Taylor Swift's 15 Perfect Tracks

In honor of seeing my upcoming third Taylor tour next Saturday, I've decided to compile her best 15 songs. Before we start, let's state the obvious. Taylor has a lot of freakin' awesome songs. Many intriguing, unique tracks that deserve to be on this list but were just narrowly edged out by slightly superior jams. Also, as I'm a hardcore fan, you're going to see a lot of deep cuts here. And a lot of smash hits that didn't make the cut.

Keep an eye on my special category, I fitted each track with the best lyric contained therein. 'Cause Taylor's song topics may be perpetually simplistic and even at times circular (how many times as she essentially rewritten 'Teardrops on My Guitar?')... but what makes Taylor's music hit so close to home and capture the heart of the world is that she always mixes in, with the basic archetypes, a few lines that are either uniquely personal or cogently human: little bits and pieces that imbue these experiences with the genuine touch.

Now... this...!

Honorable mention: Ronan

Origin: Single (2012)

Best lyric: "(audible sigh)."

-- Much ado is made over Taylor only singing songs about heartache. Some people clearly have never heard this charity single Taylor wrote to help fight against cancer. She wrote it based on the blog of Ronan Thompson's mother, whose boy died at the age of four. It's easily as articulate as anything Taylor's written, and it's incredibly, painfully, heartbreaking. At one point the accompaniment momentarily dwindles to nothing and Taylor lets out a heavy sigh, it's the most genuine sound she has yet committed to record and it's almost enough to make me shed a tear.

#15 New Romantics

Origin: 1989 [Deluxe Edition] (2014)

Best lyric: "Baby I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me."

-- An archetypal T-Swift bouncy lament, on this tune she celebrates her perpetual unluckiness in love and resolves defiantly to make life into a dance party. It's catchy and fun and it captures the ethos of her current era flawlessly.

#14 Long Live

Origin: Speak Now (2010)

Best lyric: "If you have children someday... When they point to the pictures, please tell them my name."

-- With a sobering tone and a loitering guitar line, Long Live is a slow burn of an epic farewell, an earnest ode to the immeasurable heights and climatic cataclysms of youth: footballs games and parties, first dates and prom, LSD & Burning Man, whatever floats your boat, this heartfelt song is the anthem for you. "I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you," Tay sings. It's one of the most perfect finale songs I can imagine, I hope  Taylor will incorporate it into many of her future tours even though it was never a big hit.

#13 Fearless

Origin: Fearless (2008)

Best lyric: "Run your hands through your hair, absent-mindedly making me want you."

-- Taylor wrote Fearless as her fantasy of the perfect date. And in that, it spectacularly succeeds. It's a dreamy ditty both superfluous and strong, articulate and effortless. It really encapsulates Taylor's youthful naivete and charm, but it's also a song that lends her a fair bit of power. We could all use a bit of fearlessness, especially in love.

#12 All You Had To Do Was Stay

Origin: 1989 (2014)

Best lyric: "You had me in the palm of your hand, then, why'd you have to go and lock me out when I let you in?"

-- Taylor's first foray into true, pure pop, the 1989 album, is essentially one big effort to channel the dance pop stylings of Tegan & Sara's recent work, a duo she's actually played songs with who share many of the hallmarks she mined on this record. To that end, All You Had To Do Was Stay is her most successful song, in that it perfectly captures the exuberant restraint and audacious heartbreak of T&S's (that's Tegan & Sara, not Taylor & Swift) Heartthrob album. The lyrics hit especially home for me and it's just such a fun, forceful, bam pop slam of a lovelorn lament.

#11 Hey Stephen

Origin: Fearless (2008)

Best lyric: "'Cause I can't help it if you look like an angel."

-- Taylor's self-titled debut was a genuine country affair, but by the time her sophomore album came out she had settled on her more well-known amalgam of folk, pop, rock, and a little of her native country. Hey Stephen is something of a folk-pop masterpiece with a smooth cascading melody worthy of The Beatles, a carefree hummed vocal, a grooving bassline and the most adorable lyrics about a crush and Tay's unwavering resolve to win him yet.

