Fluxblog
November 25th, 2021 4:34pm

Twin Fire Signs Four Blue Eyes


Taylor Swift “State of Grace” (Acoustic Version) (Taylor’s Version)

Taylor Swift is beloved for her break up songs but as good as she is at articulating the anguish and disappointment of falling out of love, I think she’s even better at writing about being in love. “State of Grace” and “All Too Well” are widely understood to be written about the same relationship, and for me the latter song is made more potent by existing in the context of the former, which seems to be written midway through the happy early phase when she’s still riding the high of infatuation but has enough perspective to identify what is special to her about this connection. A lot of that is the surprise of it all, of having a vision of what she wanted and then finding something that’s actually better than she could have imagined for herself.

The primary version of “State of Grace” is a rock song with an arrangement heavily indebted to U2. The music charges forward like she’s confidently zooming into the future, she sings with an earnestness that makes the song feel like a devotional. The acoustic version strips out the rock and drastically slows the momentum, making the listener hang on every chord change. This arrangement makes the song come across like more of a meditation, but also like someone desperately trying to hold on to every moment before it passes, acutely aware that something precious and finite is slipping away. The original arrangement sounds like someone memorializing their life in the moment, but the acoustic version implies a more retrospective view in which the phrase “and I never saw you coming” feels like the sentiment most firmly rooted in the moment it is being sung.

Swift seems blown away by the clarity of her own emotions in “State of Grace” and chalks it up to meeting this person – it’s very “once I was blind, but now I see.” It’s like they’re a key unlocking something in her, and the expansion of her perspective is so overwhelming that she gives them credit when in truth it’s probably more to do with herself naturally maturing. Hearing her evoke this feeling she’s ascribed to this other person makes sense of the betrayal that came out in “All Too Well” and the pettiness given voice in “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” “State of Grace” is an expression of her investment of faith, and it’s so pure and beautiful that who can blame her for resenting having that faith broken and having to come back down to reality. She made someone her religion, and they left her forsaken.

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