Taylor Swift Swaps Out Controversial ‘Better Than Revenge’ Lyrics on ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’
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Taylor Swift’s announcement of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) in May revived discussion surrounding the album’s most controversial song, “Better Than Revenge.” As the anticipated album finally arrived, fans were quick to notice that the problematic lyrics had been replaced.
The original song featured the lyrics, “She’s not a saint, and she’s not what you think/She’s an actress, whoa/She’s better known for the things that she does /On the mattress, whoa.” In Swift’s newest release, the last lines were edited to, “He was a moth to the flame/She was holding the matches, whoa.”
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Swifties remain divided on whether the original should have been kept intact or updated for today’s sentiments. It wasn’t politically correct, but it was also written when the singer-songwriter was 18-years-old, and documents a critical growing pain in her career.
“Changing the past now, or using it to make some grand feminist statement, would not only feel dishonest, but it would also compromise her goal of draining all of the value from her original recordings after they were tossed around and sold without her permission,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Larisha Paul back in May. Paul argued that the song represented “a crucial point in Swift’s complicated journey through coming to an understanding of intersectional feminism.”
In 2014, the singer-songwriter spoke to the The Guardian, addressing the infamous lines. “As a teenager, I didn’t understand that saying you’re a feminist is just saying that you hope women and men will have equal rights and equal opportunities,” Swift said. “What it seemed to me, the way it was phrased in culture, society, was that you hate men.”
As Swift continues to revisit the past in her effort to record every album before Lover to gain control of her own master recordings and legacy, she proves that she can rewrite it, too.
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