Swift Notes: Red (A Guide to Taylor Swift's Songs)

"The Lucky One"

13. “THE LUCKY ONE”

BEHIND THE MUSIC This one was written on the road in the land down under. 

BETWEEN THE LINES Though Taylor never complains about the pressures and perils of being in the spotlight, this ballad reveals she does worry about it sometimes. She explained, “I’m pretty much singing about what I’m scared of.” Chief among those fears are no longer having fun with her career, and of feeling hollow and misunderstood while being heralded as a golden girl. She admitted to the Tennessean, “I’m fearful of people getting tired of me, or fearful of my life ending up a cliché of a person who has people around them all the time but in what matters most they’re alone.”

AUDIENCE OF ONE This could be as simple as Taylor singing about her fears, or the details of this track could point to Joni Mitchell. Joni was “a sixties queen” with a “made up name” (she was born Roberta Joan Anderson) in Los Angeles. Going deeper, the title track of Mitchell’s 1972 album, For the Roses, expresses her fatigue with the music business, and she took a break after that record’s release, much like the subject of Taylor’s song who “chose the rose garden over Madison Square.” Unlike the disenchanted star in the song, Mitchell returned to the business, releasing one of her biggest hits, Court and Spark, in 1974, and many more albums over the next 40 years.

FUN FACTS This song has a lot in common with a track by another artist Taylor admires: Britney Spears’ “Lucky.”

DIARY DECODER Could “Wouldn’t you like to know” be a knowing joke about the scrutiny Taylor’s songs provoke about her life?

CHARTING SUCCESS Lucky track #13 didn't even need a proper release as a single to hit #33 on the Hot Country Songs chart or to land on the Canada's Hot 100.

(excerpted from our biography Taylor Swift: The Platinum Edition, available wherever books are sold)

Thanks to @taysminionyo for the Swift Notes design!