Welcome back to AP Taylor Swift After School! Last month, we walked through the original 13 songs as the cohesive emotional universe Taylor Swift wanted Fearless to be. This month, we’re picking up at song 14 and going all the way to 26 — the six Platinum Edition bonus tracks released in October 2009, plus the seven vault tracks Taylor finally let out of the cage with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in 2021.
What does it mean for a song to live in the vault for thirteen years? What did a 19-year-old country-pop star get to release in 2008 — and what did her team quietly file away because the world wasn’t ready, the optics weren’t right, or it was just too country, too repetitive, or too pointed? And what does it tell us that the songs Taylor chose to keep parked are some of the most lyrically biting, structurally tight, and emotionally vulnerable songs of the entire era?
Join us as we go song-by-song through the B-sides, the bonus tracks, and the vault — and try to figure out what Taylor was protecting, what she was perfecting, and what she was waiting for the right moment to say.
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Released:
Fearless Platinum Edition: October 26, 2009. Six new tracks added to the original 13, including a piano version of “Forever & Always” and a Taylor-reworked cover of Luna Halo’s “Untouchable”
Fearless (Taylor’s Version): April 9, 2021. Re-recorded album plus seven previously unreleased vault tracks — Taylor’s first re-record and the moment “Taylor’s Version” became part of the cultural vocabulary
Why These Songs Still Matter: The Platinum and Vault tracks are where you can see the Taylor Swift machine in action — the songs that didn’t fit a narrative, the songs that were too sharp for a 19-year-old being marketed as “sweet, neat, and age-appropriate” (a real critic’s compliment about her at the time), and the songs that, in retrospect, contain the seeds of who she’d become. Superstar is a proto-The Life of a Showgirl. We Were Happy would slot onto folklore tomorrow. Mr. Perfectly Fine is essentially Better Than Revenge with a clearer target. And Come In With The Rain contains the line “I could stand up and sing you a song, but I don’t want to have to go that far” — a 17-year-old wrestling with the same question she’d eventually write mirrorball and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? about.
Platinum Edition (October 26, 2009):
Track 14: “Jump Then Fall” (Written by Taylor Swift)
Track 15: “Untouchable” (Originally written by Nathan Barlow and Johnny McIntosh of Luna Halo; reworked by Taylor Swift with additional credit to Cary Barlow and Tommy Lee James)
Track 16: “Forever & Always” (Piano Version) — previously covered on the Part 1 After School: Fearless Track-by-Track
Track 17: “Come In With The Rain” (Written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose) — previously referenced in our Extra Credit essay tied to Episode 88: Weather Songs
Track 18: “Superstar” (Written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose)
Track 19: “The Other Side of the Door” (Written by Taylor Swift)
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) Vault Tracks (April 9, 2021):
Track 20: “Today Was a Fairytale” (Written by Taylor Swift) — originally written summer 2008, parked, then released for the Valentine’s Day (2010) film soundtrack before joining the vault
Track 21: “You All Over Me” feat. Maren Morris (Written by Taylor Swift and Scooter Carusoe; produced by Aaron Dessner)
Track 22: “Mr. Perfectly Fine” (Written by Taylor Swift) — previously covered in Episode 98: Unreliable Narrators
Track 23: “We Were Happy” feat. Keith Urban (Written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose; produced by Aaron Dessner)
Track 24: “That’s When” feat. Keith Urban (Written by Taylor Swift, Brad Warren, and Brett Warren; produced by Jack Antonoff)
Track 25: “Don’t You” (Written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose; produced by Jack Antonoff)
Track 26: “Bye Bye Baby” — originally titled “The One Thing” (Written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose; produced by Jack Antonoff)
Plus: which of these songs we’d actually swap onto the main 13, and the running list of episode topics this conversation has us owing you.
Why a song lives in the vault. Across thirteen songs and two release windows, a clear pattern emerges: Some songs were off the main album because they were too repetitive of what made the album (Jump Then Fall is You Belong With Me‘s lighthearted cousin; Today Was a Fairytale covered ground Love Story already won). Some were locked in the vault because they were too country for the pop-leaning album Taylor was building at the time (That’s When, We Were Happy). And some were too sharp for what a 19-year-old country-pop star was allowed to release in 2008 (Mr. Perfectly Fine, in a sentence). The Platinum bonus tracks lean sadder, more vulnerable, more “the wide-eyed girl” sad. The vault tracks lean sharper, snarkier, more “calling him out by name” sad. Taylor in 2008 could be the first. She could not, yet, be the second.
Fearless is a rain album. Once you notice, you can’t stop noticing. Come In With The Rain. The Other Side of the Door (”wait there in the pouring rain”). You All Over Me (”no amount of freedom gets you clean”). Bye Bye Baby (”the rain didn’t soak through my clothes down to my skin”). Fearless itself (“dance in a storm in my best dress”) and The Way I Loved You (“screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain”). Taylor’s been writing about rain for over twenty years, and the meaning keeps evolving — from passion to cleansing to inability to wash someone off.
The early seeds of fame anxiety. Superstar is Taylor (already famous, already platinum, already a household name) writing from the perspective of a wide-eyed fan who feels invisible. It’s the first version of a question she’s still asking on The Life of a Showgirl: what does it look like to admire someone whose life is enormous when yours feels small, and how do you reconcile that with being on both sides of the equation?
The Forever & Always piano version is the next stage of grief. Not a sadder remix. The original is the day after the breakup. The piano version is a week later, in your feels. Same lyrics, completely different emotional moment.
What do you think of these vault tracks? Did the right songs make the main 13? Subscribers, join the chat and let us know!
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