Taylor Swift is up to her old tricks again. This maniacal — her words, not ours! — woman is dropping hints about her upcoming re-release of Red (Taylor's Version) with a 30-second video featuring 13-letter word jumbles, including the unmistakable name of fellow singer-songwriter/emotional devastator, Phoebe Bridgers.
Back in June, Swift announced that 2021's Red would be her next re-release following the arrival of Fearless (Taylor's Version) in April — the first in her venture to reclaim her back catalogue after Scooter Braun sold off her masters. The new version of Red is anticipated November 19, and today, she's stoking the fire of her notoriously detail-oriented fanbase with some clues about the upcoming release in the form of word salad.
Red (Taylor's Version) will be expanded from its original 16 tracks to 30, so naturally, we're all curious as to what from-the-vault surprises the tracklist has in store for us. The video teaser Swift tweeted is the first taste of what that could include — but who would she be to make it easy? High-risk, high-reward is the name of her game.
Fans have already determined that the scrambled letters form a 13-by-13 crossword puzzle, calling to mind a lyric from the album's title track. Some of the nonsensical phrases like "MEBRIDGERSKOE" were easily identified as guest features for Bridgers, alongside Ed Sheeran and Chris Stapleton. Ever-clever Swifties also cracked the code on rare song titles like "Better Man" (as originally recorded by Little Big Town), "Babe" (as originally recorded by Sugarland), "Nothing New," "Ronan" and — of course — the highly-coveted 10-minute version of "All Too Well."
Back in June, Swift announced that 2021's Red would be her next re-release following the arrival of Fearless (Taylor's Version) in April — the first in her venture to reclaim her back catalogue after Scooter Braun sold off her masters. The new version of Red is anticipated November 19, and today, she's stoking the fire of her notoriously detail-oriented fanbase with some clues about the upcoming release in the form of word salad.
Red (Taylor's Version) will be expanded from its original 16 tracks to 30, so naturally, we're all curious as to what from-the-vault surprises the tracklist has in store for us. The video teaser Swift tweeted is the first taste of what that could include — but who would she be to make it easy? High-risk, high-reward is the name of her game.
Fans have already determined that the scrambled letters form a 13-by-13 crossword puzzle, calling to mind a lyric from the album's title track. Some of the nonsensical phrases like "MEBRIDGERSKOE" were easily identified as guest features for Bridgers, alongside Ed Sheeran and Chris Stapleton. Ever-clever Swifties also cracked the code on rare song titles like "Better Man" (as originally recorded by Little Big Town), "Babe" (as originally recorded by Sugarland), "Nothing New," "Ronan" and — of course — the highly-coveted 10-minute version of "All Too Well."
Now the real question is: will Bridgers get to sing more than back-up vocals?
Gird your loins, Jake Gyllenhaal.
Check out Swift's tweet below — as well as some of Twitter's reactions — and get ready to flex those Scrabble muscles.
god the women you sent down here to gather berries are doing word searches for taylor swift
— raya (@intoanewlife) August 5, 2021
Earlier this week, Swift paid tribute to world-champion American gymnast Simone Biles, praising her bronze-medal win at the Tokyo Olympics.
