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This Love

Promotional Single | 1989 (2014) | 1989 (Taylor's Version) [2023]

“This Love” is the only song on Taylor’s fifth studio album, 1989 (2014), to be solely written by her. It finds her using cyclical metaphors to ponder on the cycles of her relationship. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but regardless, it’s still love. The re-recording of the song, “This Love (Taylor’s Version)”, was released on May 6, 2022.

Background

1989 was inspired by 1980s synth-pop. The album’s electronic production using synthesizers, programmed drums, and processed backing vocals marked a departure from the country styles of Taylor’s previous releases. For the majority of 1989, she worked with Swedish producer Max Martin. Martin and his frequent collaborator Shellback produced seven out of thirteen songs on the album’s standard edition. “This Love” is the only song produced by Taylor’s longtime producer Nathan Chapman who worked with her since the very beginning of her career. She described the song as “Like saying goodbye to the past and the previous four albums”. It was the last time the two collaborated.

Lyrical Theme and Production

Taylor initially began writing the chorus of “This Love” as a part of a poem, which eventually evolved into the song. It was the very first song written for 1989 and was recorded shortly before the release of Taylor’s fourth studio album, RED (2012). The only ballad on the album, “This Love” opens with a wash of synths seemingly meant to evoke waves on the ocean shore. These ocean currents provide the song’s central metaphor, which is about hoping that, if you let it go, love will come back to you just like the tide. Taylor explained:

«The last time I wrote a poem that ended up being a song, I was writing in my journal and I was writing about something that had happened in my life – it was about a year ago – and I just wrote this really really short poem. It said, 'This love is good /this love is bad / this love is alive back from the dead / these hands had to let it go free / and this love came back to me.' And I just wrote it down, closed the book and put it back on my night stand […] All of a sudden in my head I just started hearing this melody happen, and then I realized that it was going to be a song.»

Taylor Swift

When asked by Pop Crush which of her 1989 tracks she listens to the most, Taylor replied: “I think the one that I kept going back to, over and over and over again, is a song called ‘This Love,’ actually. It’s a song that I wrote by myself. It’s kind of hypnotic in a way, and it is somewhat romantic and wistful and relaxing.”

Live Performances

“This Love” was initially part of Taylor’s setlist for “The 1989 World Tour” (2015). However, a few shows into the tour she cut the song to make time for her many surprise guest appearances. On the last leg of the tour, she once again added “This Love” to the setlist. It is therefore featured in the concert movie The 1989 World Tour Live (2015). A few years later, she performed the song acoustically on her “reputation Stadium Tour” (2018). “This Love” was also the second surprise song during Taylor’s show on May 13, 2023, in Philadelphia on “The Eras Tour” (2023-2024). On June 29, 2024, she played it as a mashup with “Ours” (2010).

Commercial Performance

On the 28th of October 2014, Starbucks announced “This Love” as their “Pick of the Week” and offered a free iTunes download of it to customers. “This Love” was certified “Platinum” by the RIAA in 2018, despite never receiving any kind of promotion from Taylor’s team whatsoever.

On May 16, 2022, “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” debuted at No. 50 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was Taylor’s record-extending 167th entry on the chart. “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” also became the first version of the song to place on the Hot 100, outpeaking the 2014 version, which never entered the chart.

Taylor's Version

Following a dispute with her old label Big Machine Records in 2019 over the rights to the masters of her first six albums, including 1989, Taylor announced her goal to re-record each of these albums. The first snippet of “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” was featured in the trailer for the 2022 TV series The Summer I Turned Pretty, released on May 5, 2022. When announcing the song on Instagram, Taylor wrote:

« I’ve always been so proud of this song and I’m very emotional about this turn of events. I’m currently reliving the '1989 Tour' in my head and spiraling, it’s fine.»

Taylor Swift

“This Love (Taylor’s Version)” is the second song Taylor released for her upcoming re-recording 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Abby Jones of Consequence wrote that “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” takes the 2014 version “from a synth-pop slowburner to a full-blown cinematic trip, fit for a coming-of-age montage filled with fireworks, first kisses, and long walks on the beach.”