Maybe when I say that, I’m really just talking about myself. I’ve spoken about how I feel like those ages are the most emotionally turbulent ones in a person’s life.

I made this album, completely self-written, between the ages of 18 and 20. In the prologue she wrote for the re-release of Speak Now, Swift acknowledged that “ this period of time is so violently aglow with the last light of the setting sun of my childhood. The subject might remain unknown, but the lyrics paint a clear picture of how Swift viewed sexual and romantic desire at the time, when she was ending her teenage years. With the latter, she and Lautner played high school students in the film, which could possibly explain the lyrics “you brush past me in the hallway.” (“We kept everything professional / But something's changed, it's somethin' I, I like / They keep watchful eyes on us / So it's best that we move fast and keep quiet.”) During that era, Swift did date two people she worked with: fellow musician John Mayer and Valentine's Day co-star Taylor Lautner.

While the song's subject is unclear, the lyrics, her most sexual in nature at that point, suggest it could have been a co-worker. Long before “Dress” was released, Taylor Swift ventured into sultrier lyrics with the Speak Now (Taylor's Version) vault track “I Can See You.”

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