Beautiful Eyes is an Extended Play (EP) released by Taylor Swift in 2008, a few months before Fearless. It contains six songs, four of which are various alternative versions and edits of songs from her debut album. The other two songs are originals you can't find anywhere else; these are what we're talking about today.
Truly America's sweetheart
The first of these two songs is Beautiful Eyes, making this album the first to be named after one of it's songs, a habit that wouldn't be broken until the release of 1989.
Both of the originals on this album sound much more similar to Taylor's first album, Taylor Swift, than her second, Fearless, which would come out just a few months later. Certain details like the background instruments and her deeper voice suggests that, despite it's release date, these songs were recorded closer to Taylor Swift in time than Fearless.
The song Beautiful Eyes isn't extremely notable by itself. It's not a bad song by any means; it just doesn't stand very much from similar songs. Taylor writes about eyes a lot so really the most notable aspect of this song is how it's so explicitly about eyes. Given how common Taylor writes about eyes you would think there would be more songs explicitly about them but somehow this just isn't the case.
Listening to this song is interesting because as I said previously it sounds like it's straight from 2006, but the lyrics could easily be from 2008. The themes of pining for someone the way Taylor does in this song is more explored in Fearless than Taylor Swift. Songs like You Belong With Me and Love Story are a couple notable examples of "something is in the way of this love", so Beautiful Eyes can be seen as a transitory song where only the lyrics have shifted from the previous album. But not the next song, which is much more Taylor Swift than Beautiful Eyes.
I Heart ? is the better of the two songs in my opinion. It has probably the strangest title of any Taylor Swift song and that is not a low bar.
This song is a great combination of tone, theme, and music that we never really got to see in a big name Taylor Swift song. It's a breakup song with an uncommonly resilient tone. This is what would happen if Should've Said No and Our Song had a baby which was relegated to an EP that no one knew about. It's fun, catchy, unique, and well produced. It's hard to say why it didn't get a wider release. My best guess is that Taylor thought it wasn't the right fit for Fearless but didn't want it to go to waste. Better to give it life here than nothing I suppose!
This song is a great combination of tone, theme, and music that we never really got to see in a big name Taylor Swift song. It's a breakup song with an uncommonly resilient tone. This is what would happen if Should've Said No and Our Song had a baby which was relegated to an EP that no one knew about. It's fun, catchy, unique, and well produced. It's hard to say why it didn't get a wider release. My best guess is that Taylor thought it wasn't the right fit for Fearless but didn't want it to go to waste. Better to give it life here than nothing I suppose!
I wish I could listen to this song more but like many lesser known songs it doesn't exist on official music streaming services. Fans have unofficially uploaded them in scattered places across the internet like YouTube which is where I usually listen to them, but they sadly cannot be on any of my playlists. They also won't be featured in my ranking of Taylor Swift's songs since I'm only considering songs from the main canon. This EP is like a Star Wars novel; only the nerds know about it and no one else could even be bothered to care. It's a shame too, because as far as Taylor Swift's music outside of her main albums go these songs are pretty decent. I'm looking at you, Christmas album.
See you tomorrow,
-C
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