#10 Haunted

Origin: Speak Now (2011)

Best lyric: "It's getting dark and it's all too quiet."

-- Despite carrying all of Taylor's characteristic flairs, Speak Now was an interesting album in that she pumped it with a lot of variety. It reminds me of (esoteric reference, but) in Megaman games how at the end you fight all these blank robots implanted with the powers & personalities of the past bosses. It's like Taylor was challenging herself to match other artists. On Haunted, she recreates the bombastic, balls-out approach to catastrophic longing which is part and parcel to 90s alternative band The Cranberries. One of her most exasperated, strongest, and just plain coolest songs, Haunted is a unique marvel in her collection, with symphonic accompaniment and wailing, desperate vocals.

#9 All Too Well

Origin: Red (2012)

Best lyric: "There we are again, in the middle of the night. We're dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light."

-- Brooding, bittersweet ballads have become something of a staple for Tay. And while she seems to wing them out with an effortless zeal, she managed to really tap the vein of something special with All Too Well. On this piano dirge enhanced by crawling electric guitar leads, Taylor spins the tale of two lovers who've spent much of their lives in the shadow of what seemed like the fate that they were meant for each other. But things fell apart, as things so often do, and it's a shadow that they'll never be able to outreach, for better... for worse... for life. It's almost like Bruce Springsteen all-time great haunting ballad, The River.

#8 Clean

Origin: 1989 (2014)

Best lyric: "When I was drowning, that's when I could finally breathe." {or} "When the butterflies turned to dust that covered my whole room, so I punched a hole in the roof."

-- On Clean Taylor collaborated with Imogen Heap, the #1 go-to name for hazy, atmospheric, sensually dark pop electronica. Not unexpectedly, it strikes me as one of Taylor's most mature tracks, a solid allegory between drug addiction and losing someone you've come to depend on as much as any addiction. But on a subtler level it sounds a lot like it could be about a suicide attempt, and the aftermath thereof.

#7 Highway Don't Care

Origin: Two lanes of Freedom (2013)

Best lyric: "The highway don't care if you're coming home, but I do."

-- Sure, you could argue it doesn't count as a Taylor song. But her presence on the track is absolute, and it's a pretty significant moment for her: she started out singing songs about Tim McGraw, now she's singing songs WITH him. If that ain't the definition of fame... Anyhoo, built around a clever song-within-a-song ruse (Taylor's singing the song that Tim's song's protagonist is listening to on the radio), Highway Don't Care is a pure slab of country romance and it's such a frickin' solid song. It bristles with a strong summer evening atmosphere and the taste of asphalt road, I can never get enough of it.

#6 Better Than Revenge (Live)

Origin: Speak Now World Tour Live (2011)

Best lyric: "Let's hear the applause."

-- On this song Taylor Swift does her best darn impression of Paramore. And it's a fantastic facsimile from the pounding chords, the roaring chorus, to the familiar Paramore themes of romantic rancor and battling over a beaux. It's unquestionably Taylor's hardest rocking song to date, and this live version takes it up to 11 with dueling guitar fury and an added instrumental section. Oh so fine. Added bonus: a lyric like "let's hear the applause" plays oh too perfectly for a live show, it's great to have it preserved in that form here (particularly since it's unlikely to make it onto any other Taylor setlists at least until the 2040 Speak Now 20th anniversary tour). 

#5 Forever & Always (Piano Version)

Origin: Fearless [Platinum Edition] (2009)

Best lyric: "And I stare at the phone. He still hasn't called. Then you feel so low you can't feel nothing at all."

-- When Fearless became Taylor's breakout hit album, an expanded edition became obligatory. But unlike her other bonus track versions, for Fearless she actually went back into the studio to record new tracks, and this set of songs was uncannily just as strong as the original album. The first version of Forever & Always was a decent mid-tempo rocker, but this piano version ranks as Taylor's all-time best, bleakest, and most elemental ballad. It's one of her rawest tracks to date, a sparser than sparse piano line with a lightly multi-tracked vocal that emotes such painfully acute sorrow it's almost a religious experience.

