B Movies Blog

Hello, Movie Mavens! Welcome back to the B Movies Blog. Today, we’re popping Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) into the ol’ VCR. 

It’s no secret that my favorite Era is Reputation, and I will be feral when Reputation (Taylor’s Version) is released. However, much to my surprise, Speak Now has brought back a LOT of memories. 

You see, I was a “write cryptic lyrics for a Facebook status” girlie, and I exclusively used pop punk and Taylor Swift lyrics as my source material. I was technically a closeted Taylor Swift fan (y’know, alongside being actually closeted), but, boy howdy, would I bust out lyrics from Speak Now and Fearless whenever I saw fit. 

Speak Now came out when I was 18-years-old and a baby college freshman living 165 miles away from home. To set the scene, I had liked someone off and on during high school. However, the feelings weren’t mutual, but for some reason, I just couldn’t let them go. 

I’m somewhere between 1989 and Reputation, myself. 

On one particular evening during Christmas vacation, I got upset about something. I’d like to go on record and say that he didn’t necessarily do anything to upset me. But, it was one of those situations where you like someone, but they like someone else, so on and so forth. The details are trivial, and even though 13 years is past the statute of limitations on blogging (at least I hope it is), that’s not the important part of this story. 

I wound up back home, sobbing, listening to “Back to December” on repeat (again, there wasn’t ANY REASON TO BE UPSET), and KP walked in with Taco Bell. She plopped down on the bed beside me, and in-between sobs and chewing, I looked her square in the face and said, “Taco Bell tastes better with Taylor Swift.” 

Naturally, KP had to stifle a laugh because I wasn’t doing a bit; I was serious. Regardless, she sat there with me for hours as I ate my dinner and cried over a boy I had no right to cry over. 

There are several big takeaways from this story, but the two biggest are: 

1. Speak Now means more to me than I originally thought. 
2. I’ve had the same Taco Bell order for over 13 years. 

Having to wear blue light glasses is my karma for wearing fake glasses from Claire’s throughout my teen years. 

I don’t know if it’s the comparison of how far I’ve come in life between releases, or if I simply forgot how many bangers were on Speak Now, but I felt rejuvenated after listening through the likes of “Mine” and “Back to December.” Additionally, I think it’s funny that I did wind up moving to a “big old city,” and the people who did bully me are still just “Mean.”*

*Note:  I wrote and deleted so many lines after this one to throw shade, but they aren’t worth the wordcount.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I digress. Speak Now helped to mend my little, fragile, unnecessarily broken heart, and it’s so weird to be revisiting it now at the precipice of 31. I wish I could tell 18-year-old Baillee what all she would accomplish, and that sometimes people just don’t like you back, and that’s okay. 

I wish I could tell her that she’d graduate and eventually find her place in the world, and would learn to unabashedly and unapologetically be herself. But, I wouldn’t have believed myself anyway. I would also tell her that she wasn’t done crying over people she liked, but it would get a little bit easier each time. I feel like Taylor would feel the same way. 

Baby Baillee might not have been able to properly articulate her feelings back then, but 30-year-old Baillee sure can Speak Now. 

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