Taylor previewed this Country ballad on the September 24, 2012 episode of ABC's Good Morning America. The song finds the Country-Pop star singing about a girl embarking on a first date after getting over a bad relationship. The new guy turns out to have a lot of qualities that her ex didn't have. She explained: "It's actually a song about when you've gotten through a really bad relationship and you finally dust yourself off and go on that first date after a horrible break up. And the vulnerability that goes along with all of that."
Regarding whom Taylor is singing about, she does give some clues by referencing her new guy's strong ties to his family ("You start to talk about the movies that your family watches every single Christmas)," his shyness, and their shared love for James Taylor.
Chatting about the moving-on theme of the song, Swift told Marie Claire: "Even after [a relationship] explodes into a million pieces and burns down and you're standing in a pile of the ash of what it once was, thinking, 'Why did I have to meet this person, why did this have to happen?' . But then, when you make eye contact with someone across the room and it clicks and, bam, you're there. In love again."
Taylor Swift's parents must have thought pretty highly of James Taylor as well. They named their now-famous daughter after the singer-songwriter.
Swift opens Red with " State Of Grace," while she closes the set with this song. Swift explained to Billboard magazine that she saw the two tracks as the bookends, as both were about a "significant and kind of damaging relationship."
"I never like to put two happy songs in a row or two of the same kind of sadness in a row," she added. "It's just about establishing a flow and playing it over and over again so it sounds like that's the order of things. It's a gut-feeling thing."
"I never like to put two happy songs in a row or two of the same kind of sadness in a row," she added. "It's just about establishing a flow and playing it over and over again so it sounds like that's the order of things. It's a gut-feeling thing."
The song's music video was filmed in Paris in late September 2012 and finds Taylor turning a corner with a sophisticated-looking photographer. Swift described the clip to MTV News as, "a love letter to Paris, cause it's just the city and this story line of somebody moving on and finding yourself again."
Taylor personally chose the model that stars as her love interest in the visual. She told MTV UK News presenter Laura Whitmore that she was sent the audition tapes of twenty different male models, before selecting Vladimir as he had "good acting instincts” and "a really sweet and endearing charm to him.”
Taylor personally chose the model that stars as her love interest in the visual. She told MTV UK News presenter Laura Whitmore that she was sent the audition tapes of twenty different male models, before selecting Vladimir as he had "good acting instincts” and "a really sweet and endearing charm to him.”