in the middle of the night/ We’re dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light.” It’s a song purely based in memory, and Swift acknowledges that what hurts the most is the remembrance of all the goodness.
The third verse revolves entirely on his shortcomings. And in true Swift fashion, she sprinkles in callbacks and easter eggs to other songs in her discography. The first line “All’s well that ends well/ But I’m in a new hell every time/ You double cross my mind” is not only a Shakspeare reference, but a connection to her song “Lover” in which she sings “All’s well that ends well to end up with you.” The following line, “You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine/ And that made me want to die” is an allusion to the nine year age gap between Swift and Gyllenhaal, and the fact that he pinned the relationship’s downfall on that. She highlights this age gap with hindsight, realizing too late that the two were not equals.
Swift muses on the downfall of the relationship being his idealized version of her. “The idea you had of me, who was she?/ A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you.” But she was never the jewel, but a lover scorned, “Not weeping in a party bathroom/ Some actress asking me what happened, you/ That's what happened, you.” Online, fans are doing full-on detective work in an attempt to identify the identity of the actress in the bathroom. By piecing together timelines and photos from around the time of their breakup, some deliberate that it was Jennifer Aniston or Anne Hathaway, and few have theorized that it could be Maggie Gyllenhaal, his sister.
“You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes/ Sipping coffee like you're on a late-night show/ But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willing you to come/ And he said, ‘It's supposed to be fun turning twenty-one.’” This stanza is a callback to her song “The Moment I Knew (TV)” about how Gyllenhaal flaked on her 21st birthday party, despite promising he’d be there. This again brings the age dynamic into the spotlight, with Gyllenhaal slighting Swift during a major life milestone, one he had already passed nine years prior.
And that was just verse 3.
Her fourth verse remains the same as the original version, followed by a new variation of the chorus. In this verse, she takes us back to the scarf that she left at his sister’s house, and how she’s still trying to find her old self again.
The fifth verse is one of the most poetic verses on the song and debatably in her discography. It begins with another dig at their age gap, “And I was never good at telling jokes, but the punch line goes/ I'll get older, but your lovers stay my age.” She laments on the ferocity of the breakup with “From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones/ I’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight”. This love was a battle and the breakup was a devastating loss, leaving Swift wartorn and empty.
Still wounded from the loss, she asks “Did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?/ Just between us, did the love affair maim you, too?” This line has me singing out loud on the street and screaming in the shower. As I write this through tears, I question why Swift left these lines on the cutting room floor. I could fill an entire novel with musings on these lyrics. Once again, Swift likens the end of the relationship to a winter, “‘Cause in this city’s barren cold/ I still remember the first fall of snow/ And how it glistened as it fell/ I remember it all too well.”
The new outro is the perfect length to a song that I never wanted to end. It’s full of echoes from both the original and new choruses, a perfect bridge between the new and old. No one except Swift can write a ten minute song that leaves you wanting even more.
In addition to the release of the ten minute version, Swift wrote and directed All Too Well: The Short Film starring Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink. In the week following the release of Red (Taylor’s Version), Swift has released a merch line completely dedicated to “All Too Well” consisting of tissues and the exalted scarf, as well as three different versions of the song, including a “Sad Girl Autumn” version recorded at Long Pond Studios. (Izzy called it on her sad girl autumn piece). It’s clear Swift has favorites within her tracklist, and I am all too well with that.
Although the song has relatively immature underlying themes of breakups and shortcomings of relationships, it’s clear how much Swift has matured since 2012. On the Red Tour, singing the song was a highly emotional experience for Swift, with multiple piano side performances culminating in tears. However, she has reclaimed those emotions, as shown in her powerful performance of the song on Saturday Night Live. In addition, there’s an overall maturity in her musicianship. The twinge of pain in her voice from the fresh wound has been replaced by the twinkle of a faint memory. It’s almost like you can hear her smiling to her past self, letting her know that everything will be alright.
“All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)” has destroyed me emotionally, only to pick me up off of the cold hard ground and leave me to dance in the refrigerator light. This track has become my sacred prayer, the only sound that is coursing through my headphones at any given moment. It was such a treasure to listen to this ode to a broken autumnal love under the reddish-orange falling leaves of Boston. “The city’s barren cold” has painted the perfect backdrop to this once torn up masterpiece. I almost want to thank Jake Gyllenhaal, since losing the “one real thing he’s ever known” led to this. Instead, I’ll continue to belt the words to my forever favorite song while I bake Swift’s vanilla chai sugar cookies.