Taylor Swift Announced The Re-Release Of ‘Red’ And Everyone Immediately Roasted Jake Gyllenhaal
"Jake Gyllenhaal welcome to your tape."
Over the weekend, Taylor Swift announced that she’d be releasing the full, re-recorded version of Red this November.
It’s the second Swift album to get re-released, following Fearless back in April — like that album, it’ll be dubbed Red (Taylor’s Version). According to Swift, it will contain a whopping 30 tracks, some never-before-heard. It’ll also feature a 10-minute long track, which we can only imagine is a Tool cover.
“Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end,” Swift wrote in a statement. “Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past.
“Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.”
Red is widely regarded as one of Swift’s best albums — containing arguably her best song ever in ‘All Too Well’, as well as tracks like ‘Holy Ground’, ’22’, ‘Red’, and the criminally underrated ‘The Moment I Knew’. It was also, of course, the album that spawned ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ and ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’, so it wasn’t all perfect.
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The album was originally released in 2012, in the wake of the breakup between her and actor Jake Gyllenhaal. There are a number of references to him on the album — the blue eyes in ‘State of Grace’, for instance — the biggest being the infamous scarf which is central to ‘All Too Well’: “And I left my scarf there at your sister’s house and you’ve still got it in your drawer even now,”, “But you keep my old scarf from that very first week/’Cause it reminds you of innocence/And it smells like me/You can’t get rid of it.”
The scarf, which was worn by Swift in a pap shot of the two of them when they were in a relationship, has become part of Swift fandom folklore (hah) over the years. So, naturally, when Swift announced the re-release of Red (adding a little scarf emoji to her tweets) there was absolutely only one joke to make:
jake gyllenhaal right now:
"what if I give her, her scarf back?" pic.twitter.com/jMmFL9imib
— ana folklore 🧣 (@behindthemall13) June 18, 2021
Jake Gyllenhaal at Maggie Gyllenhaal's house searching for Taylor's scarf so she doesn't have to release the 10 minutes version of All Too Well: pic.twitter.com/m4Uuouy6CF
— wow (@mariwow) June 18, 2021
jake gyllenhaal has 5 months to either find that fucking scarf or find a bunker to live in for the next 3 years. run bitch run, taylor's stans are out to get in you in a few months.
— rayana (@deppsproject) June 18, 2021
Jake Gyllenhaal looking for that mfing scarf pic.twitter.com/JcJhbqHqJQ
— Mac (@MacRangers2) June 18, 2021
Such was the furore over the scarf, and Gyllenhaal’s inevitable second disembowelment, that he was actually a trending topic on Twitter on the day of Swift’s announcement.
Jake Gyllenhaal after seeing that red (Taylor’s version) will have 30 songs on it pic.twitter.com/spbtVotxsA
— Zoe🧣 signed up for this (@delicatestan1) June 18, 2021
jake gyllenhaal now that all too well (taylor's version) (10 minutes version) is coming: pic.twitter.com/aTLtngZczO
— vale 🧣 (@dejavuswft) June 18, 2021
jake gyllenhaal welcome to your tape https://t.co/Shh3pU7tAV
— david (@janusfilmtote) June 18, 2021
The ‘fuck Jake Gyllenhaal’ era is upon us
— La Pequeño Pony (@FaOrozco) June 18, 2021
Jake Gyllenhaal after Taylor Swift announcement. pic.twitter.com/KfqTC3FUgO
— hi.im.isa (@isa_fff) June 18, 2021
jake gyllenhaal begging taylor to not release the 10 minute version of all too well pic.twitter.com/GNskUtMjkY
— lola🦠 (@dobanti) June 18, 2021
Swifties never miss.