The Manuscript

“I wrote “Enchanted” about a guy who I was enchanted to meet, obviously. He was somebody that I had talked to a couple of times on email, and then I was in New York and went to meet him. I remember just the whole way home thinking, “I hope he’s not in love with somebody.” It was just wonderful, that feeling. Like, “Oh my gosh. Who’s he with? Does he like me? Does he like somebody else? What does it mean?” I got home and he had emailed me and said something like, “Sorry I was so quiet. I was just wonderstruck meeting you.” And so I incorporated the word wonderstruck, into the song as a, “Hey this one’s sorta for you.””
— Taylor Swift

“Adam”
— Hidden message in liner notes

It was never released as a single.

It is a nearly six-minute song buried deep inside the track listing of one of its artist’s most underrated albums.

And, thanks to the song’s rumored inspiration and a belated perfume tie-in, it even became the subject of jokes among fans for a time.

And yet, more than a decade after its release, it began to chart globally after going viral on TikTok.

Not long afterward, it became the one song from its album to be played every night on the biggest tour of all time, as well as the most-streamed song from its album on Spotify, both in its original version and Taylor’s Version.

And it still remains, to this day, my personal favorite Taylor Swift song.

I, of course, am talking about “Enchanted”.

No, it is not her deepest song. It is probably not even the best example of her storytelling ability. What it is, however, is an absolutely perfect pop song from the moment the opening synth first gives way to the acoustic guitar strumming to the moment Taylor’s multitracked vocals drift off into the distance at the very end.

Much like the early work of the Beatles, specifically “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Enchanted” captures in an infectiously joyous way the highs of intense infatuation with someone and the fantastical possibilities that exist during those initial highs. But what Taylor does in constructing this song musically is really the key to its brilliance, as she allows the song to slowly build for its first minute and a half before it erupts in a euphoric blast of pop rock energy so intense that you can almost picture a cannon of confetti going off at the 1:35 mark.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Let’s jump back to the beginning of the song, where the understated synthesizer gives way to the rhythmic acoustic guitar strumming. Feel free to listen along below:

Many people talk about Speak Now and Red as being the albums that served as the bridge between her country and pop sounds, and few songs better exemplify this bridge than “Enchanted”. The opening, understated synthesizer is something that she would come to utilize many times in the future, particularly in her work with Jack Antonoff, while the acoustic guitar strumming firmly cements this song within her country musical framework.

And the specific combination of the synthesizer and acoustic guitar here serves two instantly compelling thematic and narrative functions: first, it functions as the sonic equivalent of a curtain opening on stage, preceding the emotional theatricality that will be exhibited in the music and lyrics of the song. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, it sonically illustrates Taylor’s emotional state as the song begins, which she also communicates lyrically in this first part of the first verse:

There I was again tonight
Forcing laughter, faking smiles
Same old tired, lonely place
Walls of insincerity
Shifting eyes and vacancy
Vanished when I saw your face
All I can say is it was enchanting to meet you

Here, Taylor firmly sets the scene immediately before meeting the subject of the song. She is deep in the midst of her Fearless Tour, having to deal with the press and mingling with both fans and wealthy/powerful people in the entertainment industry. After dealing with these interactions for months on end, as she had been doing at that point, she had gotten used to the exhaustion and loneliness of having to put on a cheery façade while looking for something, anything, to excite her.

Knowing now that her meeting with the likely subject of this song — Adam Young of Owl City — came at his Bowery Ballroom concert in September 2009, literally three days after her onstage humiliation at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards by a certain rapper who shall not be named (for now, at least), the spotlight in this particular moment was likely weighing heavily on her. So to even come face-to-face with somebody who was not interested in asking her about that particular incident or any of the tired and clichéd questions that press and industry people were constantly asking her was enough to allow that façade to lift and allow her to truly feel a genuine connection with another human being.

Your eyes whispered “Have we met?”
Across the room, your silhouette
Starts to make its way to me
The playful conversation starts
Counter all your quick remarks
Like passing notes in secrecy
And it was enchanting to meet you
All I can say is I was enchanted to meet you

As soon as the first line of this verse starts, prominent acoustic guitar strums take the foreground in noticeable spurts, both disrupting the already established rhythm and evoking the feeling of butterflies in Taylor’s stomach as her interaction with the song’s subject begins. Lyrically, Taylor’s description of this first interaction seems to directly call back to “Love Story,” down to the description of the song’s subject making his way to her. However, rather than immediately jumping to calling him her Romeo, Taylor focuses on their initial playful, small-talk interaction, which instantly contrasts with her insincere interactions with the media, industry people, and faceless fans that she described earlier.

