Fearless (Taylor Swift song)
Encyclopedia
"Fearless" is a country pop
Country pop
Country pop, with roots in both the countrypolitan sound and in soft rock, is a subgenre of country music that first emerged in the 1970s. Although the term first referred to country music songs and artists that crossed over to Top 40 radio, country pop acts are now more likely to cross over to...

 song performed by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift is an American country pop singer-songwriter, musician and actress.In 2006, she released her debut single "Tim McGraw", then her self-titled debut album, which was subsequently certified multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America...

. The song was co-written by Swift in collaboration with Liz Rose
Liz Rose
Liz Rose is an American country music songwriter best known for her work with Taylor Swift. She has co-written several of Swift's songs and singles, including "White Horse," "Teardrops on My Guitar" and "You Belong with Me," which won her and Swift a Grammy Award in 2009.-Biography:Liz Rose was...

 and Hillary Lindsey
Hillary Lindsey
Hillary Lindsey is a country music singer-songwriter. As a songwriter, she has written songs with or for Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Sara Evans, Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Bon Jovi, Taylor Swift, and Tim McGraw. One of her compositions, Underwood's Number One hit "Jesus, Take the Wheel",...

 and produced by Nathan Chapman
Nathan Chapman (record producer)
Nathan Chapman is an American record producer who works in the field of country music. He is known primarily for working with Taylor Swift, having produced her albums Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now. The former was also the first album that he produced...

 and Swift. "Fearless" was released on January 4, 2010 by Big Machine Records
Big Machine Records
Big Machine Records is an Independent American record label specializing in country music artists. It was launched in 2005 by former DreamWorks Records executive Scott Borchetta. The label was part of a joint venture between Borchetta and country singer Toby Keith, although Keith dropped his...

 as the fifth and final single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 from Swift's second studio album, of the same name, Fearless
Fearless (Taylor Swift album)
Fearless has been well-received by music professionals, with many praising Swift for her introspective lyrics, as well as her mature sound. According to the music review aggregator Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an...

. Swift composed the song while traveling on tour to promote her eponymous debut album, Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift (album)
Taylor Swift is the eponymous debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The album was released on October 24, 2006 by Big Machine Records. Swift wrote songs for the album during her freshman year of high school and has writing credits on all of the albums' songs including those...

(2006). She wrote "Fearless" in regards to the fearlessness of falling in love and eventually titled her second studio album after the song. Musically, it contains qualities commonly found in pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...

 music and, lyrically, is about a perfect first date.

"Fearless" generally pleased contemporary critics, many who complimented it for appealing to different age groups; others disagreed. In the United States, "Fearless" peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...

 (RIAA), becoming the first single released after being certified gold by the RIAA. "Fearless" also entered charts in Canada and Spain. Swift performed the song in various venues, some of which were included on the Fearless Tour
Fearless Tour
The Fearless Tour was the first concert tour by American country pop singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The tour was in support of her second studio album, Fearless. On the tour, she was joined by guests Kellie Pickler and Gloriana. Teen singer, Justin Bieber joined her for the tour when she went to...

 (2009–10). Footage from the Fearless Tour performances were used to comprise a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 for "Fearless", directed by Todd Cassetty. The video features both footage of the tour itself and backstage.

Background

"Fearless" was written by Swift in collaboration with Liz Rose
Liz Rose
Liz Rose is an American country music songwriter best known for her work with Taylor Swift. She has co-written several of Swift's songs and singles, including "White Horse," "Teardrops on My Guitar" and "You Belong with Me," which won her and Swift a Grammy Award in 2009.-Biography:Liz Rose was...

 and Hillary Lindsey
Hillary Lindsey
Hillary Lindsey is a country music singer-songwriter. As a songwriter, she has written songs with or for Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Sara Evans, Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Bon Jovi, Taylor Swift, and Tim McGraw. One of her compositions, Underwood's Number One hit "Jesus, Take the Wheel",...

 and produced by Nathan Chapman alongside Swift. Swift conceived the song while touring as opening act in order to promote her eponymous debut album, Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift (album)
Taylor Swift is the eponymous debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The album was released on October 24, 2006 by Big Machine Records. Swift wrote songs for the album during her freshman year of high school and has writing credits on all of the albums' songs including those...

