Brandon Bordello, a high school love
One of the first love relationships that Taylor lived in was with Brandon Bordello. The couple had to part ways due to Bordello leaving for college, however, they remained on good terms, and to this day, it's clear just how important Brandon was to Taylor.
Our Song and Tim McGraw were two pieces that Taylor wrote for her former love, which helped launch the singer to fame.
“Our song is your way of laughing/First date, 'man I didn't kiss her, and I should have'/And coming home, 'Amen'/Asking God if I could play again,” Taylor narrated in Our Song while their affair was on the surface. Later, she wistfully wrote Tim McGraw about the moments she lived with Brandon.
"But when you think of Tim McGraw/I hope you think of my favorite song/The one we danced to all night long/The moon like a spotlight on the lake/When you think of happiness/I hope you think of that little black dress."
Joe Jonas, the first love after fame
By her second album Fearless Hers, Taylor Swift had already achieved international success, so her standards for her boyfriends were much higher. That's how she started dating none other than Joe Jonas, one of the Jonas Brothers. The break between the two was highly commented, on because according to Swift, after three months of relationship, the musician called her on the phone to tell her that everything was over.
Swift wrote one of her most scathing and direct pieces to remember this moment: Forever & Always.
“And I stare at the phone, she hasn't called yet / And then you feel so bad that you can't feel anything at all / And you remember when she told you:“ Forever ”.
Taylor Swift confessed to Ellen Degeneres that she felt sorry for the things she said to Jonas's middle brother, however, she accepted that she was very young and she did not know how to deal with all that. Her wounds healed, and in time, new loves would come into Taylor's life.
An apology for Taylor Lautner
After sharing cameras in the 2010 Valentine's Day film, Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner began a romance that lasted a very short time. It is speculated that it was Swift who decided to break up with Lautner, who was apparently looking for a long-term relationship with the singer. Guilt washed over Swift, who wrote Back to December for the Twilight actor.
"You gave me roses and I left them there to die/So this is me swallowing my pride/Standing in front of you saying I'm sorry for that night/And I go back to December all the time."
The torturous history of John Mayer
When Taylor Swift was barely 19 years old, she decided to try her luck with musician John Mayer, who was 32 years old at the time. The relationship was lived in virtual secrecy, but the release of the song Dear John, not only ensured that the two musicians became emotionally involved, but also, it had been a very difficult experience for Taylor Swift.
"Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone / Don't you think I was too young to mess with me? / The girl in the dress, she cried all the way home, I should have known And I'll look back and regret how I ignored when they said 'run as fast as you can'”, sings Swift in this piece that made thousands of fans end up hating John Mayer.
However, over the years new songs would arrive that were never confirmed if they were for Mayer, but ultimately, they gave many indications that the musician was still in Swift's thoughts in a not-very-positive way.
The Story of Us, a song from the album Speak Now, apparently talks about the night Mayer and Swift performed at the CMT Awards, completely ignoring each other. "Now I'm standing alone/In a room full of people/And we're not talking and I'm dying to know/It's killing you like it's killing me."
More explicitly, Taylor Swift talks about Mayer in Ours, referencing his tattoos and her gaping teeth, further writing that despite everything, her heart belonged to the Slow Dancing singer. Burning Room.
For Midnights, an album that came twelve years after her breakup, Swift went on to write for John Mayer. In the piece Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, she makes a reference to how young the singer was when she began her relationship with Mayer.
"If you had never looked at me/I would have stayed on my knees/And never danced with the devil/At nineteen/And the truth to God is that pain was heaven/And now that I'm grown, I'm afraid of ghosts".
Jake Gyllenhaal wears red
Even though the relationship lasted only a few months, the experience was enough for Taylor Swift to dedicate a large part of the Red album to this ex-boyfriend.
Although, at this point, Taylor seemed to have moved on from his old relationships, everything indicates that he did not learn much from them, because Gyllenhaal was guilty of the same sins as Mayer and Joe Jonas: Being nine years older than Taylor and breaking up over the phone.
Thus, All Too Well becomes one of Taylor Swift's most “obvious” pieces, but also one of the most forceful when it comes to explaining a pain that, up to that point in Swift's life, kept repeating itself; the only difference was the faces that generated that pain.
"And you call me again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel with the excuse of being honest/I'm a crumpled piece of paper, thrown right here/'Cause I remember it all," Swift wrote in the song All Too Well, one of his most iconic pieces.
Several Taylor songs had the scent of Gyllenhaal, however, it's All Too Well that is the pure representation of the feeling of being part of something deeper and at the end of the day, it disappears. And it is that, according to All Too Well, Taylor and Jake lived a love so intense that it extended to the family of both, because Taylor even became friends with Jake's mother and sister, all in just three months.
It should be remembered that in 2021 a new version of this piece of more than 10 minutes arrived where Swift becomes more explicit; theories go away, and it is now a fact that Jake Gyllenhaal is the villain of the song.
"You said that if we had been closer in age, maybe it would have turned out well / And that made me want to die. I was never good at telling jokes / But the joke says: 'I will grow up, but your lovers continue being my age,'” is heard in the “full story” of All Too Well.
It seems that fame and fortune only gave Swift stories as short as tragic, however, along the way she found exceptions that even in the end made her smile.
