We Ranked Every Taylor Swift Deluxe Song Worst to Best

Zachary Hourihane (0:00)

Welcome back to Evolution of a Snake. I'm Zach.

Madeline Rubicam (0:03)

And I'm Madeline.

Zachary Hourihane (0:04)

And today, we are going to be ranking all of Taylor Swift's deluxe tracks. This was unfortunately inspired by Billboard's list of their ranking of the deluxe tracks. And, you know, the top of their list is a little bit tasteful, but the bottom of the list is full of travesties and miscarriages of justice. Tell me why, of all the bonus songs, they put Superstar dead last.

Madeline Rubicam (0:25)

Because their taste list is the only explanation.

Zachary Hourihane (0:28)

No, they are literally tasteless.

Madeline Rubicam (0:29)

Honestly, let's open the case. These are deluxe tracks. That means that they were not selected for the main album, many of them for a reason. And yet, you had the pick of the litter for a last track, and you chose Superstar. That's where you lost me. That's exactly where you lost me.

Zachary Hourihane (0:46)

Stop it. You're losing me. This, I have to say, the list was giving new Swiftie.

I know it's not Swiftie content, but it's giving new Swiftie.

Madeline Rubicam (0:55)

It was giving new Swiftie.

It was giving Join 2021 I've met many Join 2021s in my travels, and this sounds like a Join 2021

Zachary Hourihane (1:04)

You're looking at Join 2006 and Join 2008 So we really, we have the right perspective. We're going to correct it. We're going to put the real ranking on the stage today, in this evening, this morning, wherever you are. If you are unfamiliar, patreon.com/swiftologist for extra bonus content every single week. You need to be there. We want to have you there. Also, a deluxe track, I think it's important. It took me a minute to decide what are deluxe tracks, because Taylor has put so many different, like there's the Taylor's versions, there's the anthology. So we decided that the anthology is a second album, so that doesn't count. And the Taylor's versions, we've already ranked. So go listen to that. So these are truly like extra tracks from albums that exist already. And we just followed the list that Billboard had, because it actually was like a pretty complete list, I think.

Madeline Rubicam (1:50)

It was a pretty complete list. I think there wasn't any that they missed, except for Beautiful Eyes. But you already knew that. But you already knew that. We don't want to talk about Beautiful Eyes, but we do want to talk about I Have a Question Mark.

That's the only one I was like, I miss her.

Zachary Hourihane (2:03)

I didn't put her in either.

Madeline Rubicam (2:04)

I didn't put her in. She's not technically a deluxe song. She's on something else.

It's called Beautiful Eyes. She's on an EP. And you know what? Good for her.

Zachary Hourihane (2:13)

Good for her.

Madeline Rubicam (2:14)

She doesn't have to be part of this mess.

Zachary Hourihane (2:15)

That also means that we don't get to put in one of the greatest songs ever made, Christmas Is When You Were Mine. Streamings of that coming up soon? It's winter soon.

Madeline Rubicam (2:21)

Streamings of that coming up. Really soon. I've just started, honestly, largely in thanks to doing this, I've just started my Midnights October streamings, and it's been exquisite. In a word, exquisite. Thank you so much, Midnights.

Zachary Hourihane (2:36)

Thank you, Midnights. Every year, you become even more of my silly rabbit.

Madeline Rubicam (2:40)

She does. Every year, I like it more and more and more. It's funny. It's really funny because she was, she really was a silly rabbit when she first came out. Let's put it that way. And then as time gone on, she went sillier and sillier and sillier.

Zachary Hourihane (2:53)

And now she's just like, And rabbit-er and rabbit-er. And now she's the right hand arm man, my silly rabbit.

Madeline Rubicam (2:59)

Pookie.

Zachary Hourihane (3:00)

Anyway, let's get all the way into it. We'll start with, I always forget, like because we've lived with debut for so long, I forget that it was 11 songs and that these songs, which to me are canonically part of the album, are technically deluxe tracks. So the first one, also our ranking criteria. So we started with how well does it fit the album out of 10?

What is the songwriting out of 10? And what is the longevity of this deluxe track? Does it stand up? Has it had a critical resurgence? And that's how we've decided to itemize our lists today. So the first one is, I'm only me when I'm with you. How well does it fit debut? I gave it a 10 out of 10 because it's honky tonk. It's I'm only me when I'm only up when you're not down. That's exactly what it is. And I could never take that away from her. For songwriting, I gave it a 7