Tragic Time Traveler: Taylor's "The Very First Night" Meaning, Explained

Taylor Swift’s vault track The Very First Night looks back on a past relationship, ruminating what went wrong, and wondering if she can ever get back to when it was good.

How does the narrator confuse pain with love, why does she wish she could fly, and how do her past memories taint her present?

Here’s my full English teacher analysis of Taylor’s The Very First Night meaning, line by line.

Cover image for Swiftly Sung Stories' lyrical analysis of Taylor Swift's "The Very First Night" (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault]. Red stylized title text pops over a background of aged books.

The Very First Night (Taylor’ Version) [From the Vault] by Taylor Swift

Title: The Very First Night (Taylor’s Version)[From the Vault]
Track: 29, Red (Taylor’s Version)
Written By: Espen Lind, Amund Björklund & Taylor Swift
Pen: Glitter Gel Pen & Fountain Pen
Lyrics via Genius

The Very First Night Narrative Summary

Setting: In the present, ruminating over a past relationship.
Characters: Narrator (Taylor), subject (“you,” ex-lover)
Theme: Longing & nostalgia.
Mood: Nostalgic, pleading, yearning.
Conflict: “We broke each other’s hearts.”
Inciting Incident: “I miss you”: she can’t stop thinking about her ex.
Quest: “Take me away to you”: get him to come back and get back together.
Similes, Metaphors & Deeper Meanings: “Wish I could fly,” “go back in time,” “write this in the sky,” “so it goes,” “the same party,” “I never go alone,” “I drive down different roads,” “They all lead back to you,” “when we both fell,” “note on the Polaroid,” “like children running,” “built to fall apart,” “broke the status quo,” “words that we whispered.”

What is The Very First Night About?

The Very First Night describes Taylor’s ruminations over a past relationship, wishing she could go back in time to start over from “the very first night.”

Who is The Very First Night About?

Taylor has never revealed who this track may have been inspired by.

Some clues in the lyrics point to other songs on the Red (Taylor’s Version) album, including “dance in the kitchen” (refers to All Too Well’s “dancin’ round the kitchen”), “never saw it coming” (the same line is repeated in State of Grace), “I wish I could fly” (refers to Superman), and “night in LA” (refers to The Last Time’s secret message: “LA on your break”).

The lyrical parallels point to tracks that are assumed to be about Jake Gyllenhaal, so The Very First Night could have been inspired by the same muse.

The Very First Night Lyrics Meaning: Line by Line

Annotated portions of Taylor Swift's "The Very First Night" lyrics. Red English teacher's pen highlights hidden meanings, translates tricky lyrics, points out literary and poetic devices, and explains the overall meaning of the song.
The opening chorus lyrics read: "I wish I could fly

I'd pick you up and we'd go back in time

I'd write this in the sky

I miss you like it was the very first night"

“I wish I could fly,” she begins, “I’d pick you up and we’d go back in time.” She wishes she had superpowers, so she could time travel, going back to a time where things were easier and happy.

“I’d write this in the sky,” she says, imagining she can send him some kind of cosmic message, “I miss you like it was the very first night.”

She’s still infatuated with him like she was at the beginning, and wishes she could rewind to have a do-over. She still has the intense butterflies that she did in the beginning, but she no longer has him. This is an intense longing for a person she no longer sees.

Verse 1: “They All Lead Back to You”

“And so it goes,” she says in the first verse, quoting the classic Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse–Five saying. Taylor has used this phrase before in the titular So it Goes, You Are in Love, and in Style.

“So it goes” in the context of the Vonnegut novel denotes a resigned acceptance of trauma. When a character dies, the protagonist shrugs and says, “so it goes.” Here, Taylor is doing the same thing: this is her life now, and she can’t help it.

“Every weekend, this same party,” she says of her weekend wanderings, “I never go alone.” She’s stuck in a repetitive cycle of taking boring dates to a boring party, seeing the same people and repeating the same events over and over.

“And I don’t seem broken-hearted,” she says, keeping up a tidy facade of happiness. “My friends all say they know / Everything I’m going through,” she says, but they don’t know the depth of her sorrow.

“I drive down different roads,” she says, trying to find other routes through her life and loves, “But they all lead back to you.” No one compares, and she’s tried on a lot of relationships to find one that’s comparable. Her heart always goes back to him.

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1st Pre-Chorus: “They Don’t Know About The Night in the Hotel”

“’Cause they don’t know about the night in the hotel,” she says, hinting that something special and secretive happened in their past. Her friends haven’t been privy to this rendezvous.

“They weren’t ridin’ in the car when we both fell,” she says. Her friends say that they understand her heartbreak, but they weren’t there when she fell in love. Therefore, they can’t comprehend the depths of this pain, because they didn’t see the depths of her love.

