Taylor Swift’s ‘The Very First Night’: Why Some Fans Think It’s About Harry Styles, Not Jake Gyllenhaal
Taylor Swift has dropped a slew of previously unreleased songs on ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ including a track which seemingly hints at being inspired by Harry Styles.
You can’t slip anything past Taylor Swift fans! Social media users have been quick to theorize that her new track, “The Very First Night” which appeared on Red (Taylor’s Version), may have been inspired by Harry Styles. The song, which was co-written by Taylor, Amund Bjørklund and Espen Lind, is the 29th song on her new album, and one of nine previously unheard tracks released “From the Vault.” Although most of the album, including her hit song “All Too Well,” were inspired by Jake Gyllenhaal, the lyrics for “The Very First Night” seemingly make multiple references to the former One Direction hitmaker.
In the song, Taylor sings, “we were built to fall apart,” which is a lyric from her 1989 song, “Out of the Woods,” which was also believed to be about Harry. The track is also believed to be a precursor 1989, because of its upbeat, poppy vibe, reminiscent of her following album, which ultimately won a Grammy Award. “It is so Haylor. Sounds way more kiddish and young love to me. Very 1989 reminiscent. Jake songs give me much more mature, serious vibes to me. I picture Harry and Taylor all giddy like this when they first met,” one user wrote on Reddit.
As fans would recall, she and Harry dated from late 2012 to early 2013, following her relationship with the Brokeback Mountain actor, which ended in heartbreak. On her new album, she included the full, original version of “All Too Well” — and it’s more than 10 minutes long. In some of the new lyrics, Taylor details what happened when she and Jake broke up, indicating their age difference caused a rift.
“You said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would have been fine, and that made me want to die,” Taylor sings. She also threw some shade at her fellow A-lister for continuing to date younger women after their breakup, later crooning, “I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age.” When Taylor announced she was dropping her version of the 2012 album, she noted, “Like your friend who calls you in the middle of the night going on and on about their ex, I just couldn’t stop writing. This will be the first time you hear all 30 songs that were meant to go on Red.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year, she called Red her only “true” heartbreak album. “I look back on this [Red] as my true breakup album, every other album has flickers of different things. But this was an album that I wrote specifically about pure, absolute, to the core, heartbreak,” she revealed.