Additionally, as she does elsewhere on Speak Now, Taylor skillfully applies high school imagery to her young adult interactions, imagining her playful conversation with the song’s subject in a way that semi-alludes back to her classroom interactions with Abigail in “Fifteen,” indicating the start of a new, intoxicating and meaningful connection. This indication is made even clearer when Taylor slightly shifts from saying that “it was enchanting” to meet this guy to saying that “I was enchanted” to meet him. By moving from saying that the interaction itself was enchanting to saying that she was enchanted to meet him, she is communicating that this guy meant more to her than the reprieve he gave her from meaningless interactions, and that she is viewing him as a potential romantic interest. And as she finishes holds out the final “you” of this verse, the electric guitar chords come in and the music builds to a crescendo before stopping for a half-second and then bursting in the aforementioned euphoric blast of pop rock energy that leads directly to the joyous chorus:

This night is sparkling, don’t you let it go
I’m wonderstruck, blushing all the way home
I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew
I was enchanted to meet you

And here, the song transitions from depiction of Taylor’s tenuous emotional state post-2009 VMAs to an infectious portrayal of how an intense infatuation can become even more intense when meeting said tenuous emotional state at a certain point. And while infatuation with guys who have not yet reciprocated was already a common theme in Taylor’s songbook by this point, it had been expressed in several ways, from wistful longing (“Stay Beautiful”) to mournful sadness (“Teardrops On My Guitar”) to jealous frustration (“You Belong With Me”).

As Taylor implied in the quote that began this essay, “Enchanted” is about the extreme positive end of infatuation and the thrilling mystery of not knowing if the other person will reciprocate. She communicates this here in the chorus by painting a picture with words of a night where the stars are shining bright and she is skipping home along empty New York City streets blushing and smiling ear to ear while going deep into her head about how she was perceived by the song’s subject. Like in all of her best songs, Taylor aims for the cinematic in this chorus and succeeds spectacularly, evoking a scene along the lines of the (500) Days of Summer “You Make My Dreams” musical number set at nighttime. Add the careful choice of words like “sparkling,” “wonderstruck,” and the song’s title “enchanted,” and this chorus never ceases to fill me with joy every time I hear it.

And this anxious, infatuated joy continues into the song’s second verse, as Taylor is now home and unable to sleep thinking about the song’s subject and his true feelings:

The lingering question kept me up
2 AM, who do you love?
I wonder ’til I’m wide awake
Now I’m pacing back and forth
Wishing you were at my door
I’d open up and you would say
It was enchanting to meet you
All I know is I was enchanted to meet you

Here, the song’s evocation of anxious infatuation really comes through, as Taylor settles back into the cadence and melody of the first verse but blended with the lovestruck infatuation of the chorus. While previously she was anxious about her interaction with the song’s subject, now she is anxious about how he feels about her, and if he already loves another woman. This exact scene — of Taylor being up in the middle of the night in her head thinking about matters related to romance — was not uncommon even back in this era (“Breathe” and “The Way I Loved You” from Fearless describe this, not to mention “Mary’s Song” from Debut referencing 2 AM for first time in a Taylor song).

However, what differentiates this scene is that, rather than mourning a breakup or reminiscing on a past lover, “Enchanted” describes a sleepless 2 AM moment where excitement and infatuation are the driving force and she almost seems to get a rush from her insomnia, imagining the song’s subject coming to her front door so she could tell him in person how enchanted she was to meet him. In many ways, this foreshadows the story she would tell twelve years later on the Midnights song “Labyrinth,” albeit from a more mature and less infatuated perspective.

After another euphoric jump into the second chorus, Taylor very subtly but powerfully changes just a handful of words to make an already joyous song even more joyous, showing the transition from her skipping down a New York City street to dancing alone in her bedroom, all the while floating in her infatuated state:

This night is flawless, don’t you let it go
I’m wonderstruck, dancing around all alone
I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew
I was enchanted to meet you

After a powerful and emotional electric guitar break (played by Paul Sidoti on Taylor’s Version), Taylor transitions into the bridge, always a highlight of all her best songs, and the “Enchanted” bridge stands as one of her best, allowing the song to reach another emotional high point even beyond the euphoric chorus. Having calmed down from dancing and pacing around her room, Taylor is now explicitly stating her intentions in writing the song, calling out for the song’s subject to reciprocate her affections:

This is me praying that
This was the very first page
Not where the story line ends
My thoughts will echo your name
Until I see you again
These are the words I held back
As I was leaving too soon
I was enchanted to meet you

And then, while holding out the final note of the verse, Taylor falls into her stream-of-consciousness, showing how her infatuation has not settled down one bit even if she physically has:

Please don’t be in love with someone else
Please don’t have somebody waiting on you
Please don’t be in love with someone else
Please don’t have somebody waiting on you

At the time of Speak Now’s release, Taylor told Yahoo! Music that this was her favorite part of the song, “because at that moment, that’s exactly what my thoughts were. And it feels good to write exactly what your thoughts were in a certain moment.” And indeed, you can clearly picture Taylor putting her diary aside after one last “I was enchanted to meet you” and lying down in her bed, repeating these thoughts to herself over and over as she tries and fails to fall asleep. And the manner in which this was recorded and mixed — with Taylor’s multitracked vocals layered on top of one another creating what Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield dubbed “a duet with herself” — allows this coda to transform the song one last time from an infectiously romantic rock-tinged power ballad to infectiously romantic mantra tinged with anxiety.

