How Taylor Swift's "All Too Well" Broke a World Record, the Music Charts, and My Heart

I’ve been in love with Taylor Swift since 2008. Public opinion (and admittedly my own) has risen and plunged since then but she remains one of the most successful and innovative artists in history. Still, when her re-recorded version of Red (Taylor’s Version) dropped this past November, the last thing I expected was to completely enraptured by “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”—her most iconic break-up song rumored to be about actor Jake Gyllenhaal—or  to be listening to it on loop for hours the day it released. 

Like many of us, I’m sure, I originally thought that 10 minutes seemed a bit excessive—what else could she say that she hadn’t before? How would she make sure it didn’t drag or feel lost in an age when most people can barely make it through 3, 4 minute songs? Unless you’re Queen composing “Bohemian Rhapsody”, it’s a near-impossible feat for most artists to pull off. 

But not if you’re Taylor Swift. Since its release, the song has superseded the success of the original, breaking Spotify records for most-streamed album in a day by a female artist and making Swift the most-streamed female artist in a single day in Spotify history. It’s appeared as #1 on music charts around the world and even broke a Guinness World Record “for the longest song ever to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100.” 

Certainly, a whole semester college lecture could be taught about the science behind her success: her marketing team’s strategies for her music and merch, her image and online presence, the way she involves her fans in every release with hidden clues and Easter eggs in her materials. Especially with “All Too Well”, her incredible talent and musicianship is only one part of a larger brand campaign. While well-deserved, none of what she’s achieved this year has been an accident. 

First, it’s important to acknowledge that Swift’s re-recordings bank on fans’ nostalgia and sense of moral responsibility after her fall-out with Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records in 2019. For us, her effort to own all her masters and gain control over her own music is an act of female empowerment; listening to songs labelled “Taylor’s Version” makes us feel somewhat akin to social activists. 

That effect is doubled with “All Too Well.” Even non-Swift fans have been aware of the history of the song since 2012, which allegedly documents her brief but tumultuous relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal when she was 19 and he was 28. Almost a decade older than Swift, he’s presented as a manipulative partner who took advantage of her young age, her innocence, and “her red scarf.” A scandal then, a scandal now, it certainly helps that both continue to thrive as well-known celebrities in the public eye, enabling fans to rally behind one or the other through online memes and increasing the song’s popularity like wildfire. 

The 10-minute version, well aware of its infamous history, pushes it further and gives us such heartbreaking lines like “You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” and “You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would’ve been fine / and that made me want to die.” We learn that her partner carried a “Fuck the Patriarchy” keychain despite obviously not respecting women, that he stood her up at her 21st birthday party, that he both took advantage and rejected their age difference. With Swift’s fuller vocals, production, and lyricism, everything is elevated and made much more bold, rich, raw, relatable, and real. 

Even for people like me who have only experienced a few minor break-ups, we can still relate to Swift’s specific experiences because they operate under those universal themes of betrayal, loss, heartbreak, loss of innocence, and being made to feel unworthy. Listening to the 10-minute version of loop felt like catharsis, a way to express everything I never could say or have yet to feel as deeply—it’s the original “All Too Well” but better. 

Couple that with the short film Swift wrote and directed, inspired by the events of “All Too Well.” Starring Sadie Sink (Stranger Things) and Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf, Maze Runner, Love & Monsters)—importantly, both the same age as Swift and Gyllenhaal when they were dating—the film does an incredible job of illustrating the sheer scale of the destructive relationship in real time, as well as the huge age difference between the two actors. 

As a viewer, it’s uncomfortable to watch the two kiss or be intimate because Sink looks like a child next to O’Brien who, with a full beard, is very much a grown man. But Swift cast them to make the point that no one stepped in when she was dating Gyllenhaal, even though she too was barely a legal adult at the time. Add in the fact that both Sink and O’Brien are well-known and beloved actors, and suddenly the story becomes that much more personal and close to home. 

We also see improvised scenes between their characters, including an argument where she confesses how upset she is when he ignores her in front of his friends and all he has to say is “I think you’re just making yourself feel that way.” Classic gaslighting 101, it’s frightening to see an older man take advantage of his much younger partner in such a way. But that’s the point because it’s close to what happened and Swift, through her skills as both visual and written storytelling, makes it that much more obvious. 

It’s hard to say whether “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” would’ve been as successful had it been made any differently. The fact that both Swift and Gyllenhaal are famous, that she is so emotionally vulnerable and transparent in her lyrics and skilled in her production in both versions, that she employed equally well-known actors to help tell her story in a different but no less effective format, that her art has generated millions of memes on social media—all the stars aligned for this song to be more successful than even fans thought it would be. In one swoop, this song became a better version of its predecessor, made history, and broke my heart and for all that, I’m happy to say Swift has found another life-long fan in me. 

The only question that remains now, of course, is what will Swift do next?