Analyzing the “Red” Lyrics Meaning: A Color-Coded Love Affair

The title track Red (Taylor’s Version) is a powerhouse of a song that encapsulates the album as a whole. 

Taylor paints with an entire palette of colors to blend a masterpiece of simile and metaphor, using the rainbow to represent the experience of love and loss. 

Here’s my complete analysis of the Red lyrics meaning, line by line and color by color. 

Cover image with a moody background of aged novel pages, with red flowy cursive title text reading: "Analyzing Red (Taylor's Version), from Swiftly Sung Stories"

Red Taylor’s Version

  • Title: Red (Taylor’s Version)
  • Track: 2, Red (Taylor’s Version) 
  • Written By: Taylor Swift 
  • Pen: Fountain 
  • Secret Message: “SAG”
  • Lyrics via Genius 

Red Song Meaning: Narrative Analysis

  • Setting: An obsessive loop of memories in Taylor’s mind.
  • Characters: Narrator (Taylor), subject (“him”, ex-boyfriend) 
  • Mood: Bittersweet nostalgia 
  • Conflict: Good memories vs. bad memories  
  • Inciting Incident: “Losing him” and “loving him” 
  • Quest: Try to forget him 
  • Symbols & Metaphors: colors (red, blue, dark gray), “Maserati”, sin, crossword puzzle, fire. 
  • Theme: A lost love that haunts you.   
  • Imagery: colors, “Burning red,” “flying through the free fall”.

Red Lyric Video

What was the Hidden Message for Red

The secret message in the liner notes for Red was “SAG”.

This likely refers to Sagittarius, which is her own astrological sign, as well as Jake Gyllenhaal’s. 

Who is Red About? 

It’s likely about Jake Gyllenhall, whom Taylor dated around the time of writing and recording Red

The hidden message (“SAG”) hints at his astrological sign, which she also alluded to in the previous track State of Grace.

What is Red About? 

Red is about the roller coaster ride of love.

Taylor uses colors to represent the different emotions that you experience in each stage of love: attraction, falling in love, breaking up, and losing someone. 

Red Lyrics Meaning: Line by Line

An aged novel page featuring the lyrics to Red (Taylor's Version). A red editor's pen highlights important uses of literary and narrative devices. 
Verse 1 reads: "Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street

Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly

Loving him is like trying to change your mind once you're already flying through the free fall

Like the colors in autumn, so bright just before they lose it all"

Red is hyper-packed with similes and metaphors, so let’s start by breaking them down in the first verse. 

“Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street” likens her relationship to driving a race car. It’s fast, exciting, beautiful, and lush.

But once you’re inside the car, there’s nowhere to go – you’re on a dead-end street. This relationship is going nowhere fast, as the common figure of speech says. 

“Faster than the wind” refers to both the car and the relationship, possibly meaning that it was over quickly, or began quickly. Referring back to State of Grace – likely about the same person – it did begin very quickly and unexpectedly.

“Passionate as sin” is a simile that plays with the idea of innocence vs. sin, also similar to the previous track. If something is as “passionate as sin,” it means there’s a thrill in doing the naughty thing. 

“Loving him is like trying to change your mind once you’re already flying through the free fall” is a skydiving simile. You can’t back out if you’re already falling through the air.

You know it’s dangerous, and you can see where it’s going, but you’re already too far gone to turn back. 

She likens their love to “the colors in autumn, so bright just before they lose it all.” It’s thrilling at first (“so bright”, similar to the shining sparks of early love in Sparks Fly), but then they “lose it all.”

The leaves of love fell, and what once was a landscape of colors is now bare branches. 

🧣Do you really know Red? Try the Red TV Lyrics Quiz! 🧣

Chorus: “Losing Him Was Blue”

Lyrics to Taylor Swift's Red, with editor's pen drawing attention to particular uses of metaphor and simile. The chorus reads: "Losing him was blue like I'd never known

Missing him was dark gray, all alone (Woah)

Forgetting him was like tryin' to know somebody you never met

But loving him was red (Red, red)

(Red, red)

But loving him was red (Red, red)

(Red, red)"

The chorus deepens the color similes and metaphors that began with the autumn leaves. 

