All 286 of Taylor Swift’s Songs, Ranked

Nice one, London! You have inspired a Taylor Travelogue even more over-the-top than “Welcome to New York,” with visits to Camden Market, SoHo, Highgate, and everyone’s favorite tourist destination, Hackney. As the English are so fond of saying, she over-eggs the pudding, and no wonder some skeptics got their knickers in a twist, but her Britpop tribute evokes the louche music-hall parodies of London bands from Madness to Blur. (She was clearly bumping Parklife.) The best part of this song is its wide-eyed enthusiasm, the least London of emotions. We need more of these, please — maybe she’ll do “Marseille, Je T’Aime” or “Arigato Kyoto.”Best line: “Stick with me, I’m your queen / Like a Tennessee Stella McCartney on the Heath.

The opening act of Mr. Casually Cruel, a guy Taylor has kept meeting in her songs ever since. How did she possibly leave a song this strong off Fearless? Because she clearly figured that she needed to save “casually cruel” for an even better song a few years down the road. (One Mr. Casually Cruel wears “a well-pressed suit,” the other wears plaid shirts.) Poor Joe Jonas—now all her exes know that when Taylor sends their babies presents, it means there’s a song on the way. “Mr. Perfectly Fine” was the song that truly proved her Taylor’s Version project was for real—the outtakes from her vault weren’t leftovers or juvenalia, but bona fide Swift songs. Never be so casual you forget to be cruel; never be so cruel you forget to be casual.Best line: “Sashay away to your seat/It’s the best seat in the best room.”

Loaded with classic girl-group flourishes, right from the opening “Be My Baby” drum beat. Plus, it begins and ends with her finest humming solos. If she wanted to hum on every song, she could make that work.Best line: “All those other girls, well, they’re beautiful/But would they write a song for you?”

Taylor wrote “Babe” with Train’s Patrick Monahan, but tossed it to the babes of Sugarland. She sang lethal back-up vocals on their 2018 hit version — not to mention playing the femme-fatale supervillain in the Mad Men-style video. But it was worth the wait to get her own version on Red (Taylor’s Version), with Tay lingering over the “promises, promises” hook.Best line: “This is the last time I’ll ever call you ‘babe.’”

Did anyone have a Blue Nile revival on their 2024 bingo card? An old Eighties new wave tune triggers a romantic memory—“He sent me ‘Downtown Lights,’ I hadn’t heard it in a while”—and brings her most forbidden fantasies out of the vault. Taylor should keep going with songs about Aztec Camera, Scritti Politti, Talk Talk, and the Blow Monkeys.Best line: “What if he’s written ‘Mine’ on my upper thigh only in my mind?”

A somber piano ballad about getting stood up on your 21st birthday. This song got a major boost from the sequel “Happiness,” which Taylor happened to release exactly ten years after the party — just in time for her 31st birthday. But it stands out even more on Red (Taylor’s Version), as a companion piece to the expanded “All Too Well.” Has there ever been a more momentous birthday party in music history?Best line: “There in the bathroom/I try not to fall apart.”

Back when Taylor broke up with that hipster dude in 2012, the one who was into “some indie record that’s much cooler than mine,” he was probably listening to Bon Iver. (“Beth/Rest,” damn.) She and Justin Vernon blend their very different voices, for the story of a Romeo and Juliet who never learned how to read each other’s minds. At first it sounded like their vocals just don’t fit together — yet that’s what the song is about. It really soars in the final minutes, as the piano and strings build.Best line: “Like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me / Second, third, and hundredth chances / Balancing on breaking branches / Those eyes add insult to injury.”

The best version is live at the Grammy Museum in 2015—just Taylor emoting at her piano, giving the story room to breathe. The song deserved a do-over, since the studio version was a production wreck. Jack Antonoff was just learning how to record her voice and wow, he wasn’t even halfway there yet—why did this song need male Tarzan yodels? But the lyrics are packed with poignant details—did they take the Polaroid couch selfie before or after they moved the furniture so they could dance?Best line: “Two paper airplanes flying, flying, flying.”

