Songfacts®:

• Taylor Swift originally recorded this country tune for her 2008 Fearless album, but it didn't make the track listing. Twelve years later she re-recorded the album after her former label boss sold the rights to her tracks to music mogul Scooter Braun without her permission. Besides spruced-up versions of all 19 tracks from the platinum edition of Fearless, Swift also redid "We Were Happy" along with five other songs that didn't make the original.
• The song finds Swift hearkening back to a relationship. For a time she was happy when she was with her boyfriend.
  
  No one could touch the way we laughed in the dark
  They had plans and dreams for their future together
  Talking 'bout your daddy's farm we were going to buy someday
  
  But sadly, her feelings for the boy aren't the same now.
  
  Oh, I hate those voices telling me I'm not in love anymore
  But they don't give me choices and that's what these tears are for
  
  Swift feels bad about falling out of love.
• While Swift recorded her original "We Were Happy" demo solo, Keith Urban added harmonies for the new rendition. The country star also duets with Swift on "That's When," another previously unreleased song included on Fearless (Taylor's Version). The pair first linked up together when Swift toured with Urban on his 2009 Escape Together World Tour.
• Swift wrote the song with Liz Rose, who was her frequent collaborator on her first few albums. Rose co-penned four of the original album's 13 tracks, including the hit singles "White Horse," "Fearless," and "You Belong With Me."
• So why didn't this downtempo breakup song make it onto the original Fearless album? Swift gave us a clue when she announced: "Only I know which songs I wrote that almost made the Fearless album. Songs I absolutely adored, but were held back for different reasons (don't want too many breakup songs, don't want too many down tempo songs, can't fit that many songs on a physical CD)."
  
  Fearless already contained several downtempo breakup tracks, such as "White Horse," "Breathe," and "Forever & Always."
• The National's Aaron Dessner co-produced the reworked version of the song with Swift. He also played bass, keys, synthesizer and percussion, plus electric guitar along with Keith Urban. Dessner worked with Swift on most of the tracks on her Folklore and Evermore albums.
• Speaking during a virtual appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Urban recalled the bizarre place he first heard this track and "That's When." The country star said he was doing some Christmas shopping in an Australian mall when he got a text from Swift saying, "I've got these couple of songs I'd like you to sing on, do you want to hear them?'"
  
  "So she sends me the songs, and I'm sitting in the food court at the shopping center, listening to these two unreleased Taylor Swift songs," Urban continued before adding, "It was an unusual place to be hearing unreleased Taylor Swift music."