Her friends “Didn’t read the note on the Polaroid picture,” she says, hinting at another secret between them, or a memento she keeps.

As this album falls right before 1989, it’s logical to think that this moment – the polaroid with a note – inspired Taylor’s art and merch for her next era, which included Polaroids with handwritten notes on them.

“They don’t know how much I miss you,” she says, “I miss you like it was the very first night.” This love and longing is still as fresh in her mind as if it was the first day they met, or the first night they spent together.

The pain she feels while missing him is the same as when she missed him early in their relationship. Though time and distance may have dulled this love for him, for her it’s done nothing but make her fall harder.

Verse 2: “We Broke the Status Quo”

“And so it was,” she says in the second verse, “We never saw it comin’.” Like in State of Grace, they didn’t see this love on the horizon. It just happened upon them, like a miracle falling into their laps.

“Not trying to fall in love,” she says of when they met, “But we did like children runnin’.” They weren’t looking for love, but when they accidentally found it, they rushed in full-speed like giddy, naive children.

“Back then, we didn’t know,” she says, “We were built to fall apart.” They didn’t know that it was doomed from the beginning, echoing the same line from Style.

“We broke the status quo,” she says, describing their unique and rule-breaking relationship, “Then we broke each other’s hearts.” They broke bonds and barriers to be together, but then they also broke one another.

Was it fated that they fell, and fated that they fell apart?

Pre-Chorus: “Dance in the Kitchen”

“But don’t forget about the night out in L.A,” she says in the pre-chorus, pointing to a specific special moment in the relationship. The secret message in The Last Time was “LA on your break,” which could point to the same moment.

She keeps looking back at past moments when they were happy, when they would “Dance in the kitchen,” and “chase me down through the hallway.” The kitchen dancing echoes a similar line in All Too Well: “Dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light.”

But “chase me down through the hallway” isn’t as lighthearted as kitchen dancing. This could be interpreted as playful, but it also has darker connotations. Is she being chased happily, or is she scared?

“No one knows about the words that we whispered,” she says of their secrets, “No one knows how much I miss you.” There were lots of secrets inside this relationship, and it’s hard to tell that she’s keeping these things private because she wants to, or because she has to.

What does it mean that her closest friends don’t even know the full extent of her heartbreak?

Post-Chorus & Bridge: “Take Me Away To You”

“Take me away, take me away,” she repeats in the post-chorus, “Take me away to you, to you.”

This changes the tone: she’s not hoping she could fly to pick him up, she’s hoping that he will come pick her up.

Like in Superman, she’s always waiting for him to come back. “I’ll be right here on the ground / When you come back down,” she says in that track, and it’s the same sentiment here.

“I remember the night at the hotel,” she says in the bridge, looking back once again and reminiscing.

“I was ridin’ in the car when we both fell,” she says, which sounds an awful lot like “I was there, it was rare, I remember it all too well.” Does he remember it “all too well” also, or did he forget and move on a long time ago?

“I’m the one on the phone as you whisper, ‘Do you know how much I miss you?’,” she says, and at this point it’s hard to tell if it’s a memory, or her imagination. Is she hoping he will be on the phone, or is she recalling a moment from the past?

Either way, these are the thoughts that circle through her mind: will he ever come back?

Final Chorus: “I Wish I Could Fly”

“I wish I could fly,” she repeats again in the final chorus, “I’d pick you up and we’d go back in time.” She wishes she could be like Superman, but she can’t. She can only wait for him to come back and “take me away.”

“Take me away (Take me), take me away (Take me),” echoes in the outro, but it feels like no one is coming. Why? Because she can’t fly, she can’t time travel, and she can only wait, “starin’ at the sky,” hoping he’ll “come back and pick me up” like in Down Bad.

“Take me away to you, to you,” she begs one last time in the final line, and it echoes so much heartbreak and longing. She hates the place she’s in, and wishes she could rewind to their very first night.

But all that’s left is the feeling of the very first night, and that’s long gone, and “that magic’s not here no more.”

She “might be okay,” but she’s “not fine at all.”

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The Very First Night Meaning: Final Thoughts

This is such a tragic look at a past relationship, and how it can be so confusing to remember the good times. It was so magical in the past, so how did it end so painfully?

Taylor is trying to reconcile her past with her present, wondering how she got to this place, and tries to put into words how much she misses this person.

Even if she could go back to “the very first night,” would it still end in the same way? Were they always “built to fall apart,” or if circumstances changed, could they “fall back together”?

She doesn’t know, she might not ever know, and all she has left is rumination, racing thoughts, and a hole in her heart where he used to be.

More Songs From Red (Taylor’s Version)

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