The Singles Jukebox

On a Friday, on the Jukebox…

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[7.00]

Edward Okulicz: People get too caught up in who Taylor Swift sings about, and ignore what she sings about. For instance, “Dear John” is as much about teenage naïvety as it is about John Mayer, but good luck getting a thinkpiece green-lit about that. With no obvious beau (current or former) to pin “Begin Again” to, it doesn’t have that sort of baggage and so at least has a chance at a fair critical appraisal. “Begin Again” is not short on specific narrative; it just leaves out the unimportant names. Taylor’s genius is that the details are there in illustration of emotions and feelings that are universal, and what “Begin Again” lacks in inventiveness, it makes up in vividness. This song isn’t about high heels, James Taylor records, or a café on Wednesday; it is about feeling understood and the hope that comes from being ready for intimacy after pain. It’s also a beautiful pop song if you’re into those.
[10]

Anthony Easton: I like how resigned she is when she sings “I do.” In fact, the whole thing is exhausted and kind of resigned. It’s a nice experiment. There are also some great lyrical details about James Taylor and movies at Christmas, and there is something so precise and general about “at a Wednesday, in a café, I watched it begin again.” Which café, and what began? — but the midweek torpor of it has a certain power. I am not completely in love; it seems too well-constructed, and this flirtation with biography is providing diminishing returns, though that might be a question of critical and not artistic voice.
[6]

Alfred Soto: “He didn’t like it when I wore high heels but I do” clunks — Swift likes it that he doesn’t like her wearing high heels? So, okay, maybe it’s subversive after all. The other subversive moment: admitting to owning James Taylor records. The “but I do” refrain and Swift’s high notes at the end of key lines provide bits of tension in a track that’s otherwise closer to Gorilla than her audience might want to admit.
[7]

David Moore: I think I’m ready to come back down from Teenpoptimist Contrarian Backlash Mountain and admit that this is a pretty song, even if the Wednesday in a café scans arbitrary more than charming. (In my experience, if you’re spending your Wednesdays in cafés, you probably can’t actually remember what day it is.) Two great lines: “He didn’t like it when I wore high heels, but I do” and then “I think it’s strange you think I’m funny, ‘cuz he never did.” She tells us more about the past (and about herself) in those two lines than she tells us about the present (or about New Guy) in all the rest. Which is kind of the point — sometimes it takes a nice, new, unremarkable relationship (“oh hey, this person doesn’t try to demoralize and control me, interesting!”) to realize how deranged your last one was — also the premise, albeit from the other emotional side of the coin, of “The Way I Loved You.” The song seems unremarkable, too. Kind of works. I dunno, whatever — I’m not misguidedly expecting unattainable greatness from Taylor Swift anymore, just some mild thoughtfulness and great hooks, which is what she’s always provided (at least) and which, incidentally, is also way more than most $12 purchases at Starbucks will get you these days.
[7]

Erick Bieritz: It seems that Taylor has had enough new loves, breakups and makeups, romantic small-town tragedies and moments of nostalgic regret to fill the lives of a hundred 22-year-olds. Occam’s razor obviously indicates she is really a powerful immortal who has lived for thousands of years in perfect health and youth.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: “Begin Again” is as much a dialogue with Swift’s catalogue as a story of a budding relationship. The song’s first line is one she’s used before (in “Fifteen”), and she wields her tunes’ temporal geography for thematic purposes: where Swift narratives used to take place on Tuesdays (“You Belong With Me” “Forever and Always”), “Begin Again” culminates “on a Wednesday, in a café.” It’s as if she’s Bill Murray waking up at the end of Groundhog Day; on the final track of Red and after four albums obsessing over the minutiae of romantic tumult, Taylor emerges with this spare, tentative tale of rebirth. “I’ve been spending the last eight months/Thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end,” she whispers over brushed drums and gentle mandolin, her tones awed, her words still aching with hurt. Swift enjoys formal exercises — it’s part of her country tradition — and this has those in the malleability of the repeated “…but I do” refrain, which traverses the separation between private thoughts and public behavior (“You don’t know how nice that is”) and the present and the past (“He didn’t like it when I wore high heels”). But as important are the breaks with formal songwriting structure, which lends the song verisimilitude: the superfluously specific James Taylor reference, for instance, or the wordy, overly detailed description of certain Christmas traditions. Nevertheless, when it comes to getting over things, these mundanities matter.
[9]

