Swifties, your sleuthing and easter eggs were right: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is next!
During Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour show in Nashville Friday, Taylor Swift officially revealed that her beloved third album, Speak Now, will be the next album that she will re-release.
“I think rather than me speaking about it,” she teased as fans began to scream, “I thought I would just show you. So, if you would direct your attention to the back, big screen that we have.” Behind her, the screen read: “Speak Now. Taylor’s Version. Available July 7.” Fans immediately flooded social media to post screenshots and live footage of the big reveal.
Soon after, Swift tweeted, “I first made Speak Now, completely self-written, between the ages of 18 and 20. The songs that came from this time in my life were marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness.”
She added, “I love this album because it tells a tale of growing up, flailing, flying and crashing… and living to speak about it. With six extra songs I’ve sprung loose from the vault, I absolutely cannot wait to celebrate Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) with you on July 7th.”
The announcement timing is quite fitting, as it arrives during her first of three shows in Nashville where she launched her career in country music. The city commemorated the occasion by lighting its famous John Sigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge purple Friday night.
“How many days did you spend thinking about #NashvilleTSTheErasTour? Do you find it dizzying?” wrote her official fan account Taylor Nation on Instagram, teasing the release with lyrics to “Lavender Haze” and a purple heart.
During Friday’s performance, fans were also treated to a surprise performance as Phoebe Bridgers was joined by her boygenius bandmates Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus for “Not Strong Enough” during her opening set.
In Tampa last month, before she performed Speak Now‘s title track, she told fans, “I’ve been thinking a lot about one of my albums recently. One of my albums has been on my mind a lot… Lots going on in my brain about it.”
Swift dropped another seeming hint during “Cardigan.” While singing, “I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, I knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs,” the singer winked directly into the camera as she sang “haunt,” which is more likely a reference to the Speak Now deep cut “Haunted.”
And then, following her shows in Atlanta last weekend, she included a purple heart in a tweet directed to Nashville. (Speak Now‘s album cover featured Swift in a purple flowy dress. Fans know: Each album has a distinct color scheme.)
Along with her coy comments, there have been numerous Swift-esque easter eggs in recent releases that have led fans to believe that Speak Now would be the next album to drop.
The video for Midnights‘ “Bejeweled” featured several hints. First, string instrumentations for two Speak Now songs, “Enchanted” and “Long Live,” were featured in the video.
Second, while she’s in an elevator that featured floor levels themed like her albums, she presses a purple button for the third floor, indicating Speak Now. There’s also a 13th floor that is colored purple — following blue for Midnights, red for Red (Taylor’s Version), and gold for Fearless (Taylor’s Version) — leading fans to speculate that Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) would be next.
As for more fan trivia that suggested Speak Now was next? The “Bejeweled” video dropped on Speak Now‘s 12th anniversary, and her hair in one scene for the video was adorned with hair clips with the initials “SN.” Plus, the fairytale theme of the video is on par with the theme for her Speak Now tour in 2011.
Speak Now, originally released in 2010 with its country-pop tinges, featured standouts like “Mine,” “Mean,” “Story of Us,” and “Enchanted.”
The new Taylor’s Version album follows the re-release of Fearless and Red in 2021.
In 2019, Swift announced that she was re-recording her first six albums after her label Big Machine sold her masters to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings — putting her legacy “in the hands,” as Swift said, “of someone who tried to dismantle it.”
After Speak Now, Swift has three albums left to re-release as Taylor’s Versions: Taylor Swift, 1989, and Reputation. We’re ready, Tay Tay.
From Rolling Stone US
