Welcome back to Can’t Get Much Higher, the internet’s favorite place for music and data. If you enjoy this newsletter, check out my book Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves. It’s a data-driven history of popular music that I wrote as I spent years listening to every number one hit in history.
The Worst Taylor Swift Song
By Chris Dalla Riva
Last week, I got in a fight with a Swiftie. I replied to a post celebrating the 20th anniversary of Taylor Swift’s debut by saying (as I’ve said before) that Swift’s songwriting was tighter on her first few albums than on her last few. Some anonymous accounts were not happy.
I like Taylor Swift. I’ve seen her in concert. I think her best work is excellent. I’m even married to a long-time Swiftie! But none of that mattered in the moment. My opinion rendered me—in the words of my interlocutor—“insane,” “stupid,” and a “bitch.” Though I forged on through the barrage of insults, it soon became clear that they thought every Taylor Swift song was perfect. Everything she had done was unimpeachable.
This is a strange perspective. I love Bob Dylan, but I’m happy to admit that he has written some bad songs. It’s an inevitability of being prolific. Additionally, if you like some songs by an artist better than others, then you necessarily think something they did is the worst. Even Taylor Swift’s mother must like some of her daughter’s songs less than others! Today, we will investigate those less liked songs.
Don’t Get Mad at Me. This Isn’t My Personal Opinion.
A few months ago, I wrote a piece about the worst Beatles songs. I used a similar methodology here. First, I grabbed as many rankings of Taylor Swift’s discography as I could find. Some were by seasoned critics, like Rob Sheffield at Rolling Stone. Others were by less notable folks. I didn’t care about notability, though. You just needed to have a discography-length list.
I then averaged the percentile of each song’s ranking across all the lists. I had to use percentiles instead of raw rankings because each list had slightly different songs. The Ringer, for example, decided to include her Saturday Night Life musical monologue from 2009. No other list did.
In many ways, I was more excited to see the results of this analysis than I was for The Beatles. The Fab Four have sonic experiments that frequently round out rankings of their songs, like “Revolution 9” and “Wild Honey Pie.” Taylor Swift loves to hop across genre and style, but her music never gets that avant-garde. She mostly sticks to the verse-chorus form. Her worst efforts must tick people off in different ways than just sounding odd.
So, what’s the worst Taylor Swift? “Christmas Must Be Something More,” a cut from the 2007 holiday EP released between her first two albums. As with my Beatles ranking spitting the 50-second “Dig It” out at the bottom, this doesn’t feel fair. Holiday songs exist in their own universe.
But let’s look past this trifling Christmas song where Swift asks, “What would happen if God never let it snow?” We can then find her real worst effort: “A Perfectly Good Heart.”
“A Perfectly Good Heart” is a bonus track from Swift’s self-titled debut. It was written with Nashville stalwarts Brett James and Troy Verges. And they should have left this one on the cutting room floor. This is what I imagine a Taylor Swift song sounds like to someone who doesn’t like Taylor Swift, a “First Cut is the Deepest” re-imagination without any of the emotional weight.
Much of the rest of this worst-of list is scattered with other early efforts. Swift was clearly still honing her chops. But there’s something else to note. There are also a handful of songs from the last few years of her career (e.g., “Robin,” “The Alchemy”). That means that the middle—between 2010’s Speak Now and and 2020’s folklore—is largely absent.
This is the era where the Taylor Swift myth was really born. It’s where she goes from country starlet to pop star. Then as her A-list status begins to falter just a bit, the COVID-19 pandemic hits and she releases the one-two punch of folklore and evermore—indie-informed, singer-songwriter efforts that brought her more critical acclaim than ever before.
I am not the first to make this point, but if the COVID-19 pandemic never happens, the world never locks down, Swift never takes a sharp turn from the synthy pop of Lover, and there aren’t years of pent-up live entertainment demand culminating in the Eras Tour, then you likely don’t get the Taylor Swift we know today. She is still a well-regarded pop star. But she is not a world-conquering behemoth, popularity on par with the biggest stars of the 20th century.
This idea becomes clear when you aggregate across the song rankings to get album rankings. Sure, Taylor Swift is at the bottom, but her recent efforts The Tortured Poets Department and The Life of a Showgirl are not that far above it. In some alternate universe where she had jumped from Lover to Midnights, bypassing folklore and evermore, her career looks very different.
