This Love (Taylor Swift who is it about)

• This mournful ballad was the only time on 1989 that Taylor collaborated with Nathan Chapman, the main producer of her first four albums.

• Asked by Pop Crush which of her 1989 tracks does she listen to the most on her iPod, Taylor replied: "I think the one that I kept going back to, over and over and over again, is a song called 'This Love,' actually. It's a song that I wrote by myself. It's kind of like hypnotic in a way, and it kind of is somewhat romantic and wistful and relaxing."

• According to a copy of Swift's diary included with the Target deluxe editions of Lover, the first draft of "This Love" was written on October 17, 2012. That was five days before her previous album, Red, hit the shelves.

• "This Love" is the only track on 1989 that Swift wrote solo. It originated as a short poem:

  This love is good, this love is badThis love is alive back from the deadThese hands had to let it go free

  And this love came back to me

  After Swift wrote it in her book, she went to bed and thought of a melody for the poem, then realized it could be a song.

• Swift re-recorded every song on her first six albums after Scooter Braun acquired the singer's old label, Big Machine Label Group and her master recordings. We got a sneak peak of her re-recorded version of this track, dubbed "This Love (Taylor's Version)," in the trailer for Amazon Prime Video's coming-of-age series, The Summer I Turned Pretty.

  A day after the preview, Swift released the revamped version on May 6, 2022, via Republic Records.

• "This Love" is the second "Taylor's Version" track from 1989 to be re-released, following "Wildest Dreams (Taylor's Version," which she dropped on September 17, 2021.

The story of a rekindled lost love is truly captivating and magical. On “This Love”, TayTay has managed to capture our hearts and feelings as we walk into her portrayal of this vivid event.

Lyrics of “This Love”

Taylor begins by comparing a dead romantic relationship to ocean waves crashing in. In the process, she sheds a brief light on how their relationship started unexpectedly. Just as fast as the waves crash in, they also sweep back out equally quick. This sums up how this love affair was like a whirlwind to her.  

When in love, the last thing that one would think about is the end of it. This is the exact same situation Swift herself in at the beginning of the said relationship. Even in her “wildest dreams”, she didn’t think the connection between her and her ex-beau would die out, only for it to do so unexpectedly.

Post-breakup, she does her best to move on “with someone new”. However, this act leaves her in a more sorrowful state as she’s constantly haunted by memories of her previous significant other. One could assume that Swift is simply trying to fill that emptiness inflicted by the breakup with someone else, or rather, just to subdue her broken heart with physical acts.

Unfortunately, no matter what she does, the love for her ex doesn’t die out. It keeps growing brighter like a “lantern, burning”.

When all hopes seem to be lost, the song takes on a ‘happily ever after’ feel in the form of the love she thought she had lost coming back alive “from the dead”.

Takeaway

At the end of the day, it can be said that “This Love” centers around the popular quote, “if you love someone, let them go. If they return, they were always yours.”

Release Date of “This Love”

The re-recorded version of this song (“This Love (Taylor’s Version)”) was released on 6th May, 2022 by Republic Records.

Originally from Taylor’s fifth album titled “1989” released in 2014, this is the second re-released track from this album following the masters of her first six album being acquired by talent manager, Scooter Braun. The first song from that album to be re-released was “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version)” (which was re-released in 2021).

Prior to her re-release of “This Love”, it was first promoted on the trailer of Amazon Prime Series’ “The Summer I Turned Pretty”. Later that day, at midnight, the full song was released. Swift had posted the trailer up on her Instagram page as a teaser to the full song.

Writing Credits

TayTay had solely written this track.

In fact, it all started as a “really really short poem” she had written in her journal in 2012. It wasn’t until she heard the melody of it in her head that she decided to transform it into a song.

Are there any difference between “This Love” and (“This Love (Taylor’s Version)”)?

Yes, there are slight differences! Taylor’s version features a more mellowed tone with clearer, less processed vocals as compared to the original. Further to that, it is also infused with an indie-vibe.

Taylor Swift’s “1989” Album

“1989” is an album by American singer and songwriter, Taylor Swift. It was released as her 5th studio album on the 27th of October, 2014. The album marked the beginning of Taylor’s switch from country music to mainstream pop. She named the album after her birth year, 1989 to represent her rebirth as a pop singer.

Big Machine Records, an American record label with a reputation for working with country and pop singers, was the record label through which the album was released.

After the release of “1989”, Taylor embarked on a seven-month world tour with the title, “1989 World Tour” to create awareness for the album. The tour grossed over 270 million US Dollars, with over 2 million tickets sold. It became the most successful world tour of 2015.

Success of Album

“1989” sold over a million copies within its first week in the US alone. It became the singer’s third album to cross the 1 million sales threshold in an opening week, making her the first artist to achieve that in the US.

The album peaked at the apex of the Billboard 200 in the US, spending a total of 11 weeks there. Aside from the US, “1989” was No. 1 in several other countries, including the UK, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia and Canada.  

In addition to the album’s commercial success, it received a lot of accolades from several publications and music critics. For example, it appeared on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list in 2020.

