Music / Speak Now

"Left a small town, never looked back…"

^{Click to see the cover for Speak Now (Taylor's Version) (2023)} 

"There is a time for silence. There is a time waiting your turn. But if you know how you feel, and you so clearly know what you need to say, you’ll know it.
I don't think you should wait. I think you should speak now."

— The liner notes

Speak Now is American singer and songwriter Taylor Swift's third studio album, released on October 25, 2010.

The album keeps the country style of her previous work but incorporates rock and pop elements, beginning the shift toward genre mixing that would continue on Red. Lyrically, it is a loose Concept Album made up of words Swift regretted not saying to other people in her life when she had the chance, hence the title. The album's themes include romance, heartbreak, and forgiveness.

It is also notably the first (and so far, only) album that Swift wrote entirely by herself. A rerecording of the album featuring six previously unreleased songs, Speak Now (Taylor's Version), was released on July 7, 2023.

"Mean" has its own page.

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Preceded by Fearless, succeeded by Red.

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Tracklist:^note singles italicized

1. "Mine" (3:50)
2. "Sparks Fly" (4:20)
3. "Back to December" (4:53)
4. "Speak Now" (4:00)
5. "Dear John" (6:43)
6. "Mean" (3:57)
7. "The Story of Us" (4:25)
8. "Never Grow Up" (4:50)
9. "Enchanted" (5:53)
10. "Better than Revenge" (3:37)
11. "Innocent" (5:02)
12. "Haunted" (4:02)
13. "Last Kiss" (6:07)
14. "Long Live" (5:17)
15. "Ours" (Bonus Track) (3:58)
16. "If This Was a Movie" (Bonus Track) (3:54)
17. "Superman" (Bonus Track) (4:36)
18. "Back to December" (Acoustic Version) (Bonus Track) (4:52)
19. "Haunted" (Acoustic Version) (Bonus Track) (3:37)
20. "Mine" (Pop Mix) (Bonus Track) (3:50)
21. "Electric Touch (From The Vault)" (featuring Fall Out Boy) (4:26)
22. "When Emma Falls In Love (From The Vault)" (4:12)
23. "I Can See You (From The Vault)" (4:33)
24. "Castles Crumbling (From The Vault)" (featuring Hayley Williams) (5:06)
25. "Foolish One (From The Vault)" (5:11)
26. "Timeless (From The Vault)" (5:21)

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"There is nothing I do better than troping":

