She’s not a saint, she’s not what you think; she’s … probably going to make a few tweaks to a song. On the new version of “Better Than Revenge” on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Taylor Swift sings, “He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches.” This is a more progressive replacement for the controversial lyric, “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.” Swift has previously expressed that she is very aware of where the song fits in her life. “I was 18 when I wrote that,” she said in The Guardian in 2014. “That’s the age you are when you think someone can actually take your boyfriend. Then you grow up and realize no one can take someone from you if they don’t want to leave.” The track has long been rumored to be about actress Camille Belle, whom Joe Jonas dated after Swift. But perhaps Swift saw that Jonas has been updating his lyrics and felt like reciprocating — during a live performance of “Much Better” last year, Jonas sang that he was “cool with superstars,” in place of where he once not-so-subtly declared that he was “done with superstars and all the tears on her guitar.”
Fans previously theorized that the track might be changing in a different way. Thanks to Apple Music, Swifties knew that “Better Than Revenge (Taylor’s Version)” had added three seconds from the previous original version. Some initially suspected that it might be changing to be similar to the Speak Now World Tour version, where one of her backup dancers says, “Hey, it’s me. Leave me a message and make it hot,” parodying a Paris Hilton–type character before the beginning of the song. If some variation of this ended up on the final version, it could have given a playful, even more nostalgic vibe to a song that has a big reputation of its own. Swift says she “doesn’t care about anything” that happened to her at 19, but it doesn’t mean she can’t have a little fun with it.
This post has been updated.
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Yes, Taylor Swift Changed That Part of ‘Better Than Revenge’ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t8HLrayrnV6YvK57kWlpbGdgbHy1rdilpqtlo6y2p8CMm5ytrJWnerW0wKdkq52mmruosYytmLKkn6fAbsLEq6qip55jtbW5yw%3D%3D