Merry Swiftmas: A Swiftie guide to answering questions at the holidays
When Swifties head home for the holidays, it’s likely that they’re going to have to answer questions not just about their jobs and love lives, but also about whatever Taylor Swift is up to. So we’ve put together a cheat sheet for all your relatives and friends’ questions.
When you’re known to be a massive Taylor Swift fan, relatives and friends will often reach out to you while you’re home for the holidays with their latest questions about her and her music. But it’s sometimes a blessing. As long as they’re asking you about Taylor’s love life, they’re too busy to ask about yours.
In case any other Taylor fans need a refresher, we’ve put together a cheat sheet for how to answer the most likely questions you might encounter over Christmas or New Year.
Who is Taylor Swift dating now?
Taylor Swift has been dating British actor Joe Alwyn since the summer of 2017. Alwyn has appeared in films including Boy Erased, The Favourite, Mary Queen of Scots, Harriet, and Last Letter From Your Lover. While the pair tend to keep their relationship private, they have attended events together and Taylor thanked her boyfriend by name in her 2020 Grammys speech for winning “Album of the Year.”
Most notably, Joe has also co-written several songs on Taylor’s most recent albums with her under the pen name of William Bowery. The songs include “betty” and “exile” from the “folklore” album and “champagne problems,” “coney island,” and the titular track from “evermore.”
Why is Taylor Swift rerecording her albums?
The basic answer is that Taylor is rerecording all of her previous albums so that she can own her music. Taylor recorded her first six albums with Big Machine Records, the label that she had signed with as a young teenager while trying to get her start in the industry. She switched labels to Universal’s Republic Records, ensuring complete ownership of any future music after that initial contract finished.
However, music manager Scooter Braun purchased Taylor’s masters (or original recordings) of her first six albums when he bought Big Machine. He sold them to Shamrock Holdings without giving Taylor a chance to own them.
To add fuel to the fire, Taylor has a negative personal relationship with Braun, whom she has called a bully. In a blog post lamenting the sale, Taylor said, “My musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.”
So why the rerecordings? So that Taylor can own the songs once more with the idea being that fans will switch to streaming the new versions and any commercials or films that want to use her music will use Taylor’s versions as well.
Which album is Taylor Swift rerecording next?
Fans are still waiting on an official announcement from Taylor on which of the albums will be rereleased next. With “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” already out, theories are swirling about which one will be the next.
Only Taylor’s first five albums became eligible to be rerecorded in November 2020. “Reputation” won’t come for a while yet. Signs point to the next album being either “Speak Now” or “1989.” It seems less likely that it will be Taylor’s debut album that comes next, but she certainly has a way of surprising us.
What’s the deal with Jake Gyllenhaal?
With the release of “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and the ten-minute version of “All Too Well” finally in our hands, the relationship between Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal has come under the microscope all over again.
The pair dated for a few months in 2010 when Taylor was just 20 years old and he was 29 years old. Several songs from the “Red” album chronicle their relationship, from the effects of their age gap to Jake making Taylor believe that she’s not funny.
But why has Jake suddenly become the Internet’s most hated man? The cutting new information provided in vault songs and the extended version of “All Too Well” has made him into a symbol of all of the gaslighting manipulative older boyfriends and seemingly a target for women to work through their feelings on past relationships.
What is Taylor doing next?
Rumors about what Taylor might do in the next few months are many. They range from dropping “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” to her release of the third sister album to “folklore” and “evermore”. In the meantime, her songs are being used on television shows like “Dickinson” and Ed Sheeran may soon release a duet between the pair.
She’s also presumably celebrating Christmas with her family and boyfriend Joe Alwyn, who recently finished filming for the upcoming new television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s “Conversations with Friends.”
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