![]() The narrator tells the man, "32 and still growing up now/Who you are is not what you did." The lyrics feature imagery associated with childhood innocence and simplicity, such as "lunchbox days" and "firefly catching days". Although the man in question has suffered from self-doubt because of his actions, in the eyes of Swift's character, his "strings of lights are still bright". The lyrics of "Innocent" see a protagonist sympathizing with a man who has committed wrongdoings. Perone remarked that it stands out from other pop ballads because of Swift's use of "a high degree of rhythmic syncopation in her delivery". Musically, "Innocent" is a gentle pop ballad, in which Swift performs with tender vocals. As a result, "Innocent" is her expression of sympathy to West, after the public outrage he received. She reflected that writing the song "taught a lot about being able to step back from a situation you don't know what to do with, and put into somebody else's shoes". As she had to take time to process the emotions ensued from the incident, "Innocent", which took her six months to write, took longer for her to finish than other tracks, which she said usually took "about 30 minutes". ![]() When she wrote "Innocent", she had come to a place of mind where she could talk about it. Swift recalled that the incident made her stay silent for a while because it was "a huge, intense thing in my life that resonated for a long time". In an interview with Billboard, she said she wrote the song between February and June 2010. Īfter the incident, Swift told New York magazine that while she knew people "expected me to write a song about ", she felt it was important to "write a song to him". West said on the social media platform that he "bled hard" because of his actions, and went into a hiatus. Public opinion after the incident turned against West US president Barack Obama called him a "jackass". At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, during Swift's acceptance speech for winning Best Female Video, West interrupted her, protesting that Beyoncé had "one of the best videos of all time". ![]() In press interviews leading up to the release of Speak Now, Swift said that the album track "Innocent" was dedicated to rapper Kanye West. She also noted that one song in particular is addressed to "someone I forgive for what he said in front of the whole world". In the liner notes for Speak Now, Swift explained that every song on the album is an "open letter" to someone in her life, "telling them what I meant to tell them in person". According to Swift, the album is a collection of songs about the things she had wanted to say to the people she had met in real life but did not. ![]() Taylor Swift wrote all tracks on her third studio album, Speak Now (2010), by herself. Swift was inspired to write "Innocent" by Kanye West's interruption of her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The debate over the message of "Innocent" started to affect Swift's public image as an innocent "America's Sweetheart", which resonated into 2016, when Swift and West got involved in another public feud after West released the single " Famous". Music critics gave "Innocent" mixed reviews some viewed the song as a sympathetic message and praised Swift's songwriting, but others criticized it as patronizing and condescending. Swift performed it live at the following year's MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, a month prior to the release of Speak Now, as a means of putting the controversy behind her and West.įollowing the album's release, the song peaked at numbers 27 and 53 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100 charts respectively. Produced by Swift and Nathan Chapman, the song was written in response to Kanye West's interruption of her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, feeling the need to sympathize with him after the public outrage he received. A gentle pop ballad with tender vocals, its lyrics are about a protagonist's encouragement of a man who has committed wrongdoings, claiming him to hold innocence and believing that he could redeem himself. " Innocent" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, taken from her third studio album, Speak Now (2010).
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