Taylor Swift is and will always be a pop culture icon. Her music, her lyricism, and her journey as an artist and as a human being are all a testament to her talent. She is one of few artists who have made complete genre shifts, from country to pop to indie. Her Eras Tour is the highest-grossing tour of all time and is the most attended tour by a female artist. If you’re new to her music, listed below I have my top songs for each of her albums. Take a listen to dive into Taylor Swift’s discography!
Taylor Swift [Debut] (2006)
Should’ve Said No
This song is my personal favorite on debut, because of the strength she needed in her voice to perform the song itself. I feel like it’s a very strong, female rage song because of the way she poses the question ‘Was it worth it, was she worth this?’.
Our Song
This song is such a sweet love song, because of the way it’s so teenage love. Talking about moms, and slamming screen doors is so youthful. The chorus is unendingly catchy and true to her country origins.
Cold As You
This song is sad because of the hope that she held for someone, when in the end they could never live up to what she wanted them to. How even though she loved someone, it couldn’t change the reality of who they actually are. The piano and twang of the guitar create the perfect backing track for her voice. ‘A mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you’ is the epitome of what she is trying to explain in this song.
Fearless (2008)
Breathe
This song is about losing someone who is close to you, and how relationships ending can feel more like losing a friend because of the way they knew each other. It’s about knowing someone so well that when you lose them, it feels like you don’t know yourself anymore.
You All Over Me
This is arguably one of the best songs on Fearless. It feels so bittersweet, having someone then not having them anymore, but remembering them forever and never being able to stop having things remind you of them. It is a vault track, so I was tentative about listing it, but I feel like it’s so lyrically and musically beautiful to not include.
Mr. Perfectly Fine
Another female rage song, it points fingers at Joe Jonas like no other song could. It’s about appreciating the sort of things a person has until they leave you and what you used to have they have instead. The chorus switches up at the end, instead of her being upset, she realizes that he lost her because in the end she’ll be okay and he’ll regret what she lost.
Speak Now (2010 / 2023)
The Story Of Us
The mix of country and electric guitar in this song works so well, because of how desperate she sounds in it. The need to communicate with someone, but because of what they’ve both done, they can’t reach out anymore.
Last Kiss
This is the saddest song on Speak Now to me, because recounting the times you had without being able to go back, without being able to turn to someone and ask if they remember is one of the most painful feelings. The line ‘I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe’, because of the closeness they used to have and the distance present now.
Castles Crumbling
This song is about her reputation, how she used to have the world at her feet but the press and the world turned on her. She compares it to the loss of an empire, how the world saw her as a monster. How she never meant to be a monster.
Red (2012)
The Last Time
The harmonies in this song, first of all, make it an almost magical experience to listen to. The heartbreak of The Last Time isn’t from the fact that it is the last time, but instead all the times before that the pain continued, the ‘almost’ from everything that happened in their storyline.
State Of Grace
All Too Well (10 Minute Version)
I don’t think I have to explain this one too much- All Too Well is a masterpiece. Swift’s lyricism shines, and the slow realization a person is not right for you is pictured in this song.
1989 (2014)
I Wish You Would
This is my favorite Taylor Swift song of all time. The guitar, the teenage yearning, it is the epitome of pop music.
This Love
Out Of The Woods
reputation (2017)
Dancing With Our Hands Tied
So It Goes…
New Year’s Day
This is the perfect closing song for reputation because while it is a comeback album, it is also about love and all that comes with having a destroyed reputation. The line ‘Please never become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere’ is filled with such trauma and heartbreak, because at one point in your life you could know someone so well and never see them again.
Lover (2019)
Cornelia Street
Death By A Thousand Cuts
The opening of this song is one of my favorite parts of it, the repeated line ‘bye’ just opens the song beautifully. The upbeat pop and countless metaphors really bring together the song. The bridge might not be lyrically the greatest, but the way the notes descend and repeat makes the song all the better.
The Archer
This song is the anxiety anthem. ‘All my enemies started out friends’ is arguably the best line in this song.
folklore (2020)
my tears ricochet
the 1
This song was the perfect choice to open the album, a song that
peace
The bassline of this song is the best part of it, because it perfectly illustrates the soft but strong nature of the feelings in the lyrics. ‘All these people think love’s for show, but I would die for you in secret’ is the most impactful line, because it points to how Swift has been criticized for her dating life but no matter what happens would love despite all of it.
evermore (2020)
evermore
ivy
champagne problems
Midnights (2022)
maroon
This song is about circumstance, about how sometimes friends become lovers and the beauty that comes with that. The soft beat and things mentioned in the chorus coming back to relate to the color maroon are only some of the elements that make this song magnificent.
would’ve, could’ve, should’ve
‘Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first’ is the most impactful line of this song. The raw pain of remembrance, the self-reflection and hatred of wishing you’d never met someone. If only is the underlying theme, and the feelings of not knowing what to do about the pain you’ve experienced.
high infidelity
The main point of this song I feel is the evasion of a picket fence life, of fulfilling a stereotype of a housewife. The lyric ‘Your picket fence was sharp as knives, I was dancing around it’ illustrates the desire to avoid that kind of life.