This point is only reinforced by removing all bonus tracks and re-recordings from these album rankings. Her debut album remains the lowest rated, but after that, her most recent records fill out the bottom of the list.
Do I think every song across these records is bad? Of course, not. “You’re On Your Own, Kid” from Midnights and “The Black Dog” from The Tortured Poets Department are both strong efforts. That said, I don’t think any of her latest albums have matched the high bar of her best albums released between 2010 and 2020.
Okay. But Taylor Swift Has Made Some Great Songs.
Despite all of this meditating on the arc of Taylor Swift’s career and her worst work, I am happy to admit that she has created many great songs. She’s a deft, versatile songwriter undoubtedly on a short list of the most important artists of the 21st century. Let’s use the same tools we used to find her worst songs to find her best—albeit, sorted in the other direction.
So, what’s the best Taylor Swift song? It’s “All Too Well,” and it’s not particularly close. On average, it ranked in the top 1% of each critical list. The number two song, “Blank Space,” ranked in the top 9%. That’s a huge gap.
I’m sure you’re wondering if I am referring to the original version of “All Too Well” from Red or the expanded 10-minute version that was released in 2021. I’m actually referring to both. Some critical lists ranked one version. Some ranked both. Since my analysis spit them out at number one and number two, I decided to combine them into a single entry.
Outside of “All Too Well,” the top 20 presents a nice cross section of Swift’s career. Yes, the majority of the songs come from that golden decade we were discussing, but you also get a few pre-Speak Now (e.g., “Fearless”) and post-evermore (e.g., “Maroon”) pieces. One song from her less-celebrated debut even makes the cut: “Our Song.”
One final thing that I was reminded of while perusing the list of her best work is that Taylor Swift is a collaborator at heart. She has written some great songs on her own (e.g., “Mine”). But the majority of her work has been done with a rotating cast of characters. And they are all represented in the top 20.
You’ve got the early, economical writing she did with Liz Rose (e.g., “You Belong with Me”). You’ve got the pop maximalism she created with Max Martin (e.g., “Style”). You’ve got the shimmering synth-pop she’s explored with Jack Antonoff (e.g., “Getaway Car”). And you’ve got the understated recent efforts with Aaron Dessner (e.g., “cardigan”). Because of this, I thought it would be fun to rank her collaborators.
Though Jack Antonoff comes out on top, I was surprised how close the average song ranking was between each of Swift’s four main collaborators. This suggests that she’s knocked a few out of the park with each of these people but also whiffed from time to time.
So, where will Taylor Swift head next? Like everybody else, I’m not sure. But if she happened to be reading this, I’d beg her to sit down with Liz Rose again. She’s seldom recaptured the vivid yet efficient style that her and Rose perfected. They recently saw each other when Swift was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Here’s to hoping they set up some time in the studio.
A New One
"Sun Has Set" by beabadoobee
2026 - Rock
After opening for Taylor Swift in 2023, beabadoobee has released a steady stream of quality music. The confessional nature of her lyrics do have some Swiftian qualities. But she can also rock a bit harder. Last month’s “Sun Has Set” illustrates both of those qualities well.
An Old One
"Untouchable" by Luna Halo
2007 - Alternative Rock
Given how celebrated Taylor Swift is as a songwriter, it’s no shock that her albums are packed with original songs. In fact, outside of her Christmas EP, each of her studio releases is an original. Well, almost. Swift has one cover across all of her studio albums: “Untouchable.”
Released on Fearless, “Untouchable” was first recorded by Nashville-area rock band Luna Halo in 2007. It takes cues from the alternative rock and pop punk music that was popular at the time. Swift—who got a writing credit on her version—reworked the song as soft, introspective ballad.
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I actually really like Girl at Home lol something about the repetitiveness of it just soothes me! I will also stand up and clap for Maroon, an incredible song that doesn't get nearly enough love.
The discography at this point is just so varied that you can't please everyone, but categorically TTPD and Showgirl were messy, disjointed, and kind of the beginning of the Eras tour goodwill being dismantled.
Chris, thanks!