#4 Untouchable

Origin: Fearless [Platinum Edition] (2009)

Best lyric: "In the middle of the night when I'm in this dream, it's like a million little stars spelling out your name."

Well this is a surprise. Taylor's only studio-recorded cover song to-date and boy is it an interesting one. Completely, 180 degrees removed from any semblance of the modern rock slush of Luna Halo's generic original version, Tay's Untouchable is the earthiest, folkiest, most translucently ethereal ghost ballad in her discography. The somberly giddy tune calls out to the night with a spark of the divine. Pure magic... a strangely solitary moment in Taylor's entire catalog, like the pilot track of some tragically scrapped folk/seance album, in collaboration with the Indigo Girls. Where's the rest of it, Tay? It's actually folkier than her real collaboration with The Civil Wars -- a real folk band.

#3 Blank Space

Origin: 1989 (2014)

Best lyric: "Find out what you want, be that girl for a month."

-- Taylor's written a lot of songs about a lot of boys, but for this ditty she coyly turned the microscope around at the media circus surrounding her and wrote a song from the perspective of the twisted, love-crazed perversion of herself that she's accused of being! Pretty meta for Swifty and it also happens to be... holy shit, one of the best damn singles she'll ever make. Catchier than machine gun fire sprayed into a crowded room, it's also imbued with the utter glory of youth and that fun whirlwind of chaotic romance. It's Taylor's first genuine pop jingle masterpiece since her second album.

#2 You Belong With Me

Origin: Fearless (2008)

Best lyric: "Laughing on a park bench, thinking to myself, 'Hey, isn't this easy?'"

-- The first Taylor song I fell in love with and still nearly her all-time best. The soft verse, pulsating chorus and simple guitar chords harken back to the genius pop sensibilities of Nirvana, but with a 'bit' less melancholy. The story it tells of being in love with a friend who just can't seem to realize you'd be everything they could ever want if only they'd give you a chance at romance... it hits close to home for all of us, and is so eloquently worded here.

#1 Teardrops on My Guitar (Pop Version)

Origin: Taylor Swift (2006)

Best lyric: "And there he goes, so perfectly... the kind of flawless I wish I could be." {or} "The only one who's got enough of me to break my heart."

-- "Universal" doesn't even begin to describe it. Aside from being a masterclass in ear-catching popcraft, Taylor Swift's very first achey, wistful hit ranks among the all-time pantheon of unrequited love songs and, amazingly, it remains her best effort even a prolific eight years later. As Kramer once asked George, "have you ever yearned?" 'Teardrops' reminds us that we all have, even if it was just as a kid playing at crushes. Who's never played the fool for the one they love? If you've never had this experience in life, you're probably legitimately aromantic. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Taylor Swift's Ironic Path to Being Taken Seriously

If you've been living under a rock, Taylor Swift has finally made the switch from her archetypal vague mix of country, soft-rock, folk, pop-rock and bubblegum pop. Now she's playing real bubblegum dance pop, with bouncing edm beats and carefree lyrics, like Katy Perry or Lady Gaga.

Taylor Swift's organic pop style is the main thing that drew me to her initially. The soft-verse/loud-chorus dynamic of You Belong With Me was a picturesque and spot-on reiteration of the proud tradition typified in rock music by Led Zeppelin and Nirvana. Up until very recently, all her songs boasted a rich, full, live-sounding rock band behind them with drums, bass, and many guitars. Today's indie and modern rock sounds more like U2 and Yes than it does like my favorite rock artists: countrified crooners Neil Young and Tom Petty. But Taylor's music shares many of the qualities I adored about the music I grew up on from Petty & Neil: folksy organic instrumentations, straight-forward honest lyrics about life & love, and catchy verse/chorus structure. Tom Petty actually writes more love songs than Taylor.

Pop Theory

That being said, I love dance pop very much. And I was thrilled that Taylor finally changed up her style. I love her first four records, but I'm someone who craves varity. Besides, let's face it, she's been playing the same style for at least 3 records, but the first of that ilk is still by far the best: 2009's Fearless. It was time for her to change her style, she's done all she can in the old format right now. When she comes back to organic pop in the future, it'll be fresh and she'll be better equipped to make it really awesome.

