“Sad Beautiful Tragic” (Taylor’s Version) is a song Taylor wrote in, probably, 2011, in the middle of her tour bus after a show of the Speak Now World Tour. Some assume that the song is about Taylor Launter, but others think that it is about Jake Gyllenhaal, they both are ex-boyfriends of Taylor.
Lyrically, the song discusses a break-up and the ending of a “sad, tragic, beautiful” love affair and the feelings that come after it.
Written By: Taylor Swift
Produced By: Christopher Rowe & Taylor Swift
[Verse 1]
Long handwritten notes, deep in your pocket
Words, how little they mean when you're a little too late
I stood right by the tracks, your face in a locket
Good girls, hopeful they'll be and long they will wait
[Chorus]
We had a beautiful, magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair
[Verse 2]
In dreams, I meet you in warm conversation
And we both wake in lonely beds and different cities
And time is taking its sweet time erasing you
And you've got your demons and, darling, they all look like me
[Chorus]
'Cause wе had a beautiful, magic love therе
What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair
[Post-Chorus]
Woah, woah
[Bridge]
Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting
Silence, the train runs off its tracks
Kiss me, try to fix it, could you just try to listen?
Hang up, give up and for the life of us, we can't get back
[Chorus]
A beautiful, magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic, beautiful, tragic, beautiful
What we had, a beautiful, magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair
We had a beautiful, magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair
Written By: Taylor Swift
Produced By: Nathan Chapman &
Taylor Swift
[Verse 1]
Long handwritten note deep in your pocket
Words, how little they mean when you're a little too late
I stood right by the tracks, your face in a locket
Good girls, hopeful they'll be and long they will wait
[Chorus]
We had a beautiful magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair
[Verse 2]
In dreams, I meet you in warm conversation
We both wake in lonely beds, different cities
And time is taking its sweet time erasing you
And you've got your demons, and darling, they all look like me
[Chorus]
'Cause we had a beautiful magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair
[Bridge]
Distance, timing
Breakdown, fighting
Silence, the train runs off its tracks
Kiss me, try to fix it
Could you just try to listen?
Hang up, give up
And for the life of us we can't get back
[Breakdown]
A beautiful, magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic
Beautiful, tragic, beautiful
[Chorus]
What we had, a beautiful magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic, love affair
We had a beautiful magic love there
What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair
Taylor told Billboard:
‘Sad Beautiful Tragic’ is really close to my heart. I remember it was after a show and I was on the bus thinking about this relationship that ended months and months before. The feeling wasn’t sadness and anger or those things anymore. It was wistful loss. And so I just got my guitar and I hit on the fact that I was thinking in terms of rhyming; I rhymed magic with tragic, changed a few things and ended it with what a sad beautiful tragic love affair. I wanted to tell the story in terms of a cloudy recollection of what went wrong. It’s kind of the murky gray, looking back on something you can’t change or get back.
“Sad Beautiful Tragic” was a song that I wrote while I was on tour. I was on a tour bus that was moving and I just started playing this really haunting, sad chorus, and it was very simple, “What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair.” It was just reflecting on something that was lost and you can’t get it back. I went home and I called Nathan Chapman and said, “Hey, I wrote this song. Please, please, please, can we record today?” and, of course, he said, “Yes,” and we used that original demo on the [first version of] the album, because it just kind of came across so pure and raw.
— Swift via a Red (Track by Track) YouTube video.
