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Everything Has Changed

Feat. Ed Sheeran | Single | RED (2012) | RED (Taylor's Version) [2021]

“Everything Has Changed” is track fourteen on Taylor’s fourth studio album, RED (2012). It was co-written by Taylor and her close friend Ed Sheeran as a duet about realizing your life has flipped upside down after falling for someone new. It was chosen as a single from the album. The re-recording of the song, “Everything Has Changed (Taylor’s Version)”, was released on November 12, 2021, on RED (Taylor’s Version).
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Background and Composition

“Everything Has Changed” was written by Taylor and the then still largely unknown British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran in the backyard of Taylor’s since sold Los Angeles cottage. They wrote the song on a trampoline. The lyrics describe the feelings one has when meeting someone new and “all of a sudden your entire perspective on the world changes — you’re thinking for two, instead of one.” Taylor further explained the song’s theme: “Everything looks different to you because of this one new person came into your life. It’s really cool”. She recalled to MTV News:

«We, for real, were sitting on my trampoline in my backyard because we had been writing a song and I was like, ‘Hey, I just got a trampoline. You want to see it?’ And so, he brought the guitar for some reason. We ended up writing an entire song out there. For portions of the song, we were bouncing around ‘cause it’s a trampoline, and it’s fun, and the combined maturity level of both of us is 8 years.»

It was reported in spring 2012 that Ed Sheeran would appear as a guest artist on Taylor’s then-upcoming album RED. On October 18, 2012, “Everything Has Changed” leaked online.

The Beginning of the Sweeran Friendship

Ed Sheeran is one of several songwriters that Taylor reached out to write with her on RED. She had seen the music video for his song “Lego House” on TV while being on her “Speak Now World Tour” in Australia and was immediately “blown away.” She told Billboard: “You look at someone like Ed Sheeran. He comes from such a sincere place as a writer and his songs move you in every direction emotionally. That’s something I was so inspired by, I ended up calling him.”

«We had both reached out to each other’s camps at the same time. I showed up at his hotel in Arizona and we just wrote songs all day. Then he came and hung out at my house in LA and we spent all night sitting on the kitchen floor laughing, writing songs and harmonizing.»

Music Video

The music video for “Everything Has Changed” was directed by Philip Andelman and filmed in Oak Park, California at Medea Creek Middle School and San Antonio, Texas. It follows a day in the life of two young children in the same elementary school class. They are both misfits and become good friends, but their platonic feelings turn to something more. At the end of the video, it is revealed that the girl is Taylor’s daughter and the boy is Ed’s son. The music video of “The Joker And The Queen” (2022), another Sweeran collaboration, is the sequel to the “Everything Has Changed” video and features the same actors, now all grown up.

Live Performances

Ed joined Taylor as the main opening act on her “RED Tour” in 2013. The two of them performed “Everything Has Changed” together every night. They also performed the song together on December 7, 2012, at the Z100 Jingle Ball in New York, and again on June 8, 2013, during the season finale of the seventh season of Britain’s Got Talent. They later performed the duet together during Ed’s first concert at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on November 1, 2013. Taylor came out as a surprise guest with an “I Heart Ed” shirt.

Ten years later, Taylor performed the song solo on piano on “The Eras Tour” (2023-2024) during her show on July 22, 2023, in Seattle. On July 6, 2024, she also performed it as an acoustic surprise song in Amsterdam, as part of a mashup with “Mary’s Song (Oh My My My)” (2006) and “So High School” (2024). On August 15, 2024, she played “Everything Has Changed” together with Ed Sheeran at Wembley Stadium in London. It was the first time they sang the song together since their performance in New York back in 2013. They then switched into a mashup of “End Game“, their collaboration on reputation (2017), and Ed’s hit song “Thinking Out Loud” (2014).

Critical Reception

“Everything Has Changed” received generally mixed reviews from music critics. A writer from Billboard critized its composition yet complimenting Sheeran’s appearance. Robert Cospey of Digital Spy gave the song a three stars out of five rating, praising the song’s musical style as “cutesy” but felt that “their exchanges leave us with a warm and fuzzy feeling that is all too rare these days.”

Commercial Performance

In the United States, “Everything Has Changed” peaked at No. 32 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. On the Canadian Hot 100, the single peaked at No. 28. “Everything Has Changed” was more commercially successful in several European territories, peaking at No. 5 in Ireland, No. 7 in Sheeran’s native United Kingdom, and No. 8 in Belgium (Flanders region).

Taylor's Version

Taylor and Ed re-recorded “Everything Has Changed (Taylor’s Version)” for her second re-recorded album, RED (Taylor’s Version), which was released on November 12, 2021, through Republic Records. Before its release Ed said in an interview that he thinks the re-recording is a “much better version” of the song than the original. Taylor told Amazon Music:

«'Everything Has Changed' is a song that I wrote with Ed Sheeran, and I think this is the one that we wrote on a trampoline in my backyard — how cute is that? He is a friend that I will just cherish forever, and looking back to the phases that we were at in our lives back then...It was shortly after this that we went on tour together. We had so many hilarious times, and this was the song that started all of it. And now when I think about this song, I think about how we'd make faces at each other onstage, and try to make the other one crack up. For me, this song is just about all the memories, all the fun times, the friendship montage — that's what I see in my head when I think about this. And it was really fun to get to go in, and I was really, really grateful that Ed wanted to redo all his stuff on RED, so, yay!»

Lyrics

General Information
ArtistTaylor Swift
AlbumsRED
RED (Taylor’s Version)
FeatureEd Sheeran
ReleasedOctober 22, 2012
RecordedMay 28, 2012
Re-ReleasedNovember 12, 2021
StudiosRuby Red (Santa Monica)
Kitty Committee (Belfast)
Decoy (Suffolk)
Black Rock Ranch (Tennessee)
GenreFolk Pop
Length4:05
LabelsBig Machine Records
Republic Records
SongwritersTaylor Swift
Ed Sheeran
ProducerButch Walker
RED CHRONOLOGY
The Lucky OneEverything Has ChangedStarlight
Single Certification
Hidden Message
Hyannis Port
Single Artwork
Taylor & Ed on Recording Day
Sweeran Tweets
Music Video
Live Performance
Lyric Video
Taylor's Version
Original Audio
Remix
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