Taylor Swift’s ‘From the Vault’ Songs Might Just Feature Keith Urban
Taylor Swift is ready to share songs from her back catalog, and one of them just might feature country superstar Keith Urban. A cryptic video from the country-turned-pop star has fans guessing.
On Friday (April 2), Swift shared a video featuring a series of jumbled words and extremely short song snippets (played backwards?) flowing out of a golden vault.
"The vault door is about to be as unhinged as you'll think I am after you watch this video," she jokes in the caption.
"Level: Expert," she adds. "Happy decoding!"
Swift's fans quickly jumped on the clues, noticing that two of the words spell "Maren" and "Morris," who is a guest vocalist on Swift's recently released "From the Vault" song "You All Over Me." The song's title is spelled out of some of the other jumbled words, too, as is the word "Featuring."
There's another "Featuring" jumble in there, too, along with "tekhi" and "runba" — or, "Keith" and "Urban." Swift's word jumbles don't come in order, so there's no telling what song might feature Urban, but among the jumbled words are "We," "Were" and "Happy," the title of an unreleased song of Swift's.
Other jumbled words that fans have solved include "Perfectly," "Fine," "Baby," "Mr." and more. They've been working together in the replies to her posts with the video.
Should a newly unveiled Swift song feature Urban, it wouldn't be their first time working together: She was his opening act during a 2009 tour, and in 2013 they and Tim McGraw released "Highway Don't Care" together. That song, from McGraw's Two Lanes of Freedom album, earned an ACM Award, two CMA Awards and a Grammy Awards nomination.
Swift's "From the Vault" releases are part of a massive undertaking by the singer to re-record and release — or, in some cases, release officially for the first time — her entire back catalog of songs, all recorded during her time with Big Machine Label Group. Her first re-recorded album, Fearless (Taylor's Version), is due out on April 9; it will feature new renditions of its 20 original songs, as well as six additional bonus tracks that did not make the original album.
Swift is re-recording Fearless and her five other albums from her BMLG days following her split from the label — after the completion of her original record deal, she signed with Universal Music Group in 2018 — and a very public battle over her master recordings. BMLG is now owned by celebrity talent manager Scooter Braun, whom Swift says has been a bully to her over the years. She also says that she was not notified of the label's sale ahead of time, and was never given a fair chance to acquire her masters or purchase the label itself.
Swift has been busy during the COVID-19 pandemic: In addition to re-recording her old music, she released two brand-new albums, Folklore and Evermore, in 2020. One song from each album — "Betty" and "No Body, No Crime," which features Haim, respectively — was shipped to country radio.
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