“Wildest Dreams” (Taylor’s Version), Saturday, May 7, 2022

Last summer, Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” started trending on TikTok. Of course this was in the middle of Swift’s massive project to release re-recordings of her studio records due to her inability to buy the rights to her original recordings. In the spring of last year, she released a massive re-recording of Fearless, the album that propelled the then teen singer to being one of the biggest internationally-recognized music stars. Responding to the TikTok trend, Swift posted her own take on it with the re-recorded version, despite the fact that the singer had stated that she would release her version of Red, 1989’s predecessor and the album that transitioned the singer’s style from Country to Pop, before any of her versions of songs from 1989 would be released. Fans hoped that Taylor’s version of 1989 was on the way, but in November of last year, Swift released a 31-track version of Red. Fans certainly weren’t disappointed as Taylor’s 10-minute Version of “All Too Well” went straight to number one on the Billboard charts, breaking the record for the longest number one song, a record originally held by Don McLean’s “American Pie.” Of the records that Swift still has to release, 1989 is certainly the most anticipated. Taylor Swift’s year so far has been quiet. But the year is still young.

SAY YOU’LL REMEMBER ME. But yesterday Swift raised hope for all of her fans of her 2014 record. She released a new version of the non-single track “This Love,” releasing it as a single single with last year’s version of “Wildest Dreams” as a B-side. Could we be getting Taylor’s Version of 1989 next? I have an unpopular opinion: I think that Swift will release 1989 last. I think this for the reason that 1) 1989 is a fan and non-fan favorite and 2) she is strategically bread-crumbing fans and casual listeners through a new string of hits. These hits are not the hits from the album but inner tracks, remixes, B-sides and songs that have been sealed in Taylor’s vault. Of the albums that we still have to hear, I think it will be interesting to see how Swift will reinterpret the immature songs on her eponymous debut and on Speak Now. What wisdom will early 30s Swift give her teenage and early-twenties self? I’m also interested to see how she interprets what many call her worst album, Reputation. Will she musically reinterpret the gimmicky EDM songs? How will she deal with the time that she was so self-absorbed, a time that the singer talks about hating in her documentary Miss Americana.

HIS CLOTHES ARE IN MY ROOM. “Wildest Dreams” wasn’t immediately a standout track from 1989, particularly on a Max Martin/Shellback-produced album calculated for the maximum amount of bangers. But just as a good perfume has three notes—top, middle, and base—Taylor Swift’s 2014 record has immediate catchiness and a lingering effect. More specifically, I’m pretty sure that I’ve been humming both songs “Wildest Dreams” and “This Love” for years without actually identifying them as Taylor Swift songs. You know when you’re walking and you get an ear worm from out of nowhere and you might even thing it’s an original melody? That’s what some Taylor Swift songs do. Another thing that makes “Wildest Dreams” familiar is that it sounds similar to Lana Del Rey’s 2012 song “Without You” from Born to Die.  Songs like “Wildest Dreams” introduce more sexual innuendo than her previous work, and 1989 and Reputation seem to have some similar influences with Lana Del Rey’s earlier work.   I’m interested in reading more about Kutter Callaway’s theory about Taylor Swift’s music’s influence on evangelicals and non-evangelicals in America. In a way, 1989 is the album that Taylor Swift declared that she was an adult and that she was more in charge of her destiny. I just wonder what effect this newly grown-up Taylor had on her  fans who were raised more conservatively? Personally being two and a half years older than Swift and raised in a conservative context, it was just prior to 1989’s release that I started taking charge of my destiny outside of my conservative context. My wildest dreams were no longer so far off.

Read the lyrics on Genius.

Original video:

Taylor’s version: