Before performing “Dear John” at her Minneapolis concert on Saturday night, Taylor Swift asked her fans to show “kindness and gentleness” to anyone they think she might have written a song about.
“I’m 33 years old,” Swift said Saturday. “I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19, except for the songs I wrote and the memories we made together.”
Swift is in the process of re-recording her first six albums so she can own them. On July 7, she will release “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” a new recording from her third studio album, which came out in 2010. That album features the song “Dear John,” which fans believe is about Swift’s brief brief. relationship with singer John Mayer.
After Swift released “Red (Taylor Version)” and fans flooded Jake Gyllenhaal’s Instagram with comments because they thought the breakup song “All Too Well” was about him, Swift is asking her fans to be internet friendly
“So what I’m trying to tell you,” Swift continued on Saturday, “is that I’m not going to release this album so you can go and feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone who you think might have. she wrote a song about 14 million years ago.”
She then announced that she would be singing “Dear John,” but only because she’s “proud of it as a song.”
Mayer told Rolling Stone in 2012 that “Dear John” “humiliated” him and made him feel “terrible.” He called the song “cheap composition”.
When asked about her response during an appearance that year on Katie Couric’s talk show, Swift simply said, “Oh, come on.”
It’s unclear how Swift feels about Mayer and his comments now, but it seems at least she doesn’t want her fans to harass her on the internet. Swift also told fans Saturday night that she can witness her fans being kind to each other during every concert and see them bond and give each other friendship bracelets.
“I was hoping to ask that as we head toward the release of this album, I would love to see that kindness and gentleness extend to our Internet activities,” he said.
“What I’m trying to say is that I’m releasing this album because I want to own my music and I think any artist who has the desire to own their music should be able to. That’s why I’m releasing this album.”