• Actor Allusion: On Saturday Night Live, Taylor Lautner said he regretted not standing up for Swift at the VMAs (because he thought Kanye and Taylor was doing a skit), before performing an impressive martial arts baton twirling routine as "what he wanted to do to Kanye". In the "I Can See You" music video, his character does the exact same choreography as he (alongside Joey King's character) faces down a squad of security guards to rescue "Speak Now"-era Taylor.
• Adapted Out: The (Taylor's Version) of the album removed "If This Was A Movie" as well as all of the bonus track remixes from the main tracklist. This is especially notable because she had no problem including remix versions on the other rerecording. It is extremely likely that this was done so that the album could be entirely self-written.
• Age-Gap Romance: The narrator of "Dear John" frequently mentions how young she was, implying that John was significantly older than her and that was one aspect of their relationship that was unhealthy. (The song is almost certainly about John Mayer, who dated Taylor when she was nineteen and he was thirty-two.)
• Age-Progression Song:
  • A minor one in "Mine", which chronicles Taylor's relationship with a guy throughout the years. More prevalent in the music video with tropes like Happily Married and Babies Ever After.
  • "Never Grow Up" watches a child grow from an infant to a teenager to an adult from the perspective of their mother.
• Album Closure: The record ends with a Sequel Song to Fearless's "Change": "Long Live," another song to her band about how they overcame the obstacles holding them back. Swift expresses the hope that they will remember each other forever, even if they should part ways someday.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • Hinted at in "Sparks Fly."
    You're the kinda reckless that should send me running,
    but I kinda know that I won't get far.
  • Deconstructed in "Dear John," where the narrator learns the hard way that there was a good reason people were trying to warn her off dating the guy.
    I look back in regret, how I ignored when they said
    "Run as fast as you can"
• Alone in a Crowd: The narrator feels this way in "The Story of Us":
  Now I'm standing alone in a crowded room
  And we're not speaking
  • The photo accompanying this song in the lyric booklet illustrates this, showing Taylor illuminated by a spotlight in the middle of a sea of heads at a party.
• Ambiguous Ending: Taylor doesn't resolve the conflict between her and her ex by the end of the "Story of Us" and "Back to December" videos. Considering the latter is about Taylor Lautner and the former is believed to be about John Mayer, these seem to have Reality Subtext to them.
  • However, the later music video for “I Can See You” has Lautner playing a character who springs Speak Now-era Swift from the Vault, indicating that the tension between them has been resolved.
• Arc Words: There are frequent references to a little girl walking all the way home.
• The Atoner: The narrator of "Back to December" is deeply remorseful for how she hurt her ex-boyfriend, and is approaching not just to try and get back together, but also to try and make up for it.
• Audience Participation Song: On Speak Now Live, almost all of the songs are accompanied by the roar of tens of thousands of audience members singing along with Taylor.
• Babies Ever After: The "Mine" music video ends with the couple happily married with a child.
• Beautiful Dreamer: "Last Kiss":
  So I'll watch your life in pictures
  Like I used to watch you sleep
• Bowdlerise: "Better Than Revenge" (Taylor's Version) changes the line "She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress" to "He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches". The reason behind the change is likely less about removing a suggestive line and more because the original song faced criticism for Slut-Shaming.
• Break-Up Song:
  • "Back To December" is an apology to from the narrator to her ex for treating them poorly.
  • "Haunted" is a barely-pre-breakup song, where the singer can tell something is going horribly wrong.
  • "Dear John," a scathing polemic to an older man who mistreated her but whom she finally escaped.
  • "The Story of Us" is another pre-breakup song about falling out of love.
  • "Last Kiss," where the singer laments the end of a love she thought would be forever.
  • "Foolish One" is about the narrator's regrets about ignoring her instincts in a failed relationship.
• Call-Back:
  • In the first verse of "The Story of Us", she sings about "how we met and the sparks flew instantly", referring to "Sparks Fly", an earlier song on the album.
  • In the “I Can See You” music video, Joey King’s character takes a moment to reflect on the dress her actress wore for the “Mean” music video, displayed in a glass case alongside a picture of her younger self and Taylor hugging. She later grabs a banjo to fight the security guards with - many of the tracks on “Speak Now”, including “Mean”, features a banjo.
• Concept Album: According to the introductory essay, each song is a letter to someone from Swift's past, telling them what she should have said when the time was right and hopes she still has time to say.
  These songs are made up of words I didn’t say when the moment was right in front of me. These songs are open letters. Each is written with a specific person in mind, telling them what I meant to tell them in person. To the beautiful boy whose heart I broke in December. To my first love who I never thought would be my first heartbreak. To my band. To a mean man I used to be afraid of. To someone who made my world very dark for a while. To a girl who stole something of mine. To someone I forgive for what he said in front of the whole world.