(2006). While writing the song, she was not dating anyone or "even in the beginning stages of dating anybody." She wrote the song after she analyzed the ideology of what was the best first date. While developing "Fearless", Swift explained the writing process, stating, "I think sometimes when you’re writing love songs, you don’t write them about what you’re going through at the moment, you write about what you wish you had." The song was composed with two concepts in mind. Swift described the song's primary concept to be about "the fearlessness of falling in love", and "no matter how many times you get hurt, you will always fall in love again." The second, is about the best first date, which Swift stated she hadn't experienced at the time of writing "Fearless". After completing the song, Swift deeply deliberated her personal definition of the word "fearless". To her, "fearless doesn't mean you're completely unafraid and it doesn't mean that you're bulletproof. It means that you have a lot of fears, but you jump anyway." That influenced her to title the album Fearless. The song was first released as a promotional single
Promotional recording
A promotional recording, or promo, is an audio or video recording distributed for free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available...

 from the album on October 14, 2008 as part of Countdown to Fearless an exclusive campaign by the iTunes Store
ITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...

; it was later released as the fifth and final single from Fearless on January 4, 2010.

Composition

"Fearless" is a country pop
Country pop
Country pop, with roots in both the countrypolitan sound and in soft rock, is a subgenre of country music that first emerged in the 1970s. Although the term first referred to country music songs and artists that crossed over to Top 40 radio, country pop acts are now more likely to cross over to...

 song with a length of four minutes and one second. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

described the song's genre as a "kind of orthodontically perfect pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...

". He said the most country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 part of the song was a lyric that referenced a "one horse town". The song is set in common time
Common Time
"Common Time" is a science fiction short story written by James Blish. It first appeared in the August 1953 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and has been reprinted several times: in the 1959 short-story collection Galactic Cluster; in The Testament of Andros ; in The Penguin Science Fiction...

 and has a moderate tempo of 100 beats per minute. It is written in the key of F major
F major
F major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...

 and Swift's vocals span two octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

s, from F3 to C5. It follows the chord progression
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...

 F–Csus–Gm7–B♭. Tom Ronald of Great American Country
Great American Country
Great American Country , is a Nashville, Tennessee-based country music cable television network.-History:The station launched December 31, 1995 and Garth Brooks' video "The Thunder Rolls" was the first video to air on GAC....

 interpreted the song's message to be about "taking courage on the dating circuit." Craig Shelburne of CMT News said "Fearless" was about a great first date. In a different perspective, Rob Sheffield of Blender magazine
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....

 said the lyrics "And I don't know why but with you / I'd dance in a storm in my best dress, fearless" demonstrated how Swift enjoyed making a scene. He added that she would not wear "anything else to go ride around in a storm".

Critical reception

Generally, contemporary critics were pleased with "Fearless" in their reviews. Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

said Swift's vocals fit the song's melody and instrumentation, which, according to her, is "slick" and "radio-friendly". Heather Phares of Allmusic selected the track as one of best songs on Fearless. Alice Fisher of the United Kingdom magazine The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

congratulated "Fearless" for being one of Swift's "great songs with perceptive lyrics about universal truths that can be enjoyed at any age." Jim Harrington of The San Jose Mercury News believed "Fearless" contained appeal to different age groups: "Moms and daughters, as well as groups of teens and couples out for a date night, [can sing] along with equal gusto." Contrastingly, Craig Shellburne of CMT News became annoyed at the song, noting that as a male adult, its message was very difficult to relate to. "At such moments, I'd roll my eyes, then look over at the kids next to me and think, 'OK, I get it'," he added.

Chart performance

Upon its release as a promotional single, on the week ending November 1, 2008, "Fearless" debuted and peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 with sales of 162,000 digital downloads, becoming Swift's third consecutive top ten song on the chart. In the succeeding week, the song fell to number thirty-eight and after four weeks of roaming the Billboard Hot 100 it fell off the charts. Following its single release, the song re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number ninety-four on the week ending March 13, 2010. Its highest position on the chart while being released as a single was number seventy-six on the week ending April 10, 2010. The song is one of thirteen songs from Fearless charted within the top forty of the Billboard Hot 100, breaking the record for the most top forty entries from a single album. "Fearless" spent a total of fifteen weeks ascending and descending the Billboard Hot 100. "Fearless" also peaked at number ten on the Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 Chart, making this her tenth consecutive top ten hit but also her lowest-charting single, and number eighteen on the now-defunct Pop 100
Pop 100
The Pop 100 was a songs chart that debuted in February 2005 and was released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States until its discontinuation in 2009...

 Chart. The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...

 (RIAA) for the purchase of over 500,000 digital downloads. It therefore became the first single released after being certified gold by the RIAA, as a result of digital downloads. On the week ending November 29, 2008, "Fearless" debuted and peaked at number sixty-nine on the Canadian Hot 100
Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 is a music singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine which ranks songs in Canada. The chart debuted in the Billboard issue dated June 16, 2007 and was made available for the first time via their online services on June 7, 2007...

, spending a total of five weeks on the chart. The song peaked at number thirty-two on the Spanish Singles Chart.

Live performances

Swift's first televised performance of "Fearless" was on November 10, 2008 on The Late Show with David Letterman. She went on to perform the song on The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...

and Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...

's Stripped. Swift performed the song on all venues of her first headlining concert tour, the Fearless Tour
Fearless Tour
The Fearless Tour was the first concert tour by American country pop singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The tour was in support of her second studio album, Fearless. On the tour, she was joined by guests Kellie Pickler and Gloriana. Teen singer, Justin Bieber joined her for the tour when she went to...

, which extended from April 2009 to July 2010. During each performance, Swift escorted a silver sparkly dress and black boots and played an acoustic guitar
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

 as floral patterns with a moving butterfly were projected on the stage. Alice Fisher of The Observer attended the May 7, 2009 concert at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, England and said that while herself drifted off during the performance, it "clearly made perfect sense to the girls in the audience." Jocelyn Vena of MTV News
MTV News
MTV News is the news division of MTV, one of the first and most popular music television network in the U.S., as well as some of MTV's related channels around the world. MTV News began in the late 1980s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by Kurt Loder, the first official MTV News correspondent...

 reported that the audience loudly sang along to the performance of "Fearless" at the August 27, 2009 concert at Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. The song is also performed on the Speak Now World Tour
Speak Now World Tour
Speak Now World Tour is the second concert tour by American country singer-songwriter, Taylor Swift, in support of her third studio album, Speak Now. The tour visited Asia, Europe, North America and Australasia...

.

Various tour performances were used to comprise a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 for "Fearless", directed by Todd Cassetty. The video premiered on February 17, 2010 on CMT
CMT
- Medicine :* California mastitis test* Certified Massage Therapist* Cervical motion tenderness, a sign of pelvic inflammatory disease* Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease* Chemically modified tetracyclines* Circus Movement Tachycardia...

. It begins when Swift tells her band before they step onstage, "You guys, this tour has been the best experience of my entire life." The video intermingles footage from the tour itself with fans excitedly showing off signs to Swift with behind-the-scenes footage of Swift and her band as they travel on the Fearless Tour. It ends with the singer waving goodbye as she exists the stage. Upon watching the video, Vena interpreted it to be "Swift's love letter to her fans", as it showed an "inside view of what it's like to go on tour".

Track listings

  • U.S. Digital Download
  1. "Fearless" (Album Version) – 4:01

  • U.S. / EU CD Single
  1. "Fearless" (Radio Edit) – 3:42

Charts

Chart (2008–2010) Peak
position
Canadian Hot 100
Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 is a music singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine which ranks songs in Canada. The chart debuted in the Billboard issue dated June 16, 2007 and was made available for the first time via their online services on June 7, 2007...

69
Spanish Singles Chart 32
US Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

9
US Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

10
US Pop 100
Pop 100
The Pop 100 was a songs chart that debuted in February 2005 and was released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States until its discontinuation in 2009...

18

Year-end charts

Charts (2010) Position
US Hot Country Songs 55

External links

  • "Fearless" music video on YouTube
    YouTube
    YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

     (posted by Swift's Vevo
    Vevo
    Vevo is a music video website. It is a joint venture among Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Abu Dhabi Media with EMI licensing its content to the group without taking an ownership stake. The service was launched officially on December 8, 2009...

    )
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