Just Give In to the Exquisite Sappiness of “All Too Well”

 For a brief, brief moment in time, “All Too Well,” track five on Taylor Swift’s fourth studio album Red, was an underdog. The heart-wrenching breakup ballad initially played second fiddle to radio bangers like “We Are Never Getting Back Together” and “22.” Soon enough, however, the song would be heralded as a Swiftian standout, going on to be listed as one of Rolling Stone’s best songs of all time. “All Too Well” has become a kind of autumnal anthem— and still, nearly a decade later, fans haven’t had enough.Today, Swift gave fans what they never knew they needed: An expanded, re-released Red, including “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version),” the standard, five minute long track; “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)”; as well as her directorial debut, 15-minute long film called All Too Well. “You chose this song,” Swift told the crowd at the film’s premiere at the AMC theater on the Upper West Side. “A record label didn’t pick this song as a single, we never made a video for it. This was a song that started out as a song on the album, just a simple track five,” she said, as the crowd of Swifties swelled with laughter. “You went and turned it into what it is now.” Swift later added that she thought it would be “fun” to make the song into a “cinematic universe.”

 

A fan sitting next to me, Connor Coleman, a 22-year-old student who makes fan art of Swift, called the song her “magnum opus,” and we both made jokes about wanting to experience the 10 minute song as a heartbroken mess despite being in happy relationships (I know, I know). Before Swift arrived, guests were dancing under the movie theater screen to Red tracks. We were given “All Too Well” tissues at the door, and signed posters as we left. When Tree Paine, Swift’s longtime publicist, came into the theater, necks craned to catch a glimpse. (“I love Tree!” I heard from the crowd.) When Taylor walked in, dressed in a purple suit, it was pandemonium. After nine years, we finally had the full 10-minute version of “All Too Well.”I say finally because superfans have heard tell of an extended cut of “All Too Well” since the album’s release. In 2012, Swift told George Stephanopolous, the song was difficult to write emotionally because “it took me a really long time to filter through everything I wanted to put in the song without it being a 10 minute song, which you can’t put on an album.”From the beginning, fans speculated that the ballad was about Jake Gyllenhaal, whom Swift dated for three months beginning in October 2010, when he was 29 going on 30, and she was 20 going on 21. (Her 21st birthday, when her boyfriend is a no-show, is the crux of another Red track, “The Moment I Knew,” and is referenced in the new version of “All Too Well.”)

 

 

There are two key pieces of evidence tying the actor to this mythical song. First, in the paparazzi shots of Jake and Taylor heading to his sister Maggie’s house in Brooklyn, Taylor is wearing a striped scarf. “All Too Well” is held together by first Taylor leaving the scarf at her paramour’s sister’s house, and then said paramour holding onto it. Second, Swift is known for leaving hidden messages in her album’s notes—specifically, irregularly capitalized letters in the lyrics of each song that spell out messages. The one for “All Too Well,” was “MAPLE LATTES,” which Jake and Taylor were reported to have on their walk to Maggie Gyllenhaal’s house. (For what it’s worth, Maggie told Andy Cohen that, although everyone asks, she has no recollection of the scarf.)When she announced that Red (Taylor’s Version) would be coming, Swift hinted that one of the songs would be 10 minutes long. Naturally, the fans went wild. “All Too Well” is a perfect breakup ballad, achingly sentimental and with one of Swift’s trademark song-making bridges holding it all together. Surrounded by my fellow Swift fans, it occurred to me that this trilogy—which made coupled-up people like me and Cameron briefly (and jokingly) long for the gut punch of a breakup—felt like a gift from Swift to all her lovesick fans, past or present, and permission to wallow.