"This Love" is a song written and recorded by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). Swift produced the song with Nathan Chapman. An atmospheric ballad, "This Love" combines soft rock and synth-pop. Its lyrics use oceanic imagery to describe the revival of a faded romance.
Taylor Swift, an American singer-songwriter, had been known as a country artist prior to the release of her fourth studio album, Red (2012).[1][2] Many of the album's tracks incorporate predominantly pop or rock musical styles, a result of Swift's desire to experiment with the genres.[3][4] This prompted a media debate over the validity of her status as a country artist.[5] For her next album, 1989, Swift decided to create a "blatant pop" record and move away from the signature country styles of her previous releases.[6][7] She began writing songs for the album in mid-2013.[8]
"This Love" was the first song that Swift wrote for 1989,[9] and the only one that she wrote on her own.[10] According to 1989'sliner notes, she did so on October 17, 2012, when she was in Los Angeles.[11] Swift initially envisioned "This Love" as a "fun, little short poem" for her personal journal; when she came up with a melody in her head, she opted to turn the poem into a song.[12] To this end, she enlisted the help of her long-time collaborator Nathan Chapman, who worked with Swift on all her previous albums, to produce the track with her.[13][11] "This Love" was the only song from 1989 produced by Chapman.[14] The track was recorded at his Pain in the Art Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, and mixed by Serban Ghenea at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia.[11]
After 1989's release, Swift included the song on the regular set list for the album's associated world tour, which began on May 5, 2015.[20] The track appeared as background music for a Victoria's Secret holiday advertisement that premiered in December 2015.[21] Swift performed a stripped-down, acoustic version of "This Love" as a "surprise song" on the first Atlanta show of her Reputation Stadium Tour, in 2018.[22] On May 13, 2023, she sang the song at the second concert in Philadelphia of her Eras Tour.[23] Swift performed "This Love" on the tour again in 2024 as part of mashups with her songs "Call It What You Want" (2017) at the third Singapore concert on March 4, "Ours" (2011) at the second Dublin concert on June 29, and "The Prophecy" at the second Indianapolis concert on November 2. [23]
The lyrics are about feelings of heartbreak: "Lantern, burning, flickered in my mind for only you / But you were still gone, gone, gone."[34] Swift uses the ocean as a metaphor for a love that disappears and then comes back like the tides.[26] Critics considered it one of 1989's saddest songs.[26][35]Time magazine's Sam Lansky argued that the chorus's catchiness made it more hopeful than anguished.[30] Swift remarked that she frequently listened to "This Love", citing it as one of her favorites on the album.[9]
Critical reception
Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone selected "This Love" as one of the three best tracks on 1989, the other two being "How You Get the Girl" and "Clean".[25] In an album review for musicOMH, critic Shane Kimberline lauded it as 1989's best song, emphasizing the chorus and "classic Swiftian" lyrics.[36]Jon Caramanica of The New York Times thought that Swift's songwriting in "This Love" was less detail-oriented compared to her past work;[34] Mikael Wood from the Los Angeles Times took issue with the generic lyrics.[37] Marah Eakin from The A.V. Club considered "This Love" as one of 1989's weaker songs because of its midtempo balladry compared to the album's upbeat production,[24] and Corey Beasley from PopMatters found the atmospheric balladry out of place for the album's overall sound.[38]
Personnel
Credits are adapted from 1989 album liner notes.[11]
Taylor Swift – vocals, background vocals, songwriter, producer, acoustic guitar
Following a dispute with Big Machine Records in 2019 over the rights to the masters of her first six studio albums, including 1989, Swift announced her goal to re-record each of these albums. A snippet of "This Love (Taylor's Version)" was featured in the first trailer for the 2022 Prime Video original series The Summer I Turned Pretty, released on May 5, 2022.[41] The song was released on digital platforms on May 6.[9] Along with a digital single for "This Love (Taylor's Version)", Swift also released The Old Taylor Collection, merchandise themed to both 1989 and Swift's 2010 album Speak Now.[42] The re-recorded track is included as part of 1989 (Taylor's Version), which was released on October 27, 2023.[43]
Composition and reception
Compared to the original version, "This Love (Taylor's Version)" features strong elements of indie rock, which critics noted as a possible influence of Swift's 2020 indie rock-indebted albums Folklore and Evermore.[12][44] Much of the production remains the same,[45] but the synthesizers are more subdued, and Swift's vocals are less processed, more amplified and resonant.[27][44][46] Mary Siroky of Consequence highlighted the track as a testament to Swift's songwriting ability to "capture the magic, devastation, and fantasy of romance".[45]
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