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Taylor Swift · S4 E5
Enchanted
Adam Young of Owl City, the reply song he records three years later, and the mythology she builds around a single meeting.
At a party in 2009, Taylor Swift meets the lead singer of Owl City and cannot stop thinking about him. She writes "Enchanted" about that single encounter, and three years later, he records a full reply.
"Delicate" -- Taylor Swift, official music video (2018). Taylor becomes invisible, then visible, dancing through a hotel and a rainy street with the freedom of someone who thinks nobody is watching. The song is about the terrifying vulnerability of a new connection: "Is it cool that I said all that?" It is the same nervous electricity that powers "Enchanted": two songs, eight years apart, about the moment before you know if someone feels it too.
Delicate
"Delicate" is produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and the production is deliberately fragile. The intro uses a vocoder effect on Taylor's voice, making her sound mechanical and distant before the real vocal enters, as though she is rehearsing what to say before she actually says it. Listen for the way the production opens up across the song. Martin and Shellback slowly strip away the filters and effects until Taylor's voice is completely exposed by the final chorus. The arc mirrors the emotion: she starts guarded and ends vulnerable. "Enchanted" does the same thing acoustically, building from a quiet piano intro to a full arrangement.
The Meeting
Adam Young is the sole member of Owl City, and his single "Fireflies" has just reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. He meets Taylor at an industry event during the Fearless promotional cycle. Neither of them acts on it, and Taylor channels the entire encounter into a six-minute song about wishing someone would feel the same way.
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Adam Young do on Valentine's Day 2011?
“You are a true princess from a dreamy fairy tale, a modern Cinderella. I figured Valentine's Day was the perfect time to write this note and simply say... I was enchanted to meet you too.”
— Adam Young, Valentine's Day blog post to Taylor Swift, February 14, 2011
Superman -- Taylor Swift (Speak Now, Deluxe Edition, 2010)
A bonus track about loving someone who is always flying away, always just out of reach. On an album where Taylor writes about boys who hurt her, boys she hurt, and boys who made her angry, "Superman" is about the one she simply could not get to. The connection to "Enchanted" is the question that hangs over both songs: what happens when the feeling is real but the timing is impossible?
How many times did Taylor Swift and Adam Young actually meet before she wrote "Enchanted" about him?
There is one song left on Speak Now, and it is not about a boy, a critic, or a broken heart. Taylor writes "Long Live" for the people most artists forget to thank: the band, the crew, the ones who carry the equipment after the lights go out.
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