The exact words Taylor repeats here harken back to the numerous previous songs she’s written about heartbreak and being passed over for someone else. Rather than fantasizing about a “Love Story”-esque future with the song’s subject, she’s anxiously wondering if he is in love with another woman. While signs of a more mature understanding of love and romance are all over Speak Now, “Enchanted” shows how this more mature understanding has also led to anticipation of heartbreak before a relationship even begins, not unlike the “Mine” lyric about only ever knowing “goodbye.” And while the song does crescendo once more for another euphoric chorus, it ends with that same stream-of-consciousness coda, which drifts off in the same way that one’s thoughts drift off after falling asleep, ending the song with Taylor drifting off to sleep with her lovestruck but anxious thoughts receding into her unconscious.
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As I said at the beginning of this entry, “Enchanted” is an absolutely perfect pop song from the beginning synth and acoustic guitar notes to when her vocals drift off at the very end. Both musically and lyrically, it perfectly synthesizes everything Taylor has ever written about regarding love, romance, infatuation, and the excitement and anxiety that comes with all of it. Despite never releasing the song as a single, both Taylor and the Swifties realized it was special almost immediately.

Literally the day after the Speak Now album was released, Taylor and her band performed a private set on Spin Magazine’s rooftop that was filmed and ended up being aired in chopped form as part of an NBC Thanksgiving special, which centered on Taylor and the album. The set consisted of seven newly released Speak Now songs, including the first-ever performance of “Enchanted.” While professional video of has not been released as of yet, a shaky cell phone video from right below the stage perfectly shows both Taylor’s enthusiasm in performing the song as well as the crowd’s appropriately euphoric reaction to the chorus.

However, as has happened so many of Taylor’s songs, the quality of the art was quickly overshadowed by tabloid-esque speculation. It did not take long for the Swifties and broader tabloid press to figure out that the song’s subject was Owl City’s Adam Young, something Taylor herself clearly wanted out there by putting “Adam” as the hidden message in the liner notes. And while Adam Young did not immediately respond to the speculation, he did decide to respond in a very public way approximately three and a half months later via a love letter on Owl City’s website. I will spare you the whole thing, but essentially he told Taylor what he couldn’t get up the nerve to say when they met nearly a year and a half earlier, which is that she is “a true princess from a dreamy fairy tale” and “a modern Cinderella” and that he “was enchanted to meet her too.” He then posted a recording of his cover of “Enchanted” told from his perspective, which…well, feel free to take a listen for yourself, but long story short: she never responded to his cover of the song, likely because he waited too long and it’s also just super-cringey:

Once the Speak Now World Tour commenced in February 2011, “Enchanted” was unsurprisingly a nightly staple and set piece, complete with an extended introduction that served as a showcase for her dancers as well as for David Cook and Caitlin Evanson, her touring keyboardist and violinist. Each performance brought the song to life in a beautiful way, leaning heavily on the romanticism and theatricality that defined the entire Speak Now World Tour, and this video from the official Speak Now World Tour — Live DVD illustrates it well (this video, like the entire DVD, is edited together from various shows throughout the tour):

Aside from a handful of acoustic performances on the Red Tour in 2013-14, “Enchanted” would not make regular live appearances again until the 1989 World Tour in 2015, where it was brilliantly mashed up with 1989’s “Wildest Dreams,” a song that contains the pointed lyric “I can see the end as it begins,” a theme that defines the anxiety on “Enchanted” and is even more poignant as it’s expressed by an even older, more mature and wise Taylor:

While her inclusion of even just a snippet of the song regularly on the 1989 World Tour showed how highly she and the Swifties viewed the song, it only ever made one appearance as the Reputation Stadium Tour surprise song. After that, it seemed destined to simply be an occasional surprise on her subsequent tours. However, during the long waiting period between the Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018 and the Eras Tour in 2023-24, before Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) was even announced, the original recording of “Enchanted” went viral on TikTok in October and November of 2021, causing the song to become popular again and even reach certain chart positions that it hadn’t upon its original release eleven years prior. And Taylor, seeing how fans on TikTok were making “Enchanted” (and other back-catalog favorites such as 1989’s “Wildest Dreams” and Reputation’s “Don’t Blame Me”) relevant again years after their initial releases, took it upon herself to make sure all of these songs got showcase moments on the Eras Tour when she finally launched it in March 2023.

“Enchanted” in particular has become an incredibly important song on the Eras Tour, as for most of the tour, and as of this writing, it is the only song representing the Speak Now era in the set (RIP “Long Live,” wish I could have seen you). And while myself and many others would have loved for that era as a whole to get a more prominent placement in the setlist, the “Enchanted” performance represents it perfectly, and it remains a highlight of a show and tour filled with a million of them. I will leave you with the performance filmed for the Eras Tour concert film, one that never ceases to bring me joy every time I watch it: