"This Love" is a song written and recorded by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). Swift produced the song with Nathan Chapman. An atmospheric ballad, "This Love" combines soft rock and synth-pop. Its lyrics use oceanic imagery to describe the revival of a faded romance.
Taylor Swift, an American singer-songwriter, had been known as a country artist prior to the release of her fourth studio album, Red (2012).[1][2] Many of the album's tracks incorporate predominantly pop or rock musical styles, a result of Swift's desire to experiment with the genres.[3][4] This prompted a media debate over the validity of her status as a country artist.[5] For her next album, 1989, Swift decided to create a "blatant pop" record and move away from the signature country styles of her previous releases.[6][7] She began writing songs for the album in mid-2013.[8]
"This Love" was the first song that Swift wrote for 1989,[9] and the only one that she wrote on her own.[10] According to 1989'sliner notes, she did so on October 17, 2012, when she was in Los Angeles.[11] Swift initially envisioned "This Love" as a "fun, little short poem" for her personal journal; when she came up with a melody in her head, she opted to turn the poem into a song.[12] To this end, she enlisted the help of her long-time collaborator Nathan Chapman, who worked with Swift on all her previous albums, to produce the track with her.[13][11] "This Love" was the only song from 1989 produced by Chapman.[14] The track was recorded at his Pain in the Art Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, and mixed by Serban Ghenea at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia.[11]
After 1989's release, Swift included the song on the regular set list for the album's associated world tour, which began on May 5, 2015.[20] The track appeared as background music for a Victoria's Secret holiday advertisement that premiered in December 2015.[21] Swift performed a stripped-down, acoustic version of "This Love" as a "surprise song" on the first Atlanta show of her Reputation Stadium Tour, in 2018.[22] She sang a piano rendition of the song at the second concert in Philadelphia, as part of the Eras Tour, in 2023.[23]
The lyrics are about feelings of heartbreak: "Lantern, burning, flickered in my mind for only you / But you were still gone, gone, gone."[34] Swift uses the ocean as a metaphor for a love that disappears and then comes back like the tides.[26] Critics considered it one of 1989's saddest songs.[26][35]Time magazine's Sam Lansky argued that the chorus's catchiness made it more hopeful than anguished.[30] Swift remarked that she frequently listened to "This Love", citing it as one of her favorites on the album.[9]
Critical reception
Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone selected "This Love" as one of the three best tracks on 1989, the other two being "How You Get the Girl" and "Clean".[25] In an album review for musicOMH, critic Shane Kimberline lauded it as 1989's best song, emphasizing the chorus and "classic Swiftian" lyrics.[36]Jon Caramanica of The New York Times thought that Swift's songwriting in "This Love" was less detail-oriented compared to her past work;[34] Mikael Wood from the Los Angeles Times took issue with the generic lyrics.[37] Marah Eakin from The A.V. Club considered "This Love" as one of 1989's weaker songs because of its midtempo balladry compared to the album's upbeat production,[24] and Corey Beasley from PopMatters found the atmospheric balladry out of place for the album's overall sound.[38]
Personnel
Credits are adapted from 1989 album liner notes.[11]
Taylor Swift – vocals, background vocals, producer, acoustic guitar
Following a dispute with Big Machine Records in 2019 over the rights to the masters of her first six studio albums, including 1989, Swift announced her goal to re-record each of these albums. A snippet of "This Love (Taylor's Version)" was featured in the first trailer for the 2022 Prime Video original series The Summer I Turned Pretty, released on May 5, 2022.[41] The song was released on digital platforms on May 6.[9] Along with a digital single for "This Love (Taylor's Version)", Swift also released The Old Taylor Collection, merchandise themed to both 1989 and Swift's 2010 album Speak Now.[42] The re-recorded track is included as part of 1989 (Taylor's Version), which was released on October 27, 2023.[43]
Composition and reception
Compared to the original version, "This Love (Taylor's Version)" features strong elements of indie rock, which critics noted as a possible influence of Swift's 2020 indie rock-indebted albums Folklore and Evermore.[12][44] Much of the production remains the same,[45] but the synthesizers are more subdued, and Swift's vocals are less processed, more amplified and resonant.[27][44][46] Mary Siroky of Consequence highlighted the track as a testament to Swift's songwriting ability to "capture the magic, devastation, and fantasy of romance".[45]
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