“Honey” is one of Taylor’s favorite words — no songwriter has ever had more fun with it over the years. So it’s a major flex to finally use it as a song title. The passive-aggressive girls at the bar who say it to put her down, they could be her younger self, like the “New Romantic” club fiend who sneers “Honey, life is just a classroom,” or the “Better Than Revenge” schemer who says “I’m just another thing to roll your eyes at, honey.” She’s sung “honey” with affection (“I’ve had you for three summers, honey”) or desperation (“stay right here, honey, I don’t wanna share”), or as a sarcastic aside, as in “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Dorothea,” or “Getaway Car.” But in this song, she’s shocked at how good it feels to hear herself called “honey” by somebody who loves her. Best line: “You could be my forever-night stand, honey.”

Welcome back, Teenage Petulance Taylor. You were missed. In a crisis, she starts sleeping late, crying at the gym, scoffing, “Fuck it if I can’t have him.” Love the subtle callback to “New Romantics,” when she asks, “How dare you think it’s romantic / Leaving me safe and stranded?” The alien-abduction motif works too—the truth is out there.Best love: “For a moment I knew cosmic love.”

One of her most pop-friendly early hits, singing in the role of a high school geek crushing on her best guy friend. When he comes out in college, they’ll have a few laughs about this. And never let us forget the wisdom of Alicia Silverstone in Clueless: “Searching for a boy in high school is as useless as searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.”Best line: “She wears high heels, I wear sneakers/She’s cheer captain, and I’m on the bleachers.”

“You’re Losing Me” debuted as part of her Midnights Late Night Edition, which was available only as a physical CD, and only for sale on-site at the Eras Tour that weekend in New Jersey. (The song was later briefly available as a download.) It echoes “Epiphany,” with medics at a battlefield trying to find a pulse, except instead of a wounded soldier, it’s a dying love affair. But it all works, from Taylor’s sad sigh at the start, to her pained Joni Mitchell proverb: “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”  “You’re Losing Me” sounds even tougher now — it sounds more anything like a dry run for The Tortured Poets Department.Best line: “I wouldn’t marry me either / A pathological people pleaser.”

Taylor sings about a bad situation where she realizes when it’s time to give up and move on — not exactly her specialty. There’s different types of betrayal going on in this song, but the big moment is when she vows, “He’s got my past behind frozen glass, but I’ve got me.” (It’s like Hall & Oates sang: “The strong give up and move on, while the weak give up and stay.” Tay has so much in common with Hall & Oates.)Best line: “Fifteen years, fifteen million tears, begging till my knees bled.”

One of Taylor’s favorite heroines to write about: the small-town girl who broke free and ran off to the big old city because she wanted to chase the fame, only to wonder if she blew her shot at everyday happiness with the boy next door. (She probably didn’t.) “Midnight Rain” does the Prince trick of a butch/femme duet with her own electronically warped voice, enhancing the mood of nocturnal regret. The road not taken looks real good now.Best line: “My boy was a montage.”

Why did it take her five albums to get to Alice in Wonderland? Needless to say, Taylor Alison Swift fits right in on the other side of the looking glass, with white rabbits and Cheshire cats. Feed your head!Best line: “It’s all fun and games till someone loses their mind.”

An understated electro-ballad produced with Sounwave, giving thanks for some benevolent fluke of the universe (did some bird flap its wings over in Asia?) that has resulted in a functional romantic situationship. “2,910 days of our love blackout”—that’s six years, or approximately how long Swift had spent with Joe Alwyn. And she released it on the 12,000th day of her life? Hardcore. Lifted high by Midnights’ loveliest back-up vocals.Best line: “I was supposed to sweat you out, in search of glorious happenings of happenstance on someone else’s playground.”

She wrote this Lana-esque tale as a political allegory — looking at the whole country as one big high school where the damsels are depressed, and the mean cheerleaders leer at bad, bad girls.Best line: “The whole school is rolling fake dice / You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.”

An Eighties soft-rock groove that begins as a high-school crush, where she yearns to kiss her best friend—almost a sequel to “You Belong with Me.” As for the 50 Cent song playing at the prom, it had to be “Hate It or Love It,” right? (His most Swiftie Cent moment.) But the twist at the end—with a call from Abigail—is a real heartbreaker, with no lesson learned or consolation to give, just empty grief.Best line: “Don’t make it awkward in second period.”

