What Happened to That Scarf Anyway?
I’d like to book a long, restful spa getaway for Jake Gyllenhaal's publicist. Or maybe just suggest they start looking for a new job, because their current client seems dead in the water. At least, that's how Taylor Swift fans would have it if left to their devices. With the release of the long-rumored extended version of Swift’s “All Too Well”— the five-and-a-half-minute version originally appeared on her 2012 album Red, now re-recorded and released as Red (Taylor's Version) — Swift has given us nearly five extra minutes of insight into her short-lived but deep-cutting entanglement with Gyllenhaal, back when he was thirty and Swift was just shy of her twenty-first birthday.
It's been all but explicitly stated that Swift's three-month relationship with Gyllenhaal inspired not just a few tracks on Red, but the entire album, an honor bestowed on only three of her partners: Gyllenhaal and Red, Harry Styles and 1989, and her current partner Joe Alwyn and Lover. But while Styles escaped the release of 1989 without much damage to his reputation, and Alwyn and Swift remain happily together, even the most casual of Swift fans reserve a special kind of disdain for the man who broke young Taylor Swift's heart brutally enough to inspire a song as emotionally devastating as “All Too Well.”
“All Too Well” is widely regarded as one of Swift's best songs, and even those with an aversion to the rest of Swift's discography can belt that heart-wrenching bridge at the top of their lungs at a moment's notice. Swift flays herself open at the altar of the irreparably heartbroken in an exercise of bold, unapologetic vulnerability, crafting a ballad that is emotionally resonant, raw, and deeply relatable. But the song is also Swift the songwriter at her best, with her clever yet subtle lyricism on full display. Releasing an extended version of such an iconic song runs the risk of feeling like an unnecessary sequel to a critically acclaimed film, but remarkably, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” enhances the original, adding depth and detail that results in a grittier, darker, and more mature finished product.
The extended version opens the same way as the original, with Swift setting the scene of her budding autumnal romance, a romance that will turn out to be as fleeting as the season itself. Autumn leaves fall like pieces into place, and Swift leaves her now-infamous scarf at Maggie Gyllenhaal's house before leading us into the pre-chorus, letting us know that she might be okay, but she's not fine at all - a distinction that is all too familiar to those of us who have had to pull it together after a breakup that shatters us, soldiering on with life even though we are simply Not Fine. Swift then recounts the story of the relationship through a series of revealing vignettes, from Gyllenhaal nearly running a red light (seemingly because he was so mesmerized by Swift's presence in the passenger seat), to the two of them sleepily dancing around the kitchen by the glow of the refrigerator light, a moment that so beautifully encapsulates the wistful, cozy intimacy of early romance, to his mother sitting down with Swift to coo over baby pictures of young Jake. (“You told me about your past thinking your future was me.”) These details carry the sting of promises left unkept and hint at the unraveling to come.
Then comes the first new lyrical addition with Swift lamenting Gyllenhaal’s refusal to give their relationship its due, singing that he “never called it what it was ‘til we were dead and gone and buried,” before leading us into the second pre-chorus, expressing the fragile state of being over an ex-lover (“I forget about you long enough to forget why I needed to”). In the second chorus, Swift adds yet another piercing detail: “You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath.” In a mere dozen words, Swift boils down the self-sabotaging agony of loving someone with such a feverish devotion that you willfully ignore their poor treatment of you. This dagger of a lyric immediately precedes the infamous bridge, in which Swift anxiously wonders if maybe she was the problem (“maybe I asked for too much”) before lambasting her ex-lover for destroying a relationship that could have been a masterpiece, breaking her like a promise, acting casually cruel and calling it honesty, and leaving her crumpled up on the floor like a discarded piece of paper. Here is where the song reaches its zenith, as Swift wails with such depth of feeling that you might wonder if she has managed to infuse the very essence of heartbreak into her voice.
If having your ex release a song that would become the go-to track for breakup playlists for years to come was not enough, Swift twists the knife with the addition of new details that lambast Gyllenhaal’s character even further. She recalls shrinking herself and making herself small, twisting herself into “a never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you” in an aching attempt to be enough for her ex, although ultimately to no avail. Perhaps the most heartbreaking line comes in the second to last verse, where Swift recounts her father watching his daughter watch the door at her birthday party hoping Gyllenhaal would walk through it and saying to his daughter “it’s supposed to be fun turning twenty-one.”
Swift then sneaks one final dig at her ex with this damning line: “I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age.” She’s sledging Gyllenhaal for still dating twenty-year-olds, but she’s also alluding to a persisting mismatch in maturity — Swift will continue to evolve, but Gyllenhaal is trapped, frozen in time. It is here where “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” differentiates itself from “All Too Well” of 2012, with Swift turning her most iconic ode to heartbreak into a treatise on honoring the intensity of the emotions you once felt, while celebrating how you have transformed, grown up, and ultimately...moved on.
