I am not ready to throw hosannas at the new Taylor Swift album quite yet. Two great songs do not a great album make, as I discovered with Speak Now, which lead with its chin before sinking under over written disasters like "Dear John". And any way, there are three new songs released in the past month and one of them, though probably not on the album, shows that the road to great songs is not paved with good intentions.But two great songs are two great songs. "Begin Again" is a fabulous follow up to "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", whatever seeping cynicism in the love games is imprinted on the break up song, are banished on "Begin Again". Though considered a sweet song, it isn't really. It isn't "Hey Stephen". There is an eight month gap between an ended relationship on "Never Ever" and the first date of "Begin Again", Taylor is, if not damaged, not the same as when she began.
The song is about as country as Taylor is gonna get, it is country without the twang, though it doesn't sound like her, it is an ancestor of Patsy Cline. A modern countrypolitan (I bet Taylor wishes Owen Bradley was still around) and almost antitheses to the electro pop of "Never Ever". Still, the production has its own problems. There are too many tracks at work, it feels too homogenized.
As if Taylor was too eager for a multi-platinum hit single as opposed to servicing the song. And the James Taylor reference, we already know she was named after him, only highlights that she is exacting a pound of flesh when pennywise might help. I've written this about Taylor many times, but she really needs to try a theater tour, bring everything down a couple of notches. Still, she writes a fine hook and the melody loops towards and away, and the chorus could double as a bridge if it wanted and vice versa.
The production doesn't kill "Begin Again", because the song is very lovely. And lyrical, its weird POV is commanding (though the "Wednesday/ Café" rhyme isn't very good). It is the exact moment when love begins again. Taylor captures the exact second: the boy is standing by her car, telling Taylor about the movies his family and he watch at Christmas, and in that very second, she decides not to mention the other guy because he was finally and irrevocably in the past.
Grade: A