She goes all Kate Bush, pursued across the moors by the hounds of love. This 1989 deep cut is underrated, but count on “I Know Places” to loom large in her canon over the years.Best line: “My love, they are the hunters, we are the foxes.”

A desolate break-up lament, lifted by Aaron Dessner’s melancholy piano. Every Taylor album needs a tragic New York City romance, and “Hoax” revisits the holy ground where she’s loved and lost before — even on her least metropolitan album. “You know you won so what’s the point of keeping score?” is an apt question from such a compulsive emotional score-keeper.Best line: “Don’t want no other shade of blue but you.”

Now there’s a quintessential Taylor song title. She knew this guy was trouble when he walked in, but as always, trouble is just her type. The moody coffee-house arrangement builds the tension. Love the way she sneers “Trust me”—for some strange reason, she always takes a bit of sadistic pleasure singing those words to a man.Best line: “Your Good Lord doesn’t need to lift a finger.”

The dawn of Petty AF Tay, as she serves her ex beatdown threats. Every boy who ever complained when Taylor wrote about him – this is where you officially got fair warning.Best line: “Watch me strike a match on all my wasted time.”

A Southern Gothic folk ballad in the Folklore/Evermore mode, from the movie Where the Crawdads Sing. It’s the story of a girl on her own in the North Carolina marshland, guarding secrets she’ll never share with anyone but the night. In many ways, “Carolina” feels like a sequel to “Cruel Summer,” but with bloodier secrets and a darker night.Best line: “Carolina pines, won’t you cover me? / Hide me like robes down the back road.”

Her tribute to Mama Swift. A weapons-grade tearjerker and not to be trifled with in a public place. NSFW, unless you are a professional crier.Best line: “You were on my side/Even when I was wrong.”

You could credit this song with single-handedly driving John Mayer out of the pop heartthrob business and into the Grateful Dead – which is just one of the things to love about it. Along with the Joey Ramone-style way she says, “Next chapter!”Best line: “See me nervously pulling at my clothes and trying to look busy.”

“Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart / Now I send their babies presents” — let the record show that Taylor dropped this line into the world two days after Joe Jonas became a dad. It’s official: she plans literally everything. “Invisible String” revisits some of the places she’s traveled, with a color and a memory for each one, over acoustic finger-picking.Best line: “Green was the color of the grass where I used to read at Centennial Park.”

A seminar on girl hearts and the wooing thereof, with Coach Taylor offering a pep talk to girl-curious boys everywhere. She busts out her trusty acoustic guitar, teardrop stains and all, just to turn it into a beatbox.Best line: “Stand there like a ghost shaking from the rain / She’ll open up the door and say ‘Are you insane?’”

Good question, Taylor: “Is it insensitive for me to say, ‘Get your shit together so I can love you?’” She joins her kindred spirits Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon in their band Big Red Machine, in this highlight from their album How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? “Renegade” is a love story where she’s trying to brighten the world of somebody who’s in love with the darkness. It could be her answer song to the Eagles’ “Desperado,” except with a bit more in the human compassion department.Best Line: “Is it really your anxiety that stops you from giving me everything? Or do you just not want to?”

“Please God bring me a best friend who I think is hot” is the new version of Joni’s “send me somebody who’s strong and somewhat sincere.” A beautifully candid love song from The Life of a Showgirl, cleverly mocking a whole litany of selfish fantasies, yet without quite renouncing any of them. She really does want it all, obviously—she wouldn’t be Taylor Swift if she didn’t.Best line: “They want that contract with Real Madrid / They want that spring break that was fucking lit.”

Romeo meets Juliet: Proof that star-crossed teen romances never go out of style. But changing the plot of Romeo and Juliet so these two crazy kids end up together — now that’s some endearing Taylor hubris. She keeps going back to the well of Shakespearean tragedy, quoting Julius Caesar in the “Look What You Made Me Do” video. It’s never been clear what the line, “I was a scarlet letter,” is doing in this song, but now it’s a hint that Tay was just a few years away from going Full Hester Prynne in “New Romantics.”Best line: “Just say yes.”

She tries on the moody “bad girl goes to church” vibe of Madonna circa Like a Prayer – addicted to love, falling from grace, going down on her knees to beg for one more kiss.Best line: “My name is whatever you decide.”

A pissed-off highlight of the debut, with an Oasis-worthy chorus. Savor the perfect Liam Gallagher way she milks the vowels of “begging for forgiveness at my fee-ee-eet.”Best line: “It was a moment of weakness, and you said yes.”

A love triangle that gets lowdown and vicious: “I don’t dress for women / I don’t dress for men / Lately I’ve been dressing for revenge.” The hint of this sexual vigilante seducing her lover’s wife adds a bit of spice, as does the idea of using cosmetics as a fatally glam murder weapon.Best line: “Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man / You did some bad things but I’m the worst of them.”

“Old habits die screaming”? Sometimes they don’t die at all, as in this cleverly crafted ballad, where Swift satirizes her post-breakup phone-stalker tendencies. Her ex forgot to stop sharing his location, so Taylor watches his movements from thousands of miles away, dreaming up a scenario where she imagines him walking into a London pub and trying to pick up a new girl. But she’s too young to recognize that song by the Starting Line. Best line: “You said I needed a brave man / And proceeded to play him / Until I believed it too.”

Teen Romantic Tay meets Bitter Adult Tay in a superbly disenchanted breakup ballad that gives up on princesses and fairy tales. “White Horse” has a new resonance since she updated the story for “The Tortured Poets Department,” changing the small-town high school to the Chelsea Hotel.Best line: “I’m not the one you’ll sweep off her feet/Lead up the stairwell.”

“They say ‘move on,’ but you know I won’t” — yes, we know. She’s always had a knack for songs about unrepentant old ladies, ever since her teens, and this “Mad Woman” could be Betty or Inez a few years down the line. But she could also be the heroine of “Dear John” or “15,” all grown up.Best line: “Women like hunting witches too / Doing your dirtiest work for you / It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.

A touching ode to the 1920s silent-film flapper Clara Bow, a Hollywood too-much too-soon legend. She was the original “It Girl”—the term was invented for her when she starred in It—only to get forgotten as soon as she was obsolete. Swift has told this kind of story many times, from “The Lucky One” to “Nothing New.” At first, the Hollywood suits say, “You look like Stevie Nicks in ’75!” But then at the end, their pitch is “You look like Taylor Swift in this light / We’re loving it / You’ve got edge / She never did.” Stevie and Taylor: truly sisters of the moon.Best line: “Crowd goes wild at her fingertips / Half moonshine, a full eclipse.”

Another through-the-years romance, featuring a snowglobe. This 1989 outtake was underrated for years, until she cleverly interpolated it into the “Lover” video — where it all takes place inside the snowglobe.Best line: “For once you let go of your fears and your ghosts.”

Enchanted to meet you, Goth Taylor. We’ll meet again.Best line: “Something keeps me holding on to nothing.”

A yearning prayer for a rock & roll boy on tour, weak in the knees as she pleads for him to jet back on any terms he chooses.Best line: “I guess you’re in London today.”

One of her defining early smashes – and the one that marked her crucial crossover to the minivan-mom adult audience, where country stars do most of their business. It also inspired the first anti-Taylor answer song – Joe Jonas sang, “I’m done with superstars/And all the tears on her guitar” in 2009, on the JoBros’ instantly forgotten Lines, Vines and Trying Times. She added a P.S. years later in “Invisible String,” after she and Joe became friends again — proof that her songs just go on rewriting themselves.Best line: “Drew walks by me / Can he tell that I can’t breathe?”

The most divisive track on Lover — but for those of us who cherish this song, it’s a tiny little haiku miracle. That harp. Those steel drums. That creepy Lost Boys choir. That “Moonlight Mile” guitar. The childhood vibe evokes the White Stripes’ “We’re Going to Be Friends,” but it’s all her. Also, love how this story starts with a lost glove — seven years after the lost scarf in “All Too Well.” Best line: “Call my bluff / Call you ‘babe.’”