“Losing him was blue” plays with both the color and the emotion. Feeling “blue” means you’re sad or depressed. 

“Missing him was dark gray” conveys the muted and depressed tone of the color. Dark gray is a nothing color – empty and sad. 

“Forgetting him was like tryin’ to know somebody you never met” is a simile that means it’s impossible. You can’t know someone you’ve never met, and “forgetting him” is just as impossible for her. 

“But loving him was red” is the key color metaphor of the song. What does red represent? Passion, excitement, depth. 

But what else is red? Fire.

Verse 2: “Easy as Knowing All the Words to Your Old Favorite Song”

Lyrics analysis of Taylor Swift's Red: "[Verse 2]

Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you

Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song

Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there's no right answer

Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong"

Verse 2 continues the repetition of metaphor and simile to describe this roller coaster of a relationship.

“Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you” means that this was miraculous. All of a sudden, she had everything she ever wanted when she touched him. 

“Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song” means that she knew him intuitively, as if she’d known him all her life. 

“Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there’s no right answer” means that their arguments were impossible. They butted heads, and could never come to an agreement. 

“Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong” means that this regret is extremely potent. Not only does she regret him – and the relationship – but she regrets ever feeling that level of love in the first place, because all it did was tear her heart out.

Bridge: “Burning, it was Red”

The bridge to Taylor Swift's Red. The lyrics are marked with red editor's pen as described in the text, with the lyrics reading: "Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes

Tell myself it's time now, gotta let go

But moving on from him is impossible when I still see it all in my head

In burning red

Burning, it was red"

The bridge is a bit of a meta moment: she describes her memories as coming in “flashbacks and echoes,” and that’s exactly what we see in the lyrics.

She’s referencing not only her memories, but the writing of the song itself. 

It’s impossible to move on from him when these memories are playing on a loop in her head. And which parts of the relationship are playing back for her? The red parts. 

This time around, red doesn’t just mean passion and all-consuming love: it means fire. 

Her memories of him are “burning red” – bright, glowing, hot, and possibly dangerous.

“Burning, it was red” could refer to the ‘burning passion’ of love, but it could also refer to destruction, as in their relationship ‘burned down.’ 

Outro: “Dead-End Street”

The outro and final chorus for Red by Taylor Swift, analyzed from an English teacher's point of view. The outro reads: "And that's why he's spinning 'round in my head (Red, red)

Comes back to me, burning red (Red, red)

(Red, red)

Yeah, yeah (Red, red)

His love was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street"

The final chorus and outro repeat the central message that she wants us to receive: the “red” moments are on repeat in her head.

All these “red” things – even though they conflict – are looping through her mind: the passionate moments, the angry moments, the heartbroken moments.

They’re all the brightest color of the rainbow, and they burn hot through the film reel of her mind as it goes up in smoke.

She leaves us once again with the Maserati simile, with the final words: “dead end street.” 

The meaning of red was tipping back and forth between passionate love and burning down, but the final “dead end street” lyric tips the balance. 

It was red because it burned down, but while the flames of love were high, it was a glorious bonfire. 

🧣Do you really know Red? Try the Red TV Lyrics Quiz! 🧣

Red Song Meaning: Final Thoughts

Red is important not only as the title track for the Red era, but it’s also Taylor opening up a new door for her duality of emotions.

This song introduces – for the first time in Taylor’s discography – that you can both get burned by something and enjoy watching the flames.

We see her maturing throughout Fearless and Speak Now, expressing increasingly complex ideas. But Red is the first time she can look back on something that was painful and see that it was enjoyable while it lasted.

From this point on in the Taylorverse, things are not one thing or another: they’re “yes, AND.”

It also introduces concretely the theme of color metaphors in Taylor’s lyrics, which is a theme that will follow her for the rest of her days as a songwriter. This song introduced the color codes which Swifties know and love today.

More From Red (Taylor’s Version) 

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