The news comes after the singer teased she was making a big announcement on 'Good Morning America.'
Taylor Swift just shared some major news! A day after teasing a big announcement, the 31-year-old singer made an appearance on Thursday's Good Morning America to reveal that her re-recorded version of "Love Story," which first came out in 2008, will be released Friday at midnight.
"I'm so excited to share with you that tonight at midnight I'll be putting out my version of my song 'Love Story,' which was originally on my album, Fearless," she said.
Swift also noted that she's finished re-recording the entire Fearless album, adding that it "will be coming out soon." The new edition, called Fearless (Taylor's Version), will feature six new songs.
"My version of Fearless will have 26 songs on it, because I've decided to add songs from the vault, which are songs that almost made the original Fearless album," she said. "I've now gone back and recorded those, so that everybody will be able to hear, not only the songs that made the album, but the songs that almost made it. The full picture."
The cover of Fearless (Taylor's Version) debuted on GMA, before Swift shared it on social media. In a hidden message within the cover debut post, Swift revealed that Fearless (Taylor's Version) is due out April 9.
She also shared what the Fearless era means to her, writing that "a completely involuntary smile creeps across my face" when she thinks about it.
"This was the musical era in which so many inside jokes were created between us, so many hugs exchanged and hands touched, so many unbreakable bonds formed," she wrote. "So before I say anything else, let me just say that it was a real honor to get to be a teenager alongside you, and for those of you I've come to know more recently than 2008, I am ecstatic that I'll get to experience a bit of that feeling with you in the very near future. Now that I can fully appreciate it in its whimsical, effervescent, chaotic entirety."
She described the 2008 album as being full of "magic and curiosity, the bliss and devastation of youth," noting that it was "the diary of the adventures and explorations of a teenage girl who was learning tiny lessons with every new crack in the facade of the fairytale ending she'd been shown in the movies."
Swift next discussed her reasons for re-recording her work, writing, "The way I've chosen to do this will hopefully help illuminate where I'm coming from."
"Artists should own their own work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really *knows* that body of work," she wrote. "For example, only I know which songs I wrote that almost made the Fearless album. Songs I absolutely adored, but were held back for different reasons (don't want too many breakup songs, don't want too many down tempo songs, can't fit that many songs on a physical CD)."
Since those reasons "seem unnecessary" to Swift now, she's decided to give fans "the whole story, see the entire vivid picture, and let you into the entire dreamscape that is my Fearless album" with the six new songs.
The tracks, Swift explained, were written when she was between 16 and 18 and they are "the ones it killed me to leave behind."
"This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could've imagined and has made me even more determined to re-record all of my music," she wrote. "I hope you'll like this first outing as much as I liked traveling back in time to recreate it."
Fans first began speculating that Swift was releasing a re-recorded song from the past after Shazam revealed the new title for "Love Story."
Swift was free to re-record her old songs in November. The journey to her musical freedom began in July 2019, when Scooter Braun bought the rights to her records recorded with Big Machine. Swift, who was disappointed with the sale, then penned a passionate open letter condemning Braun and Big Machine and kicking off a highly public feud.
However, according to Swift, even though she couldn't own her original masters, her contract allowed her to re-record her music at a point in the future. Swift then announced that she planned on re-recording her first five albums when the time came.
Swift spoke with GMA's Robin Roberts in August 2019 about her plan to re-record her music and how "excited" she was about it.
"That’s true and it’s something that I’m very excited about doing because my contract says that starting November 2020, so next year, I can record albums one through five all over again," Swift said. "I’m very excited about it. I just think that artists deserve to own their own work. I just feel very passionately about that."
She also dropped Lover in 2019 and folklore in 2020. For more on Swift, see below.
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