Sad Beautiful Tragic

Album: Red (2012)
Charted: 85
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Taylor penned this hushed, intimate number when she was sitting on her tour bus after a show thinking about a relationship that ended several months previously. She explained to Billboard magazine: "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."
  • Red covers the whole spectrum of emotions and this cut lies at one end of the range. "I'm 22," Swift told Billboard magazine. "I'm all over the place, so my record is all over the place. Part of this record is acknowledging [that] all these emotions are very loud and very different from one another. At one end of the spectrum you have 'Sad Beautiful Tragic,' which is a breakup song in the form of a funeral march, and you also have 'Never Ever Getting Back Together Again,' which is a breakup song in the form of a parade."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Elton John

Elton JohnFact or Fiction

Does he have beef with Gaga? Is he Sean Lennon's godfather? See if you can tell fact from fiction in the Elton John edition.

Why Does Everybody Hate Nu-Metal? Your Metal Questions Answered

Why Does Everybody Hate Nu-Metal? Your Metal Questions AnsweredSong Writing

10 Questions for the author of Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces

Rick Astley

Rick AstleySongwriter Interviews

Rick Astley on "Never Gonna Give You Up," "Cry For Help," and his remarkable resurgence that gave him another #1 UK album.

Band Names

Band NamesFact or Fiction

Was "Pearl" Eddie Vedder's grandmother, and did she really make a hallucinogenic jam? Did Journey have a contest to name the group? And what does KISS stand for anyway?

90s Music Quiz 1

90s Music Quiz 1Music Quiz

First question: Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson appeared in videos for what artist?

Mick Jones of Foreigner

Mick Jones of ForeignerSongwriter Interviews

Foreigner's songwriter/guitarist tells the stories behind the songs "Juke Box Hero," "I Want To Know What Love Is," and many more.