This Writing Tip Explains Why “All Too Well” is Taylor Swift’s Best Song

Brianne Fleming
6 min readMay 13, 2020
Image Source: Getty / Kevork Djansezian

During a performance for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series last year, Taylor Swift addressed something I’ve known for quite some time: her best song is “All Too Well.”

Several media outlets have ranked Taylor’s songs over the years, and “All Too Well” is almost always at #1. Here’s a quote from a write-up in Rolling Stone by Rob Sheffield:

“You can schaeden your all over the celebrity she reputedly sings about, but on the best day of your life you will never inspire a song as great as freude ‘All Too Well.’ Or write one.”

And this is not an unpopular opinion. Every Swiftie knows that “All Too Well” is an absolute masterpiece. It’s on her fourth album, RED, and it happens to be one of her longest songs at 5 minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

From the first line, you cling to her every tragic word. Taylor said she loves screaming the lyrics together with her fans at her shows.

As someone who has always been in awe of Taylor’s writing, I wanted to analyze what makes “All Too Well” her best work. She has over 150 songs in her catalogue, so what’s different about…

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Brianne Fleming

I write about brands and boy bands. Marketing and social media instructor at UF. Pop culture lover. Host of the Making the Brand podcast. www.briannefleming.com