It’s the Taylor Swift show on this website (and much of the Internet) today, as the singer’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)—the brand-new re-recorded version of her third studio album, 2010’s Speak Now—utterly dominates the Genius Top Songs chart. Within hours of the project dropping, Taylor tunes occupied most of the Top 10, and the one that seems to be captivating folks most is “When Emma Falls In Love,” a new-to-us “From the Vault” track that was written at the time of the original album.
Penned solely by Taylor, who co-produced this new recording with frequent collaborator Aaron Dessner, “When Emma Falls In Love” tells the story of a beguiling young woman who throws herself fully into love affairs. But in a good way. Over a spare piano backing, Swift spends the first verse sharing little details about this magical person.
When Emma falls in love, she paces the floor
Closes the blinds and locks the door
Swift tells us that Emma always calls her mom to talk about new romances, and that she jokes about them eventually going wrong. This might sound like Taylor singing about herself, but the next lines have many fans speculating that the song is actually about Swift’s longtime friend Emma Stone, who famously sings Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine” is a scene from the 2010 film Easy A.
She waits and takes her time
‘Cause Little Miss Sunshine always thinks it’s gonna rain
When Emma falls in love, I know
That boy will never be the same
Whomever inspired the lyrics, the Emma depicted in the song sounds delightful. The slightly rocked-out chorus tells us Emma’s as beautiful and charming as Egypt’s most famous queen, and that like Taylor in “Blank Space,” she can make bad guys good for a weekend, if not longer.
’Cause she’s the kind of book that you can’t put down
Like if Cleopatra grew up in a small town
And all the bad boys would be good boys
If they only had a chance to love her
In the second verse, Taylor tells us that Emma takes love very seriously and always commits herself to making relationships work. She’s not into playing games.
When Emma falls apart, it’s when she’s alone
She takes on the pain and bears it on her own
’Cause when Emma falls in love, she’s in it for keeps
She won’t walk away unless she knows she absolutely has to leave
Thus far, we’ve learned little about Taylor’s narrator, except that she’s close friends with Emma and often in the position of seeing Emma fall in and out of love. In the song’s bridge, we learn that Swift’s character has a habit of losing herself in relationships in ways that Emma never does. Emma is a role model—someone who stays grounded even when she’s absolutely head over heels.
Well, she’s so New York when she’s in L.A.
She won’t lose herself in love the way that I did
’Cause she’ll call you out, she’ll put you in your place
When Emma falls in love, I’m learning
The third verse brings a kind of happy ending for Emma, as she finds her dream lover, “a boy with eyes like a man.” But as Taylor tells us—and as we’ve by now gathered—Emma’s not actually the lucky one in this situation.
Now he’ll be her shelter when it rains
Little does he know, his whole world’s about to change
You can read all the lyrics to “When Emma Falls In Love (Taylor’s Version) [From the Vault]” on Genius now.
