But she’s also still young, with so much to learn. She’s wounded, she’s in the same shambles he’s left girls in before, but she’s sharp enough to see a way through it for herself: “I took your matches before fire could catch me/ So don’t look now/ I’m shining like fireworks over your sad, empty town.” On Speak Now, she’s a lyrical genius. In Track 5 (essentially the emotional centerpiece of every Taylor Swift album), she glares at a much-older ex-lover and their tumultuous romance with remarkable acuity. Although she’s improved as a songwriter since (and benefited from collaborations, as any creative does), so many of the now-13-year-old lyrics really do hold up. Wanting to prove that her earlier successes weren’t just the product of her co-writers, Swift set out to write the whole album alone.
However, it’s that very paradox-mature adult/jilted teen girl-that makes Speak Now so special. Is there anything more teenage than recalling a short fling’s end with so much entitlement, so much drama, so much devastation? Written on the brink of adulthood, this scorcher of a track is believed to be about a relationship that lasted all of three months. And here’s how “Better Than Revenge” itself starts: “Now go stand in the corner and THINK about what you did.” It’s a pretty funny juxtaposition: She’s talking to someone as though she’s the mom and they are a misbehaving child, but her own tone is much closer to that of a tween.
