Taylor Swift performs ‘Dear John’ and asks for kindness ahead of ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ release

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Taylor Swift let her Eras Tour audience on Saturday know she appreciates the “beautiful interactions” she has witnessed on tour, but has just one small request ahead of the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).”

“I was hoping to ask you that as we lead up to this album coming out, I would love for that kindness and that gentleness to extend onto our internet activities,” Swift said during her concert at Minneapolis’ US Bank Stadium, videos posted by concertgoers on social media show.

“I’m 33 years old, I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote,” she continued, adding her listeners should not “feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”

The speech came before Swift performed “Dear John,” an iconic seven-minute track off the 2010 version of the album that Swifties have long believed is about her ex-boyfriend John Mayer.

And while she’s known for using past relationships with exes like Mayer, Taylor Lautner or Jake Gyllenhaal as inspiration, the “Anti-Hero” singer has a more pointed reason for drumming up her “Speak Now” era.

“I am putting this album out because I want to own my music and I believe that any artist who has the desire to own their music should be able to,” she said.

Swift has been on a yearslong journey to rerecord new versions of her first six albums, calling them “Taylor’s Version” albums, after her former label Big Machine sold the master recordings of her catalog in 2019.

In 2021, Swift released “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version),” and she announced in May that “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” will be released on July 7.

The-CNN-Wire
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