Taylor Swift really went back to December when it came to casting the music video for her just-released song “I Can See You.” Released late Friday night, the video stars an ex-boyfriend of many, many years back, “Twilight” star Taylor Lautner, along with Joey King, Presley Cash and Swift herself.
The number of meta reunions happening simultaneously nearly required extra parts of Swifties’ brains to immediate calculate as the multiple surprises unfolded live and on video. King and Cash have their own history with the star, having co-starred in the “Mean” video once upon a time.
All three co-stars made a appearance at Swift’s show at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on Friday, letting the live audience see it right as it was going out into the wider world. Although it had been rumored that Swift was working on something with the three, the surprise premiere marked the first real confirmation that anything between them was afoot.
All this casting is a callback in some way to 2010’s “Speak Now,” which featured not just “Mean” but “Back to December,” which was understood to be Swift’s musical apology for the breakup between the two young Tays leading up to her third album. Swift released her “Taylor’s Version” re-recording of that album a little less than 24 hours before launching the music video and bringing King, Cash and Lautner on stage.
Of Lautner, Swift told the Kansas City crowd, “He was a very positive force in my life when I was making the ‘Speak Now’ album, and I want to say he did every single stunt that you saw in that music video. He and his wife have become some of my closest friends, and it’s very convenient because we all share the same first name.” (Lautner’s wife is Taylor Dome; the two wed last year.)
Said Lautner to Swift in front of the stadium audience: ‘“I respect you so much. Not just for the singer you are, the songwriter, the performer — but truly for the human you are. You are gracious, humble, kind and I’m honored to know you.”
For the audience not on hand to witness the cast reunion live, Swift explained to fans on social media what was happening.
“WELL. SO,” the singer wrote, hitting the caps bar. “I’ve been counting down for months and finally the ‘I Can See You’ video is out. I wrote this video treatment over a year ago and really wanted to play out symbolically how it’s felt for me to have the fans helping me reclaim my music. I had my heart set on Joey King, Taylor Lautner and Presley Cash starring in it. Joey and Presley had been in the video for ‘Mean’ when they were 9 and 13 and they are back and so ridiculously bad ass!! Taytay (Lautner) is INCREDIBLE in this (didn’t have a stunt double!) and shout out to Tay Lautner (his wife) for being so awesome to hang with on set. The Tale of 3 Taylors…
“I always wanted to direct fight scenes/a heist storyline,” she added, “and had the most incredible time plotting this out with my amazing DP Jonathan Sela. So proud of this one.” Swift wrote and directed the video, as she has all her clips since the “Lover” album in 2019.
Swift had reason to point out that Lautner’s action scenes in the “I Can See You” video were not the product of trickery, as the scenario makes considerable use of his martial arts skills. The plot of the video bears little relation to the story of the song, which seems to describe an office romance. In the clip, King, Cash and Lautner are a “Mission: Impossible”-type team that breaks into a heavily fortified vault, and takes on defenders, to rescue Swift, who has been locked inside with the framed cover art for her new album. The mayhem would seem to serve as a metaphor for Swift and her art being rescued from her former record label, Big Machine, whose sale of her master recordings was the impetus for her ongoing series of re-recordings.
After the concert, Lautner took to his Instagram account to post a picture of himself, his wife, and Swift — the three Taylors — pointing at each other on the set of the music video, in a parody of the meme with three Spider-Mans doing the same thing. “Tonight was wild,” he added as a caption.
Swift had warned the Kansas City crowd that she had some “tricks up (her) sleeve” for the show she was billing as a “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” release party. Beyond the video premiere, there was also the long-awaited expansion of the “Speak Now” portion of her Eras Tour set. Joining “Enchanted” in the setlist for the first time, presumably as a staple going forward, was the original “Speak Now” album closer, “Long Live.”
Swift also devoted the “surprise songs” acoustic portion of her Kansas City opening date to two “Speak Now” songs — one from the original album and one from among the freshly recorded Vault Tracks. Representing the original lineup as a wild card was “Never Grow Up”; culled from the new bonus songs was “When Emma Falls in Love.” If she holds true to form on the tour, neither of those two songs will be reappearing in the remainder of the U.S. tour. Of course, there are still more than a dozen “Speak Now”-based tracks that could yet show up among ongoing surprise-song segments.
Among the six tracks that came out late Thursday night — all said to have been written solo by Swift when she was 18 to 20, like the original album tracks — the Jack Antonoff-co-produced “I Can See You” quickly stood out as the biggest banger of the bunch. It would be a strong choice for a radio single if Swift didn’t already have two simultaneous singles being promoted to stations: “Karma,” from last fall’s “Midnights,” and “Cruel Summer,” from the 2019 “Lover” album, which is getting a push on the airwaves due to ongoing fan enthusiasm.
Few stars have ever enjoyed such an embarrassment of multi-album, multi-single, multi-video riches. (Swift also used a recent concert to bring Ice Spice out for a surprise premiere of their “Karma” remix video.) “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” is a lock to debut on the Billboard 200 at No. 1, even while the “Midnights” album remains an entrenched fixture of the top 10.