When Red came out in 2012, it was supposed to be her transformation into pop. But instead, all the songs were the same as before. A couple of them had some electronic elements thrown on top, but listen closely to I Knew You Were Trouble -- hear that rhythm guitar holding the song together? Even her forays into dance pop still sounded like she wrote them in her bedroom on an acoustic guitar. So when the first single for her 2014 album came out, and it was real, EDM-pumping dance pop, I was thrilled. I'm really glad that Taylor is capable of doing different styles of music, and I'm excited to hear what she's going to do with this one. If nothing else, this will be her best dance pop album to date (since it's her only one), and that's worth more to me than just being her second, third, or fourth best pop-rock album.

A lot of fans aren't happy about the new direction. These are people who've been growing up with Taylor and wanting her to go in a more mature direction with her music. To a Taylor fan, going from deep songs like Ronan and All Too Well, to the bubblegum pop of Shake It Off, is a step down. But as a more critical connisseur of modern pop, I think I see the hidden agenda behind the switch. Don't get me wrong -- the primary reason Taylor is moving to dance pop is so she can fulfill her prophecy as the Stallion Who Mounts the World and finally conquer all four corners of the globe. Every new record thus far has seen a huge jump in her popularity and now her style will be the most accessible of all; she's going to be bigger than Jesus. But there's another advantage to making that switch. In the long-term, Taylor may finally get the respect she deserves.

Pop Hierarchy

One thing that has always annoyed me is how bubblegum dance-pop artists like Lady Gaga are touted as 'legitimate pop artisans' whereas Taylor Swift, who writes much more of her own music, plays much more of her own instrumentations, and writes equally-if-not-more complex lyrics, has roundly been written-off as a children's fad by the mainstream pop press. Even when they're praising her business ingenuity or inescapable popularity, it's done with an implied asterisk of "she's popular because little kids like her." Obviously, all branches of Top 40 have a huge youth audience. But there's an understanding that EDM, R&B-tinged artists like Gaga, Bruno Mars or Rihanna skew more into the teens, 20s, and adult contemporary audiences, while Taylor is placed closer to the children's market with the likes of Jonas Brothers and Justin Bieber.

As time has gone on, and Taylor's enduring popularity has proven steadfast, pop critics have slowly warmed up to her charms. Even so, she doesn't get credit for playing organic music like Adele, and she still doesn't get credit for crafting her style like Gaga. Presumably this is because Taylor comes from a country background. Will switching to pop change her perception? Yes, but not that much. She's still being touted as an extra-fluffy form of bubblegum. Thus far she's not winning over critics merely by matching beats with Gaga and Britney.

The real secret comes in when Taylor inevitably makes her switch back to a more acoustic, more organic, more live-band style. This may not come for many years. She has to go on her Napoleonic reign of conquest first. It could be five, ten, twenty years until she abandons bubblegum. But it is utterly, incontrovertibly, incorruptibly inevitable that eventually Taylor will go back to writing songs on acoustic guitar in her bedroom, like has been so instrumental to her throughout most of her life. When she's getting older, you can absolutely guarantee that Taylor will have a home studio and she'll take her guitar in their to pen lush, introspective records about life and the autumn of youth.

New Beginning

A lot of fans wanted Taylor to get more mature, instead of going pop. But the thing is, it wouldn't have made the impact it deserves. If she got more acoustic, more organic, more introspective right now, the media en masse would see it as nothing but more of her teenage diary entry songwriting style. However, after becoming a pop artist, when she does go back to her organic style and her confessional lyrics, finally it will be seen in the proper context. She'll be praised for writing all her own songs (like she did on Speak Now, to little fanfare), and critics will marvel at the sparse, haunting instrumentations. What's more, after playing dance pop, Taylor will naturally be inclined to be especially deep, especially complex, especially rich and organic. Because eventually she'll want to turn away from her new pop style, just as much as she wanted to turn away from her old style. And that's one reason why all Taylor fans should be happy about this change. Even if you're not keen on the style itself, this is part of a larger arc that is going to turn out in Taylor's favor, in many meaningful ways.