In 2016, the album won the award for “Album of the Year” at the 58th edition of the annual Grammy Awards. This win made Taylor the first female artist to win the said award twice as a solo artist. Her first win was in 2010 with her second studio album, “Fearless”, released in 2008. At the same event in 2016, “1989” took home the award for “Best Pop Vocal Album”.

“1989” recorded global sales of over 10 million copies by close of 2016.

Singles birthed by “1989”

In all, Taylor’s management released 7 songs as official singles from this Grammy winning album.

Photo: Courtesy of Big Machine Records

It’s Taylor Swift Day in New York City (and also everywhere else). As is standard practice any time Swift drops a new album, we’ve spent the mornings decoding the hidden messages in the liner notes of 1989 to figure out who (or what) each song is about this time. The big surprise: For the first time, Taylor’s hidden clues are complete sentences, and taken in order, they tell one single story (mostly) about one single dude. As Taylor explains in the forward to the liner notes, “I’ve told you my stories for years now. Some have been about coming of age. Some have been about coming undone. This is a story about coming into your own. And as a result … coming alive.” What does that mean? Join us below to find out!

1. “Welcome to New York”
Hidden Message: WE BEGIN OUR STORY IN NEW YORK
Using our remarkable powers of intuition, we have determined that this song is about New York City.

2. “Blank Space”
Hidden Message: THERE ONCE WAS A GIRL KNOWN BY EVERYONE AND NO ONE
This is apparently a plight-of-fame song like Britney Spears’s “Lucky,” but instead of committing suicide, she’s embracing the ridiculousness of her “man-eating, jet-setting serial dater” public image. Much more fun.

3. “Style”
Hidden Message: HER HEART BELONGED TO SOMEONE WHO COULDN’T STAY
Based on the timeline, the references to busy schedules, and the fact that his last name is Styles, we think we can safely assume that “Style” is about Harry Styles.

4. “Out of the Woods”
Hidden Message: THEY LOVED EACH OTHER RECKLESSLY
A second straight song for Styles. (The lyrics about snowmobiles and paper-airplane necklaces give it away.) Does that mean that every song on this album is about Harry Styles? They dated for like a month. Our months-long relationships can barely inspire a single tweet, but that’s probably why we’re not international pop stars.

5. “All You Had to Do Was Stay”
Hidden Message: THEY PAID THE PRICE
All Harry Styles had to do was stay on that boat, but he didn’t.

6. “Shake It Off”
Hidden Message: SHE DANCED TO FORGET HIM
Solo dancing is a solid post-breakup strategy, as anyone who’s watched an awards show in the past two years could tell you.

7. “I Wish You Would”
Hidden Message: HE DROVE PAST HER STREET EACH NIGHT
This is where we start to suspect that the guy in these liner notes is more of an archetypal boyfriend rather than one specific dude. Because: Are we really meant to believe that Harry Styles has been driving around Tribeca pining for Taylor? Is Harry Styles even allowed to drive in the U.S.? “Oi, I’m on the wrong side of the road, innit.”

8. “Bad Blood”
Hidden Message: SHE MADE FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
We’ll table that discussion for a second to get to the Katy Perry dis track. For the sake of plausible deniability, it was probably smart of Taylor to stay away from specifics, but we would have greatly enjoyed a “MAPLE LATTES”–style liner-notes subtweet here.

9. “Wildest Dreams”
Hidden Message: HE ONLY SAW HER IN HIS DREAMS
Back to the Styles debate! There’s no way of knowing exactly whether or not Harry Styles has dreamed of Taylor Swift, but lines like “He’s so bad but he does it so well” make us want to throw this one in the Styles pile, too.

10. “How You Get the Girl”
Hidden Message: THEN ONE DAY HE CAME BACK
If we believe the official fan narrative of the Harry Styles–Taylor Swift relationship, they had a brief fling in spring 2012, broke up after he made out with some girl in New Zealand, then got back together at the end of the year. With lyrics about “a long six months,” we’re guessing this song is about that.

11. “This Love”
Hidden Message: TIMING IS A FUNNY THING
This is a pretty clear reference to the few months in late 2012 that Taylor and Harry had off between tours. It’s also classic text-euphemism for “Hey, I know I kind of ditched you earlier, but now I’m sorry and want to make out with you again.” Harry Styles has definitely sent a text like that.

12. “I Know Places”
Hidden Message: AND EVERYONE WAS WATCHING
Remember all those times Taylor was photographed sneaking into Harry’s hotel late at night? This song is an ode to the paparazzi who gave us those images: “They are the hunters, we are the foxes.” In case you needed more evidence, Taylor wore a fox sweater on that Central Park date.

13. “Clean”
Hidden Message: SHE LOST HIM BUT SHE FOUND HERSELF AND SOMEHOW THAT WAS EVERYTHING
This sounds suspiciously like the random breakup advice Taylor gave that fan over the summer. Was she using Instagram to workshop liner notes? Anyway, this one’s about Styles, too, and if we take the references to being “ten months sober” at face value, it was likely written in late 2013, after the VMAs dis.

Who Is Each Song on Taylor Swift’s 1989 About?