Taylor Swift Wanted to ‘Stay Very Loyal’ to Initial Melodies of ‘Fearless’ on ‘Taylor’s Version’

“But yeah, I did go in line by line and listen to every single vocal and think, you know, what are my inflections here,” said Swift, who was 18 when the original album was released. “If I can improve upon it, I did. But I really did want this to be very true to what I initially thought of and what I had initially written. But better. Obviously.”

In addition to the original 20 songs, the revamped version of Fearless also features six bonus tracks that were written, but never recorded, at the time. The impetus for rewinding to her teen years was the 2019 sale of the singer’s former label, Big Machine Label Group, to manager Scooter Braun, which included the rights to her first six albums; Swift has said she intends to re-record her first five albums.