We Decoded Taylor Swift’s ‘Red’ Vault Songs—& They Include a Collab With Phoebe Bridgers

Will we ever know peace? When it comes to Taylor Swift’s re-recorded albums—it doesn’t seem like it. The singer announced in June that her next re-leased album will be Red: Taylor’s Version. The album, which is out on November 19, is a re-recording of her Grammy-nominated 2012 album, Red. Since her announcement, fans have been patiently waiting to learn more about the album’s 30 tracks and any bonus collaborators. Now, we finally have some answers.

While Swift has already hinted that fans can expect a long-awaited 10-minute version of the song “All Too Well,” a fan favorite from Red, the singer has revealed little else about the album until now. On Thursday, August 5, Swift unleashed more chaos into the world in an Instagram post where she revealed the names of the vault songs included on her upcoming album, along with the collaborators she’s recruited to join her. However, in usual Taylor Swift fashion—the artist didn’t give everything away so easily. Similar to her release of the Fearless: Taylor’s Version vault songs, Swift left her fans to do a little extra leg work.

The post consists of a 30-second long video of an open vault of scrambled letters, which sent fans into detective mode to try to decode the meaning of Swift’s latest post. It didn’t take long for Swifties to discover that the singer had created a word search puzzle with the answers they were looking for. Fans took to Reddit and Twitter to piece together the words (and names) that they found in the midst of the latest post.

But if you’re not looking to put all of the pieces together for yourself this morning—we’re here to help. While the puzzle took a bit of time to decode, there are a few things that stuck out right away. It looks like Swift will be collaborating with names like Phoebe Bridgers, Chris Stapleton and Ed Sheeran on the new release of Red. (Sheeran is also featured on the original Red song “Everything Has Changed.”

https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1423283014604185607?s=20 https://twitter.com/jelleverbeek/status/1423293363072028680?s=20

While Sheeran has been a longtime friend of Swift’s, the other two singers will be new to her discography. Fans have long asked for a song featuring Phoebe Bridgers, who received four Grammy nominations for her album “Punisher” in 2021. While the “Kyoto” singer is likely to bring an alternative, indie rock tone to the album—it looks like Swift will also be joined by Stapleton, who’s known for the country “Tennessee Whiskey.” With Red being a true country album, Stapleton seems like an ideal fit for a new era and a new song.

As for the tracks themselves—we couldn’t leave you without answers. Swift fans decoded those as well, giving us the names of the nine possible vault songs expected to arrive this November. Along with titles of songs never before heard, two of the tracks included in Swift’s word search include two songs Swift wrote for other bands: “Babe,” originally recorded by the group Sugarland, and “Better Man,” performed by Little Big Town.

With all of that, the biggest peek into the new album is maybe the least obvious—and this isn’t the first time the singer has done it. If you play the audio included in the Instagram post backward—yes, backward—you can hear a short snippet of one of the newest tracks. Which one that is, we won’t know until it’s released. However, Taylor Swift took a similar approach with the reveal of the ‘Fearless: Taylor’s Version’ vault songs. If you listen to the tune backward, you’ll notice the song is actually an excerpt from ‘Don’t You’—a bonus track on the record *her mind*.

https://twitter.com/TaylorSwiftChar/status/1423303864808361992?s=20

While we’re sure this won’t be the last of the madness before the re-release Red: Taylor’s Version, the Swifties out there have brought us a *tiny* bit of peace for the moment. Now we anxiously await hearing the songs for ourselves! Ahead are the rumored decoded vault tracks from Red: Taylor’s Version, as well as who could be featured on the songs, according to Swifties.

1. “All Too Well (10-Minute Version)”
2. “Better Man”
3. “Ronan”
4. “Babe”
5. “Nothing New”
6. “Message in a Bottle”
7. “Forever Winter”
8. “Think About Me”
9. “The Very First Nights”

Feat. Ed Sheeran

Feat. Chris Stapleton

Feat. Phoebe Bridgers

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