Need

Unreleased | 2019

“Need” is an unreleased song recorded during the sessions for Taylor’s seventh studio album, Lover (2019). It leaked online on March 1, 2023. The sensual, emotionally intense track explores the difference between wanting someone and needing them, portraying love as an overwhelming force that combines passion and desire with the fear of losing the person who has become essential to you.

Interestingly, “Need” and “All of the Girls You Loved Before” both leaked online in March 2023, but only the latter was officially released by Taylor later that month as part of the More Lover Chapter collection. While both songs have since been heard by fans, “Need” remains unreleased, leaving the two tracks as an intriguing glimpse into the material that didn’t make the final Lover tracklist.

Background and Release

Taylor began working on Lover during a week in New York in July 2018 while still on the “reputation Stadium Tour,” before the album’s main recording sessions began after the tour concluded that November. In an interview with Vogue in September 2019, she described Lover as a “new beginning” and a “love letter to love, in all of its maddening, passionate, exciting, enchanting, horrific, tragic, wonderful glory.” In a radio interview that year, she added:

«This album in tone, it's very romantic. And not just simply fanatically like it's all love songs or something. The idea of something being romantic, it doesn't have to be a happy song. I think that you can find romance in loneliness, or sadness, or going through a conflict, or dealing with things in your life. It just looks at those things with a very romantic gaze.»

Taylor Swift

“Need” was written and produced by Taylor, Louis Bell and Frank Dukes in Los Angeles, the same trio behind “I Forgot That You Existed,” “It’s Nice to Have a Friend,” “Afterglow” and “All Of The Girls You Loved Before.” The song was ultimately left off Lover’s 18-track final edition.

The unreleased track became part of the fan community’s mythology as fans searched for songs that had not made the album. In 2020, “Need” was reportedly obtained by the group known as Taylor’s Inner Circle, and a description of the song’s production and themes circulated among fans. The group described it as follows: “The music is unlike any other Taylor-song, with the chords played in a unique way starting and stopping (sometimes with vocal effects added over). Taylor gives fascinating insight into her thoughts on want, desire, passion, lust, danger, and fear. What Taylor needs most is to be with the man she loves. It’s essential, like breathing for her. The music is stripped down during the bridge. A really good song that would have fit well on the album and perhaps been a fan favorite.”

The full recording leaked online on March 1, 2023, giving fans their first opportunity to hear the song beyond the descriptions and snippets that had circulated previously.

Artist	Taylor Swift
Album	Lover
Status	Unreleased
Written	2018-2019
Leaked	2020
Genre	Pop
Length	3:09
Songwriter	Taylor Swift
Producers	Taylor Swift Louis Bell Frank Dukes

Lover

Thematically, Lover is Taylor’s love letter to love itself. It is also the first project she owns the master recordings for.

Songs on Lover

Read Taylor’s foreword for Lover, then dive into the detailed stories behind the album’s songs.

All Of The Girls

“All of the Girls You Loved Before” reflects how a lover’s past relationships shaped him into the person Taylor loves today.

Lyrical Theme

“Need” explores a consuming romance through the tension between physical attraction and emotional vulnerability. Taylor distinguishes between passion and lust on one hand and the deeper longing that keeps drawing her back to her partner on the other. References to fear and danger complicate the song’s sensual tone, suggesting that the intensity of her feelings comes with the risk of getting hurt. Compared with her more straightforward love songs, “Need” presents desire as something powerful enough to unsettle as well as excite her.

The song’s central distinction is between wanting someone and needing them. Taylor moves beyond describing what attracts her to her partner to express how essential his presence has become, culminating in the idea that she needs him like air. The lyrics can also be read as hinting at a relationship marked by uncertainty, in which desire and fear of losing someone coexist. Taylor and Joe Alwyn were reportedly on and off at points during their relationship, although the details remain unconfirmed. Against that background, the repeated sense of need takes on an added poignancy: even when a relationship is complicated, the emotional pull can remain difficult to resist. This fits the theme of the album, as Taylor explained during the Lover Lounge in August 2019:

«It’s a really romantic album, but it really celebrates love in all its complexity. Not just flowers and sunshine but the patchwork emotions that go into any love you feel.»

Taylor Swift

“Need” captures that complexity through its combination of sensuality, longing and fear: the relationship gives Taylor something she deeply craves, but needing someone so intensely also leaves her exposed to the possibility of losing them. Its darker emotional palette offers a glimpse of the more complicated side of the album’s romantic world.

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Want is the cigarette smoke on a jacket
You wore to the wrong part of town
Desire is the sound of the whiskey
Telling me you miss me
Can you come around?

[Pre-Chorus 1]
Passion is a passing thing
It’s accidental chemistry
Lust is a liar
A short-lived fire
But it ain’t what you and I are at all

[Chorus]
Oh, it’s a need
It’s a need
I would go anywhere that you lead
I’m hopeless, breathless, burning slow
Touch me, hold me
Tell me, “Won’t let you go, I won’t leave”
It’s a need

[Verse 2]
Danger is a thousand prickles on my neck
That tell me to run or to freeze
Fear is the nightmare I had
You were with someone else
You forgot about me

[Pre-Chorus 2]
Passion is a passing thing
It’s accidental chemistry
Call up in the evening
It can be deceiving
This is like breathing for me

[Chorus]
Oh, it’s a need
It’s a need
I would go anywhere that you lead
I am hopeless, breathless, burning slow
Touch me, hold me
Tell me, “Won’t let you go, I won’t leave”
It’s a need

[Bridge]
Baby, it’s always a new kiss
Every time we do this
The truth is
It’s essential to me that you love me
More than wishing, longing

[Final Chorus]
Oh, it’s a need
It’s a need
I would go anywhere that you lead
I am hopeless, breathless, burning slow
Touch me, hold me
Tell me, “Won’t let you go, I won’t leave”
It’s a need