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Discussion: "Clean" the best song on 1989?
Member Since: 7/3/2011
Posts: 10,425
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"Clean" the best song on 1989?
Such a beautiful collaboration from Taylor and Imogen Heap.
Imogen's instrumentals and background vocals make for such a sonically beautiful song with some of Taylor's most mature and descriptive lyrics. 
Quote:
10 months sober, I must admit
Just because you're clean don't mean you miss it
10 months older I won't give in
Now that I'm clean I'm never gonna risk it
The drought was the very worst
When the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst
Rain came pouring down when I was drowning
That's when I could finally breathe
And that morning, gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 59,202
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Far from it.
I'm still trying to get into it, I like it, but I haven't connected with it like the other tracks.
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Member Since: 5/19/2012
Posts: 5,925
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You spelled Blank Space wrong.
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Member Since: 7/3/2011
Posts: 10,425
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the reviews all praising the track
Quote:
"Clean" is an aching, bittersweet team-up with esoteric British alt-popper Imogen Heap where Swift surrenders more to her collaborator than on any other song on the album. Its melody has more air and fewer syllables, and Heap's influence is obvious in the warm electronic setting and the lyrics, heavy on metaphors of drowning and addiction, and lines like "You're still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can't wear anymore." Swift's growing up, alright.
http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...source=twitter
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Quote:
Arguably the record’s best co-write, though, doesn’t belong to Martin or Antonoff, and certainly not to Tedder. Instead, the award goes to Imogen Heap, who helps Taylor deliver four and a half minutes of ethereal magic to end the record with “Clean.” “You’re still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore,” Taylor utters in the first few moments of the song. It’s the best line on the record, and it kicks off a finale that captures all of 1989’s themes in heartrending fashion. When Taylor says she’s “finally clean” in the chorus, she’s not talking about an addition to alcohol or drugs. Instead, addiction serves as a metaphor here for Swift's long cycle of relationships in recent years. And while she’s stopped dating and gotten “clean” to avoid all of the gossip and ********, it’s a sacrifice she’s not entirely happy with.
“10 months sober, I must admit/Just because you’re clean doesn’t mean you don’t miss it/10 months older, I won’t give in/Now that I’m clean, I’m never gonna risk it.” The bridge gets right to the heart of the matter: Taylor misses the personal connections she forged in her love life, but is afraid to seek those connections again because she’s tired of getting hurt, tired of being made out to be the bad guy by the media, and certainly tired of never having a shard of privacy in any part of her life. It’s a dramatically different “final statement” than Swift’s past closers, which echoed with uplift and resilience. Instead of paying tribute to her band or basking in the rays of a new love, she’s weathered and world-weary here, steeling herself for another battle while all the while knowing that she's lost something precious in the war. And as this album proves time and time again, she wants that something back…even if she has to fight against her own fame to find it.
http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=3711328
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Quote:
The album ends with the understated, atmospheric Clean, a song of survival, evoking metaphors of the destructive yet cleansing force of a torr.ential storm but also breaking clean of an addiction. “You’re still all over me,” Swift mourns, “like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore.” It’s not quite blood on the tracks, perhaps, but it’s got a truth and power rare in commercialised pop.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...ican-fizz.html
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Quote:
“The drought was the very worst,” she sings at the outset of Clean. It’s not just that this is a pretty striking line with which to open a pop song, it’s that you can’t imagine any of Taylor Swift’s competitors coming up with anything remotely like it. Whether that’s because they couldn’t be bothered – you’d have to be hard of hearing to miss the distinct, depressing air of will-this-do? that currently runs through pop music – or because they just couldn’t is debatable. Either way, on 1989 the reasons she’s afforded the kind of respect denied to her peers are abundantly obvious.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/201...ft-1989-review
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Quote:
On the killer finale, "Clean," English singer Imogen Heap adds ethereal backup sighs to Swift's electro melancholy ("You're still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can't wear anymore").
Most of the songs hover above the three-minute mark, which is a challenge for Tay – she's always been a songwriter who can spend five minutes singing about a freaking scarf and still make every line hit like a haymaker. But if you're into math, note that the three best songs here – "How You Get the Girl," "This Love," "Clean" – are the three that crash past four minutes. This is still an artist who likes to let it rip.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/al...-1989-20141024
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Quote:
But there’s certainly a new maturity evident in the closing track “Clean”, which finds Swift washing that man right out of her hair in wracked images of torment and turmoil, drought and drowning, and something more besides: “When the butterflies turned to dust, they covered my entire room” is surely the oddest line you’ll hear in pop for a long time.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...y-9814620.html
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Member Since: 6/19/2012
Posts: 29,579
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It's good but IMO the weakest ballad like song on the album.
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Member Since: 12/26/2011
Posts: 12,335
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Member Since: 9/13/2012
Posts: 29,559
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Yes, it definitely is
When the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst
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Member Since: 7/3/2011
Posts: 10,425
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finny
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That's so awesome. I love behind the scenes stories like this. Honestly, a perfect collaboration.
I'd love to hear Imogen and Lorde collab as well. Or imogen and Amy Lee 
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Member Since: 8/25/2012
Posts: 20,985
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Yes imo, and it's not even my favorite
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Member Since: 8/17/2013
Posts: 9,619
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It's one of
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 27,248
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YASYAS YASYASYASYASYAYS
"10 months sober I must admit
Just because you're clean don't you mean don't miss it
10 months older, I won't give in
Now that I'm clean I'm never gonna risk it"
And Imogen's vocals gives the song such a unique layer it feels ethereal.
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Member Since: 1/2/2014
Posts: 1,601
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 1,897
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Member Since: 8/31/2013
Posts: 6,548
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Wildest Dreams>Blank Space>Clean
the trinity 
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Member Since: 9/1/2013
Posts: 18,649
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clean is probably my second favorite after bad blood
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Member Since: 11/29/2010
Posts: 19,664
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Nope. But its amazing.
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Member Since: 12/16/2008
Posts: 59,380
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The lyrics are flawless but YRIL, BS and Style remain superior.
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Member Since: 1/3/2014
Posts: 18,157
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Blank Space remains the best.
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Member Since: 8/27/2006
Posts: 4,802
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Haven't heard the rest of the album but out of all the three I've heard so far, this is by far the best. Though, what can you expect when you collaborate with a musical genius like Imogen? There's almost a hint of Speak for Yourself on this song, it's laidback, mellow, serious and whimsical. Taylor and Imogen definitely have a strong chemistry, they should collaborate more often. I also love Imogen's backing vocals, definitely elevates the song to the next level.
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Member Since: 3/15/2013
Posts: 21,846
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