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Fan Base: Archived: Taylor Swift (#1)
Member Since: 11/27/2011
Posts: 15,434
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Quote:
Originally posted by honey827
Bahjat I was not as strong as you.  I caved but I am so happy I did 
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Aww.
Well, I hope you enjoyed it!
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Member Since: 7/15/2012
Posts: 2,055
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bahjat
Aww.
Well, I hope you enjoyed it!
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Yes I did and I can't wait to hear if we love the same tracks.
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Member Since: 8/26/2011
Posts: 15,572
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Quote:
Originally posted by honey827
Yes I did and I can't wait to hear if we love the same tracks.
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I'm so glad I didn't listen to the album yet, Monday can't come quicker
Slay slay slay helped me satisfy my temptation without spoiling the whole thing 
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Member Since: 4/9/2012
Posts: 1,916
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Quote:
Swift Masters Puzzle ‘Again’
It’s moody, vulnerable, cautiously optimistic and charmingly spacious. To the casual listener, Taylor Swift’s “Begin Again” is an easy-going moment of ref lection. In fact, it’s a difficult puzzle that hooked together pieces submitted across more than a year’s time.
“You just get a puzzle piece of an idea, and you have to figure out where it goes and spread outward,” Swift says of her songwriting process.
In this case, the first piece was a product of rumination over a broken relationship. Some eight months after that romance ended, she was overseas—likely somewhere in Europe, though she’s not quite certain—and struggling to find peace internally.
“I was thinking about all the ways I changed over the course of the relationship and how sometimes the hardest thing to get past when you get out of the relationship is trying to remember who you used to be before that relationship,” she remembers. “So this song—the overtones are about moving on and finding new love; the undertones are all the insecurities that you now have from this old relationship and figuring out how to move on from that feeling.”
The initial line of the chorus, “You throw your head back laughing like a little kid,” provided the emotional starting place for “Begin Again.” It fit into a breathy part of her vocal range that matched the song’s tentative nature. And it hit at the pain that she’d felt in the relationship when her boyfriend consistently dismissed her jokes.
“A big part of showing affection is laughing at the jokes that they make,” she reasons. “If you withhold that from someone, you are withholding something very important, which is approval.”
In fact, writing “Begin Again” brought back the old insecurities, and she put the song away for months, unwilling to finish it. When she did finally dust it off, the end product referenced her public kinship with James Taylor—he made a surprise appearance during the final date of her Speak Now World Tour at Madison Square Garden—and it put the failed relationship in the rearview mirror with the conclusion in the bridge: “For the first time/What’s past is past.”
“I really like to have one line in a song that if I were to tell you that one line, it would tell you everything about this song,” she says. “I think it kind of sums up what the main message of this song is.”
Swift harbored insecurities about her composition, though they started to disappear when she introduced “Begin Again” to co-producer Nathan Chapman. She played it for him at his home studio, and he enthusiastically started assembling a simple production built around an atmospheric acoustic guitar. They worked on the song for about three or four hours, simply trying to capture the emotion in as natural a way as possible.
“It was kind of shooting from the hip and letting the musical creativity flow,” Chapman says. “When you have a great song, it’s so much easier to tap into that flow.”
Once the day’s efforts were done, Swift played it that same evening for Big Machine Label Group president/CEO Scott Borchetta during a drive in Nashville, and his reaction was even stronger than Chapman’s.
“He got out of the car and ran around the car six times,” Swift says. “He was so excited, he said, ‘I’m sorry, I have to do that again.’ So he did that a couple more times, and said that if I wanted to be done with the record, I had just finished it.”
There was, however, more to be done. Swift continued adding songs, and as the lineup grew, the puzzle became more complex. They wanted to keep “Begin Again” in the mix but weren’t really sure how to finish it. Ultimately, the team decided to bring a fresh set of ears and handed the tracks to producer Dann Huff.
“She is such a woman in that lyric,” Huff observes, “and to me, I felt there needed to be a juxtaposition between elegance and also a little ruggedness.”
Huff begin bringing musicians in one at a time at Blackbird Studios, layering pieces from bass player Jimmie Lee Sloas, Los Angeles-based drummer Aaron Sterling, guitarist Tom Bukovac, steel guitarist Paul Franklin and accordian player Charlie Judge. As it developed, the production continued to change—just like Swift’s self-view had changed during the writing process—and several of the musicians, including Sterling and Sloas, came back to make small changes in their parts of the puzzle.
In the end, Borchetta insisted on the song becoming a single. It charts at No. 23 on Country Airplay and ranks at No. 5 on Country Digital Songs after three weeks on both lists.
On the heels of the ultra-poppy “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Begin Again” reaffirms Swift’s ability to detail the mature aspects of a relationship’s impact on the psyche. Although she had her doubts about giving it to radio—it’s not the kind of positive, uptempo piece that broadcasters historically cheer—she says, “I am so glad now that [Borchetta] made me agree to bring it out as the single, because they are really valid emotions.”
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Member Since: 12/31/2011
Posts: 15,423
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Member Since: 8/26/2011
Posts: 15,572
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Quote:
Originally posted by dragonhunter
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Get dat praise BeGOD Again
I like how she has one line in a song that sums the whole thing up, like BA has "what's past is past" and LS has "This love is difficult but it's real"
Quen 
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Member Since: 12/31/2011
Posts: 15,423
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Member Since: 12/31/2011
Posts: 15,423
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Member Since: 5/9/2012
Posts: 38,050
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Quote:
Originally posted by Taylor Swift
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YAS! Stan for the masterpiece that is "The Lucky One" 
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Member Since: 11/27/2011
Posts: 15,434
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Quote:
Originally posted by honey827
Yes I did and I can't wait to hear if we love the same tracks.
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Me too! 
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Member Since: 12/10/2010
Posts: 23,117
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Quote:
Originally posted by Taylor Swift
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Listening to this right now. I love the lyrics 
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Member Since: 8/25/2012
Posts: 20,985
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this was in one of the reviews, lol
Quote:
, but given the [B]disciple[/B]-like devotion Swifties have for their heroine, there is no room for fatigue.
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Member Since: 7/22/2012
Posts: 18,064
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Quote:
Originally posted by Taylor Swift
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Such a great song!
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Member Since: 11/27/2011
Posts: 15,434
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Quote:
Originally posted by Taylor Swift
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Omg.
I had to see that, I don't think that I'll be able to handle the song, I'm going through the same thing. 
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Member Since: 4/9/2012
Posts: 1,916
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hcs
#1 we are never ever getting back together
#9 red
#16 begin again
#38 ronan
country digital songs
#1 we are never ever getting back together
#2 red
#5 begin again
#23 ronan
#47 eyes open
on demand songs
#1 we are never ever getting back together
#7 safe&sound
#20 mean
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/photo...2/Cmw_1018.pdf
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Member Since: 11/9/2011
Posts: 12,849
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Quote:
Originally posted by BlueMoon77
this was in one of the reviews, lol

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Taylor is the Lord, we are Her disciples. They know the tea. 
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Member Since: 12/31/2011
Posts: 15,423
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Starlight is such a magical anthem about Kennedy boy. 
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Member Since: 5/9/2012
Posts: 38,050
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;/
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Member Since: 12/31/2011
Posts: 15,423
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Every time I listen to "22" Miranda Cosgrove keeps popping into my mind. 
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Member Since: 12/31/2011
Posts: 15,423
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hunter_13
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Secretly, she's crying in the shower singing "Tell Me Why" & "Mean".
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