Our Song (Taylor Swift song)

"**Our Song**" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, taken from her self-titled debut studio album (2006). Swift wrote "Our Song" for a high school talent show during ninth grade; the lyrics are about a young couple using the regular events in their lives to create their own song. She included the song on the track list because it was popular among her classmates. It was released as the album's third single on September 10, 2007, by Big Machine Records. Produced by Nathan Chapman, "Our Song" is an uptempo banjo-driven country track incorporating fiddles and drums.

Music critics lauded Swift's songwriting on "Our Song" for creating conversational lyrics and a memorable hook. It featured on *Rolling Stone*'s 2019 list of the best country songs by female artists since 2000. Peaking atop the Hot Country Songs for six weeks, the single made Swift the youngest person (seventeen at the time) to single-handedly write and sing a Hot Country Songs number one. "Our Song" peaked at number 16 on the *Billboard* Hot 100 and was certified four times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It also peaked at number 30 on the Canadian Hot 100 and was certified platinum by Music Canada.

Trey Fanjoy directed the song's music video, which premiered on CMT on September 24, 2007, and won Video of the Year at the 2008 CMT Music Awards. Swift performed the song on televised programs and during many festivals, and included it in the set lists of the Fearless Tour (2009–2010) and the Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012). The song was part of Swift's concerts on select dates of the Red Tour (2013–2014), the Reputation Stadium Tour (2018), and the Eras Tour (2023–2024).

## Production and release

In 2004, Pennsylvania-born Taylor Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at fourteen to pursue a career in country music. She signed with Sony/ATV in 2004 to become a professional songwriter, and with Big Machine Records in 2005 to become a country-music singer. Near the end of 2005, Swift recorded songs for her self-titled debut album with producer Nathan Chapman. By the time production wrapped, Swift had completed her first year of high school in Hendersonville, Tennessee. She wrote three tracks by herself—"The Outside", "Should've Said No", and "Our Song". "Our Song" is a track Swift wrote for a talent show of her ninth grade. She conceived the song as an upbeat track with lyrics relatable to her classmates, writing it within twenty minutes. On the inspiration, Swift said: "I wrote it about this guy I was dating, and how we didn't have a song. So I went ahead and wrote us one."

Months after the talent show, her classmates came up to her and recited the melody and lyrics, which made her think, "There must be something here!" To this end, she insisted that Big Machine Records executives include it on the track list. Swift envisioned the production in her head before approaching Chapman. According to the album's liner notes, instruments and their corresponding musicians on "Our Song" include acoustic guitar (Swift), banjo and electric guitar (Chapman), Dobro (Bruce Bouton), drums (Nick Buda), percussion (Eric Darken), fiddle (Rob Hajacos), and bass guitar (Tim Marks). The track was recorded by Chad Carlson, assisted by Chapman, at Sound Cottage and Quad Studios in Nashville. It was mixed by Chuck Ainley, assisted by Greg Lawrence, at Masterfonics. Swift chose the song as the album's closing track because she thought the final refrain's lyric, "Play it again," would subliminally suggest the listener to replay the album.

Swift's debut album was released on October 24, 2006, through Big Machine Records. "Our Song" was the third single from the album; Big Machine released the song to US country radio on September 10, 2007, and as a crossover single to US pop radio on March 10, 2008, in partnership with Republic Records. "Our Song" was later included in the international version of Swift's second studio album, *Fearless*, released in March 2009. Following a 2019 dispute over talent manager Scooter Braun's acquisition of Big Machine and the masters to Swift's back catalog, Big Machine re-released "Our Song" on limited-edition vinyl in October 2019.

### Music and lyrics

"Our Song" has narrative lyrics about a young couple's love life. In the first verse, the narrator and her boyfriend are traveling in a car, "He's got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel, the other on my heart." As they listen to the radio, the narrator tells her boyfriend they do not have a song to call their own. In the refrain, the boyfriend responds that their song consists of sounds drawing from their daily lives that he associates with their relationship. The boyfriend says, "Our song is the slammin' screen door / Sneakin' out late, tappin' on your window;" critics consider the "slammin' screen door" imagery the song's hook and most memorable lyrical detail. The narrator replies, "Our song is the way he laughs / The first date, man, I didn't kiss him when I should have." In the refrain's final lines, she asks God "if he could play it again" when she gets home. The song ends with the lyrics, "I grabbed a pen / And an old napkin / And I wrote down our song", self-referencing Swift's occupation as a songwriter.

Built on a banjo riff, "Our Song" is a country-music track featuring a fiddle solo in the break. Musicologist James E. Perone noted that the production conveys the conversational lyrics by employing repeated pitches in the lower register of Swift's vocals in the verses, where she sings at one pitch for a sustained period. According to the BBC, the verses exemplify Swift's "one-note melody", which effectively conveys the narrative and becomes a staple in many of her subsequent songs. The refrain emphasizes the fifth scale-step with a wider-ranging melody and higher-pitched vocals, which Perone described as upbeat and tuneful. In the song, Swift sings with twangy vocals and uses a Southern accent, brought about by her move from Pennsylvania to Tennessee as a teenager. Swift pronounces the pronoun "I" closer to the monophthong "ah" and sings the words "car" and "heart" with a non-rhotic accent. She plays on the lack of verb agreement in Southern American English in the lyric "your mama don't know".

Critics debated whether "Our Song" is country music. J. Freedom du Lac from *The Washington Post* and Nick Jones from *Vulture* noticed influences of hip hop and rhythmic music on the phrasing and the final refrain's compressed drums. Critic Maura Johnston from *Pitchfork* commented that apart from country-music fiddles and twang, the melody is influenced by "millennial teen pop". Grady Smith from *Rolling Stone* selected it as one of Swift's "countriest songs", noting the instruments and Southern accent. In an article for JSTOR, linguist Chi Luu argued that Swift employed a Southern accent as a means to signify her authenticity in country music; because Swift came from an upper middle class background, which differentiated her from other female country musicians singing about overcoming hardships and poverty, the Southern accent was an important means for her early image as a country-music artist. Musicologist Nate Sloan pointed to the conversational lyrics drawing on mundane daily-life experience as Swift's embodiment of country-music songwriting tropes.