Taylor Swift has collaborated with plenty of A-list acts over the years. But in a post on Friday (Oct. 27), the singer said that her it meant something extra special to her that Kendrick Lamar hopped back in the booth to re-record his bars from the remix of Swift’s 1989 single “Bad Blood” for the deluxe edition of her latest Taylor’s Version series.
On the heels of Friday’s release of her fourth catalog revamp, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Taylor also dropped an expanded deluxe edition featuring the refreshed “Blood” remix.
“Watching @kendricklamar create and record his verses on the ‘Bad Blood’ remix was one of the most inspiring experiences of my life,” Swift said in an Instagram caption featuring a snap of the dynamic duo in the studio, as well as live footage of Swifties shouting the chorus back to her from a stop on this summer’s Eras Tour and a photo of the deluxe edition cover.
“I still look back on this collaboration with so much pride and gratitude, for the ways Kendrick elevated the song and the way he treats everyone around him,” she added. “Every time the crowds on The Eras Tour would chant his line ‘you forgive, you forget, but you never let it… go!’, I smiled. The reality that Kendrick would go back in and re-record ‘Bad Blood’ so that I could reclaim and own this work I’m so proud of is surreal and bewildering to me.”
The spruced Lamar verse isn’t the only added value on the latest Taylor’s Version, which also features five bonus Vault tracks: “Slut!,” “Say Don’t Go,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Suburban Legends” and “Is It Over Now?” A sixth previously unreleased song, “Sweeter Than Fiction,” is available on a Target-only version.
The 1989 re-record follows on the heels of previous Taylor’s Versions of Fearless, Red and Speak Now. Swift celebrated the latest Version with a poetic hand-written message to Swifties in which she shared in a handwritten note, “I was born in 1989, reinvented for the first time in 2014, and a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album I love so dearly.”
“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the magic you would sprinkle on my life for so long,” she continued. “This moment is a reflection of the woods we’ve wandered through and all this love between us still glowing in the darkest hour. I present to you, with gratitude and wild wonder, my version of 1989. It’s been waiting for you.”
Swift is the leading finalist with nods in 20 categories at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards. You can watch the BBMAs here, and via Billboard and the BBMA’s social media channels on Nov. 19.
Listen to the re-recorded “Bad Blood” remix and see Swift’s post about Lamar below.
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