How Taylor Swift Revisits Past Jake Gyllenhaal Romance on 10-Minute Version of ‘All Too Well’: Lyric Breakdown

Reliving a past love. After months of anticipation, Taylor Swift has gifted fans with Red (Taylor’s Version) — and instantly brought listeners back to her whirlwind romance (and eventual breakup) with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Swift, now 31, dated Gyllenhaal, now 40, for three months in late 2010. While brief, the relationship was formative for the "Begin Again" songstress, who channeled her emotions into 2012's Red. Upon releasing the new-and-improved version of the record on Friday, November 12, fans lost it over the details uncovered in Swift's 10-minute breakup anthem "All Too Well."

One day before the album's debut, the Grammy winner reflected on how much has changed since 2012. "It came out originally about a decade ago, and I was 22, and that release week was so stressful because nobody has heard any of the music," she said on the Thursday, November 11, episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers. "There are like 14 different genres on this album. It's a real patchwork quilt of genre. I was really experimenting." Swift was "really sad" during the promotional tour for the original record, she recalled. "But this time, I've got sunglasses on and a mojito, and it's chill this time. It's really nice to be able to put this album out and not be sad. Not be taking breaks in between interviews to cry. I'm telling you, it's much better this way. You get some time passing. You're reliving your experience from your 20s when you're in your 30s. It's really the way to do it." [jwplayer TTpbVVx2-zhNYySv2]

The Pennsylvania native announced her plans to rerecord all of her previous hits, beginning with Fearless (Taylor’s Version), amid her dispute with Big Machine Records. Fresh off the April reimagined version of Fearless, Swift announced that she was focused on the heartbreak-inspired Red next.

“Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past. And this is all to say, that the next album I’ll be releasing is my version of Red,” the Cats actress explained in a June Instagram post.

She continued in her post, ”Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past. Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.”

The album features 30 songs, including nine “from the vault” unreleased tracks that consist of duets with Chris Stapleton, Phoebe Bridgers and Ed Sheeran. The record also features a 10-minute version of “All Too Well” and an accompanying short film, starring Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink.

“I can’t express my gratitude enough to these artists for helping me bring these songs to life,” the Valentine’s Day actress gushed about the recording process in an August Instagram post. “I can’t wait til we can dust off our highest hopes and relive these memories together. We’ll also be making a bunch of new ones too, since Red (Taylor’s Version) includes so many songs you haven’t heard yet. Til then, I’ll be counting down and picturing it all in my head. In burning red.”

While the songwriter initially chose not to reveal the identity of the man who left her heartbroken when Red first came out, eagle-eyed Swifties picked up on several clues in the lyrics of “All Too Well” and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” This time around, she's not too concerned about the response from the man behind the music.

"I haven't thought about their experience, to be honest," she told Seth Meyers on Thursday when asked about her exes.

Scroll down for a full breakdown of how 2021's "All Too Well" compares to the original:

[podcast_block]

Reliving a past love. After months of anticipation, Taylor Swift has gifted fans with Red (Taylor’s Version) — and instantly brought listeners back to her whirlwind romance (and eventual breakup) with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Swift, now 31, dated Gyllenhaal, now 40, for three months in late 2010. While brief, the relationship was formative for the "Begin Again" songstress, who channeled her emotions into 2012's Red. Upon releasing the new-and-improved version of the record on Friday, November 12, fans lost it over the details uncovered in Swift's 10-minute breakup anthem "All Too Well."

One day before the album's debut, the Grammy winner reflected on how much has changed since 2012. "It came out originally about a decade ago, and I was 22, and that release week was so stressful because nobody has heard any of the music," she said on the Thursday, November 11, episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers. "There are like 14 different genres on this album. It's a real patchwork quilt of genre. I was really experimenting." Swift was "really sad" during the promotional tour for the original record, she recalled. "But this time, I've got sunglasses on and a mojito, and it's chill this time. It's really nice to be able to put this album out and not be sad. Not be taking breaks in between interviews to cry. I'm telling you, it's much better this way. You get some time passing. You're reliving your experience from your 20s when you're in your 30s. It's really the way to do it." [jwplayer TTpbVVx2-zhNYySv2]

The Pennsylvania native announced her plans to rerecord all of her previous hits, beginning with Fearless (Taylor’s Version), amid her dispute with Big Machine Records. Fresh off the April reimagined version of Fearless, Swift announced that she was focused on the heartbreak-inspired Red next.

“Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past. And this is all to say, that the next album I’ll be releasing is my version of Red,” the Cats actress explained in a June Instagram post.

She continued in her post, ”Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past. Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.”

The album features 30 songs, including nine “from the vault” unreleased tracks that consist of duets with Chris Stapleton, Phoebe Bridgers and Ed Sheeran. The record also features a 10-minute version of “All Too Well” and an accompanying short film, starring Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink.

“I can’t express my gratitude enough to these artists for helping me bring these songs to life,” the Valentine’s Day actress gushed about the recording process in an August Instagram post. “I can’t wait til we can dust off our highest hopes and relive these memories together. We’ll also be making a bunch of new ones too, since Red (Taylor’s Version) includes so many songs you haven’t heard yet. Til then, I’ll be counting down and picturing it all in my head. In burning red.”

While the songwriter initially chose not to reveal the identity of the man who left her heartbroken when Red first came out, eagle-eyed Swifties picked up on several clues in the lyrics of “All Too Well” and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” This time around, she's not too concerned about the response from the man behind the music.

"I haven't thought about their experience, to be honest," she told Seth Meyers on Thursday when asked about her exes.

Scroll down for a full breakdown of how 2021's "All Too Well" compares to the original:

[podcast_block]

Swift raised eyebrows when she cast O'Brien, 30, and Sink, 19, in the "All Too Well" short — but fans were quick to notice the age difference was similar to the songwriter's with Gyllenhaal.

She seemingly references their ages with new lyrics: "And I was never good at telling jokes but the punchline goes / 'I'll get older, but your lovers stay my age.'" (Gyllenhaal is currently dating Jeanne Cadieu, who's 16 years his junior.)

In another moment, she sings: "They say all's well that ends well / But I'm in a new hell every time you double-cross my mind / You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine / And that made me want to die."

Critics are quick to invalidate the emotions Swift felt surrounding her split when the relationship was such a whirlwind — and some have even wondered whether the exes were together longer in secret. However, a new verse confirms it was just a few months.

"And I was thinking on the drive down / Any time now, he's gonna say it's love / You never called it what it was / Til we were dead and gone and buried," she sings. "Check the pulse and come back / Swearing it's the same / After three months in the grave."

Swift references an unnamed actress who caught her "weeping in a party bathroom" and asked "what happened." In January 2011, reports surfaced that Jennifer Aniston gave the songwriter relationship advice at the People's Choice Awards.

When Us Weekly confirmed Gyllenhaal's split from the Miss Americana star that same month, a source noted, "Jake just told her it wasn't working out. Taylor is really upset and hurt. She feels really burned by him."

Longtime Swift lovers cite the bridge of "All Too Well" as being some of her best work, but the updated chorus packs a punch. "And there we are again / When nobody had to know/You kept me like a secret / But I kept you like an oath / Sacred prayer and we'd swear to remember it all too well," she sings.

The former couple were photographed on a now-iconic walk through New York City ahead of their December 2010 split. While Swift has penned plenty of lines about the Big Apple — and "upstate New York" in the original version of "All Too Well" — she mentions one of the outer boroughs in the final verse.

"From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones / I'm a soldier who's returning half her weight / And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue? / Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?" she says. "'Cause in this city's barren cold, I still remember the first fall of snow / And how it glistened as it fell, I remember it all too well."

Because nothing gets by Swifties, fans have connected the dots between Swift's "twin flame" lyric and her mention of "twin fire signs" in "State of Grace." (The former couple both celebrate birthdays in December.)

"You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes / Sipping coffee like you're on a late-night show / But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willing you to come / And he said, 'It's supposed to be fun turning 21,'" Swift sings.

Later on, she says, "'Cause there we are again when I loved you so / Back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known."

It's no secret that the Guilty actor has made many an appearance on talk shows throughout his Hollywood career, but he's tended to keep coy about his relationships in interviews. In 2015, however, he told Howard Stern that he's only been in love "twice" — without mentioning names.

The Tony nominee — who previously dated Reese Witherspoon and Kirsten Dunst — added at the time: "It was me, man. I think I probably just got scared."