Taylor Swift Has a 10-Minute Version of Fan-Favorite Song 'All Too Well'

The Grammy winner said in a recent interview that the original version of the track "included the f-word"

Published on November 19, 2020 07:50 PM

Taylor Swift just revealed that there's an unreleased, 10-minute version of one of her most popular songs.

Speaking with Rolling Stone for its "500 Greatest Albums" podcast this week, Swift, 30, revealed that the version of "All Too Well" that Swifties know and love off her Red album began as a much longer track.

"I was like a broken human walking into rehearsal, just feeling terrible about what was going on in my personal life," Swift said of the session that led to "All Too Well."

"I walked in, and I remember we had just hired David Cook, who [has been] my band leader ever since then," she recalled. "I ended up playing four chords over and over again, and the band started kicking it. People started playing along with me. I think they could tell I was really going through it."

"I just started singing and riffing and ad-libbing this song that basically was 'All Too Well,' " Swift continued.

"It was that song but probably had seven extra verses. I included the f-word, and I remember my sound guy was like, 'I burned a CD of that thing you were doing in case you want it.' I was like, 'Sure.' I ended up taking it home and listening to it and was like, 'I actually really like this, but it's 10 minutes long. I need to pare it down.' "

The artist — who most recently released her eighth studio album, Folklore, in July — worked with songwriter Liz Rose on the ballad to create the final version on the album.

"That was a very serendipitous creation of a song," she said of the fan-favorite track, adding that she "never imagined" there would be such a strong response to the breakup song.

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"I never imagined that would happen because it wasn't a single, and it didn't have a video, all these kinds of ways that I was taught music permeated culture. I didn't see that happening with that song," Swift said, explaining that she played it at the Grammys in 2014 "because the fans wanted to hear it a lot."

"But I truly didn't think that it would become something that almost like had the life of a song beyond a lot of the songs that I did that had single music video kind of assets going on," she said. "It just really was amazing to watch, and I truly can't believe it now when I play it live and like everybody in the crowd knows every word. I'm like truly astonished by it, and I think that's one of the most beautiful things about this album for me."

"It's fun when things surprise you like that," Swift added.

The recently named Apple Music songwriter of the year added in the podcast interview that Red — a transitionary album from country into pop — led to her follow-up pop album 1989 that earned her album of the year and best pop vocal album at the 2016 Grammy Awards.

Taylor Swift poses during the 2019 American Music Awards — John Shearer/AMA2019/Getty Images for dcp

Swift said that Red "was sort of like a wellspring of really important relationships that I carried with me for the rest of my career."

"I became best friends with Ed Sheeran. He's still someone that I talk to every week, and Max Martin was the person who taught me more about writing than anyone I can imagine ever meeting. So this was a really important record for me in terms of, I guess, the origins of things that I carried with me."

Swift has begun the process of re-recording her earlier albums after the master rights were acquired by Scooter Braun last year and then sold to a private equity company last month.

"I have recently begun re-recording my older music and it has already proven to be both exciting and creatively fulfilling," Swift said in a statement Monday, promising "plenty of surprises in store" for fans.