BY: MARI RIVERA / STAFF REPORTER
On Friday, Mar. 17th, fans tried so hard to meet Taylor Swift at midnight as she released four new tracks. However, the new songs were a bit of a challenge to find as they were not listed under the artist’s “new releases” section of streaming apps.
Instead, Swift uniquely dropped each new song as singles, backdated to the year the song originally came from (for instance All the Girls You Loved Before was backdated to 2019).
The four new songs were released in celebration of the Eras Tour, which kicked off on Mar. 17th as well, in Glendale (Swift City), Arizona. The tour is her first tour after five years and after her planned Loverfest Tour was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The songs included: Eyes Open (Taylor’s Version), Safe & Sound (Taylor’s Version) featuring Joy William and John Boy Music, If This Was a Movie (Taylor’s Version), and All the Girls You Loved Before.
The three Taylor’s Version songs are re-recordings and the fourth song is a previously unreleased track from the Lover album (2019).The first two songs were originally released on The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond Soundtrack, which was the companion album to the Hunger Games film (2012). Eyes Open did not appear in the movie, but Safe & Sound was featured in the closing credits.
The two new Hunger Games releases come just in time as the Hunger Game fandom has reemerged over social media. The Hunger Games movies are now available on Netflix for a limited time, and there is buzz about the new Hunger Games prequel film called The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which has been announced to premiere on Nov. 17.
If This Was a Movie was originally released as a bonus track on her Speak Now album (2010).
If This Was a Movie is the only song on the album to have a co-writer: Martin Johnson. Fans speculated that with the re-recording of this track, Swift would be soon releasing Speak Now, Taylor’s Version. Releasing this song in particular so early leads fans to theorize she will omit this song from the tracklist, which would thus deem Speak Now (TV) her only album to be one hundred percent self written.
As of now though, she has not confirmed any new album releases.
Swift has been re-recording her albums because her former music label Big Red Machine sold the master recordings of her discography up until Lover in 2019. By re-recording her albums, Swift is now getting the opportunity to reclaim what belongs to her as she wrote almost all of her songs herself.
If you haven’t heard the new songs yet, hop on over to your preferred streaming service to give them a listen. A tip to find the songs faster: add “Taylor’s Version” at the end of each song title.