Iain Mew: Outside of its context as the final chapter of Red it loses a little, but it’s still deftly detailed and heart warming. The way that Swift spreads out the implications of her past relationship and the effect it’s had on her without giving that much away means that when in all comes out in the chorus’s “I’ve been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end” feels like the ground dropping away. There’s an immediate soft landing though, and hope and despair sharing space feels natural because it’s only now that she’s finally got back up again and let go that she can look back and really see the past for what it was, or at least can admit to it. She’s not exactly throwing herself into the new relationship — “I watched it begin again” feels telling, like she’s sitting outside of herself — but what the light will turn out to be is less important than that it’s there.
[9]

Will Adams: Would have worked better as an internal monologue. Taylor says the past is past but spends half of “Begin Again” looking over her shoulder. And while that precisely captures the transition into a new relationship, I’m not sure the new guy wants to hear it. Furthermore, the production is busy and threatens to envelop the vocals. However, “Begin Again” gets a massive redemption from a single line: “On a Wednesday/In a café/I watched it begin again.” It’s the marriage of the details and Taylor’s masterful delivery that turns it into the quiet confession on which the whole song hinges.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: “Begin Again” is a lovely song when taken on its own, but when listened to as the closing track on Red it’s even better. Taylor Swift’s latest full-length is a scatterbrained affair, jumping from CMT-ready cuts to the Max-Martin pyrotechnics of “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble.” The album, though, plays out like the emotional swerves one experiences in their early 20s, a time that often seems wild but is usually full of just as many confusing and crippling moments.  Swift spends Red swinging from sadness to sometimes idiotic glee (the dubstep-twinged “Trouble”), from earnestness to blowing raspberries at indie geeks and hipsters. “Begin Again” is all about clarity — appropriately, Swift turns to music not as a punchline but as a refuge and, eventually, a bridge to someone else. Here she avoids gloopy reminiscing and bumper-sticker-worthy mantras in favor of accepting the present and forgetting the rest.  Including the future — what really sells “Begin Again” as one of Swift’s best songs yet is how, despite sounding very much like her, she avoids the our-union-is-amazing-we-are-so-great-together feel many of her previous love songs had. Instead she just appreciated chats about Christmas and family traditions, because it seems like she’s learned when something begins again, it can always meet a familiar end.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: So it turns out what makes me grudgingly accept a Taylor Swift song is her music disappearing up a cloud, a little like Sarah McLachlan circa “World on Fire.” (In retrospect, I should’ve guessed.) Better that than disappearing up misallocated Max Martinisms.
[6]

Al Shipley: If the world let her be the effective but limited adult contempo schlockmeister she is to me, I’d gladly put her on the level of my boo Sara Bareilles. But as is, I’ll just give Swift daps for the one or two singles per cycle that get to me, and show appreciation for the James Taylor shoutout that so perfectly encapsulates her true artistic roots. 
[6]

Ramzi Awn: “Begin Again” does everything “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” didn’t do. The lilt of “Tim McGraw” is back, and Swift is better off for it. Her voice hits the sort of sweet spots she isn’t necessarily known for with conviction, and the melody sways like a stroll at sunset. Beginning again is not an unfamiliar concept, but Swift nails the bittersweet tone of beginnings (and endings) with a refreshing clarity all her own.    
[7]

Brad Shoup: The café is the humming black hole in the text. Such a generic meeting spot, with the attendant, asinine implications of destiny. A close second is the James Taylor ref… turns out that poor asshole’s records were much cooler than hers. The ultimate nice-guy ode gets the ultimate in anodyne arrangement: mandolin and accordion hemming like coffeeshop chatter to which you’d never care to pay attention.
[3]