Better Than "Better Than Revenge (Taylor's Version)"
Eight Lines That Would Have Been Better than "Moth to a Flame"
Editor’s note: I know I said I was done with Taylor content. My bad.
The re-record of my favorite Taylor Swift album Speak Now is out today, and for the first time in “Taylor’s Version” history, she’s changed the lyrics of a song on the original. Taylor released a new version of “Better Than Revenge,” long reviled by bloggers and feminists for its unbridled rage and slut-shaming, but adored by fans for, well, probably similar reasons, and removed the immortal second line of the chorus: “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.” And look, it’s only been 12 hours, and maybe I’ll feel differently when I’ve listened to the whole album through another few hundred times, but I think this is a huge mistake.
Firstly, it completely undercuts the entire purpose of the re-recording project, which is to create new recordings that are completely identical to the originals, so that fans who have spent two decades obsessively listening to one version can switch seamlessly to the other. I was willing to adjust to a few unavoidable discrepancies; a longer echo of a cymbal hit in “Love Story,” a slightly more explosive synth in “I Knew You Were Trouble,” sturdier, more polished breath control in some of the vocal tracks throughout. But wholesale lyric changes ask too much of fans who want to support Taylor’s righteous quest to stand up for the little guy (herself) and screw those private equity assholes, but who aren’t willing to throw away the relationship to the specific art in question just because the artist wants them to.
Secondly, changing the one line doesn’t really solve anything. The song is controversial because of the singer’s all-consuming rage at another woman, who she holds solely responsible for her own breakup. A more feminist, mature narrator would be just as angry at the boyfriend, and might also recognize that relationships are messy and everyone bears at least a little responsibility when they end badly, even when one person cheats on the other. The new version doesn’t have the mattress line, but it’s still the same song, with the same anti-feminist rage.
But thirdly, I think that’s okay! In Taylor’s own words, Speak Now’s songs are “marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness… [They] tell a tale of growing up, flailing, flying and crashing… and living to speak about it.” Feeling angry in an ugly, unfiltered way at the girl who your ex cheated with may not be nice or feminist or even productive, but it’s a real feeling, honestly described in a song that millions of people connected with. Besides, I always thought the song’s overwrought intensity comes off as kind of silly. Fans are capable of relating to the underlying emotions, while also recognizing that they are completely ridiculous and immature, and also completely fictional, contrary to all the breathless journalism and reddit historiography that attempts to map every line onto a different moment in Taylor’s life. Remember, this stuff is all made up! She never actually fought dragons or broke up a wedding or even got beat up by a high school bully either. She’s telling a story from the perspective of a character who expresses regressive, unproductive, sexist feelings. She’s allowed to tell that story, and her fans are allowed to listen to it, and if she feels embarrassed about the way she expressed those feelings fifteen years later, ultimately that’s too bad. She’s sunk hundreds of hours and millions of dollars into this re-recording project on the back of her fervent belief that art should belong to its artist. But it doesn’t. Really, art belongs to its audience.
Whew, that was a LOT for a song I don’t even particularly like. Anyway, my fourth objection lies with the replacement line she went with: “He was a moth to a flame, she was holding the matches!” Look, it’s not a bad line, and in another song I think it could actually be quite good. “Matches'' doesn't really rhyme with “actress,” although “mattress” didn’t either. It has a bunch of nice layers; there’s shared responsibility between the moth and the flame-holder, he’s a vapid idiot, she’s probably going to destroy him. But it’s much too restrained and considered for such a messy song. It’s the kind of thing you’d sing wistfully as you strummed an acoustic guitar alone in your room, not the kind of thing you’d shout at the top of your lungs at a rock concert, or out the window of your car while listening to your angry breakup playlist with your overly supportive friends.
If she was dead set on replacing the line, she should have gone with something much sillier and pettier. And if she’d been soliciting suggestions, this is what I would have pitched:
“She burned us down, now she gets to be queen of the ashes.”
Taylor loves “Game of Thrones”, and told Rolling Stone that the line about having a list of names in “Look What You Made Me Do,” was inspired by Arya’s kill list. Why not go back to the well? In that same interview, Taylor vociferously defended Daenerys’s genocidal rampage on King’s Landing, which she saw as a tragic commentary on the way society wants female leaders to fail. How’s that for feminism, haters?
“She’s pierced the hearts of sweet girls in their teens more than Katniss!”
On the subject of murderous female icons, it’s important to remember that Katniss Everdeen is only alive because 22 other innocent children were brutally murdered. Incidentally, Taylor wrote two songs for the soundtrack of the first Hunger Games movie, and they are both quite nice.
“She’s not a map to a dark, twisted place, she’s an atlas!”
Remember, this song came out in 2010. Atlases were totally still a thing back then. And for younger readers, an atlas is like a map, but like… more. More map. I won’t lie, this is the one line that I’m genuinely quite proud of.
“She’s such a diva, they’d probably eat her at Brat Fest!”
Every memorial day weekend, Madison, Wisconsin hosts Brat Fest, a four-day celebration of all things German sausage. Apparently these crazy cheeseheads ate more than 200,000 of these bad boys in 2009, breaking a world record. They’d eat anything.
“Her heart’s a wasteland, more barren and cold than Arrakis”
This could also be “than Iraq is,” if she really wanted to start some shit. Most people would probably hear it that way anyway. They sound exactly the same and I don’t think a ton of her die-hard fans have read Dune.
“He’s got a spot on his back he can’t reach that she scratches.”
This works as a shame-y sexual innuendo. It could also be read as genuine, grudging admiration for the care and support that this woman provides her ex. Scratching a back in just the right spot is one of the kindest and most loving things you can do for a loved one, and maybe Taylor is taking a break from her toxic screed to recognize this.
“Her clothes are ugly, the color scheme totally clashes!”
GOTTEM!! Who cares about this woman’s sex life? She’s been roasted to oblivion by this sick burn. That being said, Taylor probably wouldn’t want to throw stones from glass houses on this one.
“She never thanked me for bringing the guac, she was tactless!”
Don’t you hate it when you bring guac to a party and no one thanks you? The subject is clearly in the wrong here, Taylor’s outrage is completely defensible and justified. No one could possibly construe this line as being anti-feminist or regressive.