Taylor Swift: Best Love Songs

Swift has no qualms with letting love run its course — not every relationship is built to last. But if she could leave them each with one parting request, it’s that they’ll allow her to haunt them forever. “Someday, when you leave me/I bet these memories/Follow you around,” she sings on “Wildest Dreams.” On the receiving end stands a man who is so tall, and handsome as hell — not to mention so bad, but he does it so well. He’s all of these things, but not the one. In between its lustful flashbacks and vivid snapshots, “Wildest Dreams” carries a sweet sentiment: It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. —L.P.

When Swift was a teenager, a passing moment with a crush proved to be a richly inspiring experience for her. This song was allegedly written after she played a show with an older country star, and it’s full of the explosive energy of wanting someone you can’t have. The Taylor-isms are also rich on this track: rainstorms and fireworks and tousled hair. It’s as passionate as a song can get, every moment bursting with hope for a great romance. – B.S.

On “Everything Has Changed,” Swift divides her life into before and after this one earth-shattering moment: “All I’ve seen since 18 hours ago/Is green eyes and freckles and your smile/ In the back of my mind, making me feel like/I just wanna know you better,” she sings. Ed Sheeran joins with his own predestined revelation, promising to tear down his blue walls for the right person. They’re taking cues from their butterflies and wondering where their person has been all their lives. “Come back and tell me why/I’m feeling like I’ve missed you all this time,” they sing. “And meet me there tonight/And let me know that it’s not all in my mind.” —L.P.

Swift was only 16 when suddenly she wrote one of the most epic love stories of her entire discography. There are no star-crossed lovers or American dynasties here. Instead, this touching tale focuses on a sweet old couple who lived next door to the precocious songwriter. “All I had to do was go home and look next door to see a perfect example of forever,” Swift said in 2006. The track chronicles how the pair met as children, fell in love as teenagers, got married, and had babies. Over the twangy notes of a steel guitar, she sings, “I’ll be eighty-seven, you’ll be eighty-nine /I’ll still look at you like the stars that shine.” —M.G.

Swift gives second chances a shot on this atmospheric entry from 1989. She’s breathless as she details the whiplash of finding love and losing it just as quickly. “And I could go on and on, on and on and I will,” she sings. When the bridge hits, the silent screams she mentioned earlier in the song find their voice again. “Your kiss, my cheek, I watched you leave/Your smile, my ghost, I fell to my knees,” she sings. “When you’re young, you just run/But you come back to what you need.” Swift was unquestionably young when she released 1989 — only 24 years old — but her illusion of eternal wisdom is so wholesome. —L.P.

Since Swift bought back her masters earlier this year, “Mine” has been recontextualized to describe the musician finally owning her life’s work with the lyric “you are the best thing that’s ever been mine.” But the song’s rock-tinged romantic rush is undeniable. Who else can envision a whole future with someone she just met? Who else can tie the whole story together with a line like “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter”? Only a hopeless romantic who has spent her whole life trying to put love into words. —M.G.

When Swift wrote “Lover,” she had a clear goal in mind: to create a great, timeless love song that could be played at weddings for decades to come. You know, normal stuff for a songwriter of her caliber. On the track, she goes to Bridge City with customized vows that promise she’ll take her lover “with every guitar string scar” on her hand and nods to Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. It’s a wedding waltz for the ages gushing with romance. Mission accomplished. —M.G.

Is there a better way to proclaim the depths of your love than in poetic lines delivered over a smooth 1972 Fender precision bass? Not for Taylor Swift. On this Folklore deep-cut, the musician lays bare all her fears and shortcomings in hopes that her sacrifices can outweigh them. “All these people think love’s for show/ But I would die for you in secret,” she offers, her voice a barely-there whisper. Even as Swift commits her life to this love and gives everything she can, she still wonders if it’s enough when someone with Swift’s fame can’t promise a peaceful life. It’s a sobering kind of romance. —M.G.

Prior to Reputation, Swift’s recorded love songs were mostly built on a dream, and “Enchanted” is one of her more mythical. She has a fairytale-esque encounter with a crush that turns into one of her most majestic portraits of romantic yearning. They see each other across a room and share some glances and passing pleasantries that feel so charged she’s awake all night, wondering if he’s in love with someone else. By the bridge, she’s begging for him to want her too, and hopes that they can continue the story one day. The lyrics are the pinnacle of her storybook songwriting era before she grew up and let reality take hold. —B.S.

On “Cornelia Street,” Swift pleads for her apartment address to remain associated with home rather than heartbreak. At first, she hesitates to open herself up to love, then runs away, but ultimately turns back and gives in. “I rent a place on Cornelia Street,” she sings, though she’s yearning for something more permanent. “I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends/I’d never walk Cornelia Street again.” Her old building in New York has become something of a Swiftie landmark. It’s where they went to mourn when Swift’s six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn came to an end. The ghosts of relationships past still roam the street, but she isn’t haunted by them anymore. —L.P.

There’s a reason every headline about her engagement referenced “Love Story.” Swift’s first big crossover hit from country to pop radio is as romantic as it gets. The bold, catchy Fearless single is an audacious reimagining of Romeo & Juliet. Like most of Swift’s early career love songs, her imagination runs wild with images of ball gowns and balconies and all kinds of Elizabethan touches that fill a teen’s dreams. Instead of ending in double-suicide, Swift’s take on the Shakespeare classic ends in a wedding: The two lovers finally have approval from Juliet’s dad and run off into the sunset together. —B.S.

While making Reputation, Swift stayed out of the public eye, but she spent plenty of time inside her head and in dimly lit dive bars. On “Delicate,” she had a vocoder, a radioactive reputation, and a dream that any preexisting narratives about her wouldn’t stop her new love in its tracks. “Is it cool that I said all that?” she asks. Swift has never been one to ask for reassurance when it comes to falling fast and falling hard. By the time she reaches the bridge, she decides she doesn’t have anything left to lose, so she ditches the cool girl shtick for the confessional one. “Sometimes, when I look into your eyes/I pretend you’re mine all the damn time,” she admits. —L.P.

While most songs on Folklore exist in fictional worlds, “Invisible String” stands out as a rare autobiographical moment on the album. Above a finger-plucked guitar riff, Swift wonders if there’s a golden thread tethering her to a lover long before they ever met. She goes back to their youths, where she would dream of meeting someone special while the person she loved worked his part-time job. As it progresses, she gets more meta than usual: hearing “Bad Blood” in a cab and sending her ex’s babies presents. But by the end, she’s showing her lover around the same park she used to dream in, satisfied that the thread connected them after all. —B.S.

The closing track off reputation is a delicate love song hidden on an album that’s supposed to be all about revenge. On it, Swift paints a glittery New Year’s Eve party to evoke the dichotomy of love and her all-encompassing devotion. She’s not just in this relationship for the thrill of a midnight kiss, she’s promising to stick around even when it gets hard. (Cleaning candle wax off hardwood floors does sound especially arduous.) The singer closes the track with a gentle plea: “Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.” It’s one of the most vulnerable, precious lines Swift has ever written. —M.G.

Lover is packed with intimate scenes from a relationship: sneaking around the West Village and London, Christmas lights, paper rings. But the album itself ends with a step back, with Swift reflecting on what real love actually feels like after spending half her life writing about what she wants it to be. “Daylight” is a treat for any longtime fans, full of sly references to the ways in which she’s described romance and lust in the past. The most noticeable is the revelation that she “once believed love would be burning red” only to learn that it’s “golden, like daylight.” The track is tender and subdued, ending with a sobering, spoken epilogue where she declares the importance of being defined by what you love. —B.S.