• Cover Version:
  • While on tour, she did a cover of a different song on every stop, ranging from Britney Spears' "Lucky" to "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" by Fall Out Boy.
  • After it was revealed "Enchanted" was written after she met Adam Young, aka Owl City, he covered the song, and altered some lyrics to tell her he was enchanted to meet her, too.
• Coming of Age Story: The album covers many of the tropes of growing into young adulthood, such as realizing Growing Up Sucks ("Never Grow Up"), seeing Parents as People ("Mine"), exploring one's sexuality ("Sparks Fly", "Electric Touch", "I Can See You"), and taking responsibility for one's mistakes ("Back To December", "Castles Crumbling").
• Country Music: While it's predominantly a pop album, the country sound is unmistakable. Many tracks include banjo and fiddle.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge: The narrator of "Back to December" admits it's probably too late to fix things between herself and her ex-boyfriend, and that it's all her fault, but she's still going to try and extend an olive branch because she misses him deeply.
• Darker and Edgier: While Taylor had covered breakups and unhappy relationships before, "Dear John" was her first foray into discussing a truly toxic one.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Speak Now", the guy's fiancee gets jilted and humiliated in public for yelling at her bridesmaid and having bad taste in wedding dresses.
• The Diss Track:
  • "Dear John" to John Mayer, who apparently took advantage of her and broke her heart. John responded in the press, and the song appeared to have worked splendidly.
  • "Better Than Revenge" to Camilla Belle. The song references Joe Jonas' song "Much Better", which was written about Belle.
• Domestic Abuse: "Dear John" was emotionally abusive and manipulative to the narrator, regularly driving her to tears, Moving the Goalposts on what behavior from her would make him happy, and alternating between being sweet and being a jerkass at the drop of a hat. The narrator laments not listening to people warning her about him, noting that he's done this to others, and expressing relief that she got herself out of the relationship before he could break her.
  You are an expert at "Sorry"
  And keeping lines blurry
  Never impressed by me acing your tests
  All the girls that you've run dry
  Have tired lifeless eyes
  'Cause you've burned them out
• Easter Egg: The lyrics in the liner notes have seemingly random letters capitalized—when isolated, they spell out secret messages about each song.
• Epic Rocking:
  • The live version of "Better Than Revenge" ends with a lengthy instrumental outro that allows guitarist Grant Mickelson to show off his chops.
  • "Dear John" clocks in at 6:43. It was the longest song in Taylor's discography until she released All Too Well (Ten Minute Version).
• Flames of Love: There is a love song titled "Sparks Fly". The song also says, "I'm captivated by you, baby, like a firework show."
• Genre Shift: A Swift trademark considering all her later output, it's already evident on this album compared to the the predecessor, but also across the songs on the album itself. The style ranges from the country ballad "Dear John" and the upbeat, fast, but equally firmly country-rooted "Mean", to pop-rock tracks of varying heaviness in terms of the rock part such as "Enchanted" (soft), "Long Live" (with a smattering of anthemic arena rock), "The Story of Us" and "Better than Revenge" (comparatively "hard") all the way to "Haunted", which would not have sounded out of place on an early Evanescence album.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Averted in the video for ''The Story of Us". When Taylor ducks behind her book, she can clearly be seen mouthing "Shit!" at the sight of her ex.
• Gossipy Hens: Two coworkers whisper about her in the cafeteria in the "Ours" music video.
• The Grovel: "Back to December" is essentially this in song form, with the narrator apologizing profusely to her ex-boyfriend for how she treated him and admitting she threw away a good thing when she dumped him, but that she wants to fix things and will do anything to make it up to him. It's left ambiguous whether or not it works, but the lyrics imply she doesn't really expect him to take her back, even if she hopes he will.
• Growing Up Sucks: The basic theme of "Never Grow Up," where she sings as a mother urging her child to "stay ... little" to spare them from the harsh adult world.
• Happily Married:
  • Swift and the Love Interest in "Mine" end up this way—loving each other fully even when it's hard.
  • The premise of "Timeless" is the narrator went into an antique shop, found a picture of a married couple, and wished her relationship would be just as "timeless" as theirs. The lyric video heavily implies that the married couple she was talking about is her grandparents Robert and Marjorie Finlay.
• Happy Ending: In "Mine" the singer and her boyfriend make it through a tough fight and come out stronger, with a renewed commitment to their relationship.
• Heist Episode: The music video for "I Can See You" serves as this.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: While this was written later than most examples (Swift was 19-20 years old while writing the album's songs), this certainly fits here, with more explicit sexual themes than prior albums being alluded to in one of the songs in the standard edition ("Sparks Fly"). A few of the "From the Vault" tracks ("Electric Touch", "I Can See You") delve further into this.
• Hotter and Sexier: "Electric Touch" and "I Can See You" have lyrics that more explicitly allude to sex, which is something Swift wouldn't fully explore in her music until reputation in 2017. One must wonder if their "From the Vault" status is because of this.
• Humble Pie:
  • "Back to December" is about the singer realizing what an awful mistake she made by dumping this great guy and that she threw away something good for no real reason. Now she's swallowing her pride and asking if they can fix things—but also admitting she screwed up and understands if he doesn't want her back.
  • "Castles Crumbling" has the narrator(s) (sung by Taylor and Hayley Williams, although it is not clear if the song is meant to be from two different people) lamenting how their life and reputation has been destroyed by their actions and now they are facing the consequences.
• I Just Want to Be You: "When Emma Falls In Love" ends with the narrator wishing that she could be more like the titular Emma and not lose herself in love like Emma didn't.
• The Insomniac: In "Back to December," she can't sleep because she misses her former lover and feels guilty about hurting him and pushing him away.
  These days I haven't been sleeping,
  Staying up, playing back myself leavin'.
• Intercourse with You:
  • "Sparks Fly" lives and breathes this trope, what with such lyrics as "You touch me once and it's really something / You find I'm even better than you imagined I would be" and the entirety of the bridge ("I'll run my fingers through your hair and watch the lights go wild / Just keep on keeping your eyes on me, it's just wrong enough to make it feel right").
  • "Electric Touch" and "I Can See You" go even further into this territory, with lyrics like "I can see you / Up against the wall with me."
• It's Not You, It's Me: Played with in the Break-Up Song "Dear John." The narrator asks if her blind optimism is to blame, or her boyfriend's "sick need to give love then take it away."
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In the Break Up Song "Last Kiss," even though she hopes he misses her:
  Hope it's nice where you are
  And I hope the sun shines
  And it's a beautiful day
• The Last Title: "Last Kiss."
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: During a performance at the 2012 Grammys, she switched a line in "Mean" to read "Someday, I'll be singing this at the Grammys..."
• Love at First Sight:
  • "The Story of Us" starts like this:
    I used to think one day we'd tell the story of us,
    How we met and the sparks flew instantly,
    And people would say, "They're the lucky ones."
  • "Enchanted" is about meeting someone and instantly being, well, enchanted.
    I'm wonderstruck, blushing all the way home
    I'll spend forever wondering if you know
    I was enchanted to meet you
• Love Makes You Crazy: "My mother accused me of losing my mind" in "Dear John".
• Love Makes You Dumb: The entire premise of "Foolish One" is the narrator initially ignoring her voice of reason saying that said her current boyfriend is an awful, neglectful person. She only deeply regret it when she finds out the guy was cheating on her.
• Lyrical Dissonance: As she said about "The Story of Us", "See, that made you want to dance. But it's a breakup song, so it's confusing. That's what we want here."
• Madonna-Whore Complex: In the "The Story of Us" music video, Taylor's love interest chooses a girl who's much more physical in her affection than Taylor is, who shows to be more flirty and playful.
• Meaningful Echo: "Mine" uses this quite effectively. In the story of the song, the young woman remembers "how we sat there by the water/you put your arm around me for the first time/ you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter/ you are the best thing that has ever been mine." At the song's conclusion, the woman fights with her husband, and feeling he is going to abandon her, runs off in despair. But he finds her and repeats the same words {ie the refrain} she has been singing in the whole song back to her with loving reassurance that he will never leave her.
• Messy Hair: In music video to "The Story of Us", her hair is straightened and frizzy, probably to make the adult Taylor look like a stressed high school student. She makes futile attempts to push her bangs out of her face during the interludes.
• New Sound Album: While less of a Genre Shift than Red or 1989, Speak Now has more of a pop-rock sound than Swift's earlier albums, relying on electric guitars and synth more than acoustic guitar and banjo. She also abandons the affected Southern twang she used on her first two albums. Speak Now Live is even more so—the version of "Better Than Revenge" included on it borders on Heavy Metal.
• Nobody Thinks It Will Work: One of the bonus tracks, "Ours," is about this.
  Seems like there's always someone who disapproves
  They'll judge it like they know about me and you
  And the verdict comes from those with nothing else to do
  The jury's out, but my choice is you
• Ode to Youth: "Never Grow Up" is sung by a mother to her child at various stages of development. In the chorus, she urges them to not grow up and stay small and innocent forever.
• Parental Love Song: In "Never Grow Up," she adopts the perspective of a loving mother watching her child grow up.
• Performance Video: "Sparks Fly" has one.
• Pimped-Out Dress: The lyrics to "Speak Now" mention the new bride wearing "a gown shaped like a pastry".
• Poor Communication Kills: The breakup in "The Story of Us" happens because "Miscommunications lead to fall-out." And then, she wishes to reconcile, but can't find the words to do it.
• Pop Punk: "Better Than Revenge" and "The Story of Us" wouldn't sound out of place in a Paramore album.
• The Power of Language: From the introductory essay:
  Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together. I hope you use yours for good, because the only words you’ll regret more than the ones left unsaid are the ones you use to intentionally hurt someone.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Swift and her band are portrayed as this in "Long Live":
  And the cynics were outraged
  Screaming, "This is absurd!"
  Cause for a moment a band of thieves in ripped-up jeans got to rule the world.
• Real Is Brown: The office in the "Ours" music video is decorated in a way that makes it look very sepia-toned.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: To an even greater degree than usual on this album. All of the songs on Speak Now are supposedly about her relationships, each relating to one person or event, except for "Speak Now" (based on a dream) and "Mine" (totally hypothetical scenario).
• Really Gets Around: The subject of "Better Than Revenge" is "better know for the things that she does on the mattress."
• Rearrange the Song: Many of the singles were remixed for airplay on stations less friendly to country music.
  • The pop radio versions of "Mine" and "The Story Of Us" drop the country-ish electric guitar from the verse sections in favor of some Power Pop chords.
  • In a variant, she started performing "Sparks Fly" in 2007 and it became a viral hit on YouTube. She released a rewritten version of the song on Speak Now in 2010 (it was released as a single the next year) with electric guitar as the lead instrument as opposed to banjo, and slightly more suggestive lyrics.
• Revenge Ballad: In "Better Than Revenge", she admonishes the woman who stole her man, telling her she really should have known better because "There is nothing I do better than revenge". The bridge reveals that the song itself is the revenge.
  You might have him, but I always get the last word
• Romantic Rain: "Sparks Fly":
  Drop everything now
  Meet me in the pouring rain
  Kiss me on the sidewalk
  Take away the pain
• Runaway Groom: In "Speak Now," she asks her crush, who is about to marry another girl, to run away with her instead. In the end, he does.
  Don't say "Yes", run away now
  I’ll meet you when you’re out of the church at the back door
• Sequel Song:
  • In "Best Day" on Fearless, she sang about her relationship with her mother. This album has "Never Grow Up," a perspective flip sung by a mother (not necessarily hers) to her child.
  • "Long Live" is a sequel to her previous song to her band, "Change." Where "Change" referred to "the walls that they put up to hold us back," "Long Live" says:
    Long live the walls we crashed through
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Mentioned in "Last Kiss":
  How you kissed me when I was in the middle of saying something
  There's not a day I don't miss those rude interruptions
• Silly Love Songs:
  • "Mine" is a song about the narrator and her love interest weathering the storm of a relationship while the narrator's home life with her parents is unhappy.
  • "Sparks Fly" is about all the way the narrator is captivated by her chemistry with her love interest.
  • The album's titular track is a daydream where the narrator interrupts a wedding to proclaim her love to the groom and proclaim that they should run away together. Taylor said that she wrote the song based on one of her friend's (heavily rumored to be Hayley Williams) experience.
  • "Enchanted" is a song about the narrator meeting an extremely charming person and wondering if that person is single or reciprocates her feelings.
  • "Ours" is about being in love despite disapproval from strangers and even the narrator's father.
  • The narrator of "Superman" is desperately in love with a "Superman" that is too busy to spend time with her.
  • "Timeless" is about the narrator seeing a picture of an old couple and fantasizing about having a love just as "timeless".
• Slut-Shaming: "Better known for what she does on the mattress." She later revoked this lyric, attributing it to her own immaturity at the time. Taylor's Version changes it to “He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches.”
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: "Speak Now" is about her sneaking to her crush's wedding. When the preacher says, "Speak now or forever hold your peace," she stands up and asks the guy not to marry the wrong girl and run away with her instead.
• This Is a Song: "Dear John":
  Wonderin' which version of you I might get on the phone, tonight
  Well I stopped pickin' up and this song is to let you know why
• Three Minutes of Writhing: In the "The Story of Us" music video, the camera frequently cuts from the main storyline to Swift singing in the library, squirming against a wall.
• Title Track: The fourth track is called "Speak Now," referring to The Power of Language and specifically to the Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace trope.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: In the "The Story of Us" music video.
• True Companions: "Long Live" implies this relationship between her and her band, The Agency.
  Long live all the mountains we moved
  I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you
• Turn the Other Cheek: "Innocent," where she chooses to forgive someone (probably Kanye West) who had done her wrong, rather than hold them in contempt.
• Twirl of Love: Taylor's reunion with her boyfriend returning from deployment in the "Ours" music video.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: The inspiration for "Speak Now", according to Swift.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: In true Taylor Swift tradition, "Sparks Fly" mentions her paramour's lovely green eyes.
• Working with the Ex: Much of the buzz surrounding the "I Can See You" music video centered on the casting of Taylor Lautner, whose breakup with Taylor was the inspiration for another song on the album ("Back to December").

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