Taylor Swift’s Unreleased Song Called a “Suicide Note”

Taylor Swift became a global star with emotionally charged songs about romance, heartbreak and the pressures of fame. Yet deep in her songwriting archive lies a darker collection of unreleased tracks—songs that push her early work into surprisingly chilling territory.

A new book about the 36-year-old singer-songwriter’s formative years details several of those unheard songs, including one with a “horribly tragic ending” that reportedly left a collaborator stunned.

Eight previously unreleased tracks are explored in the forthcoming Taylor Swift: The Debut Years. They represent only a small portion of the hundreds of songs Swift wrote between 2003 and 2006, when she was a teenager working to establish herself in country music.

The most unsettling track, Dark Blue Tennessee, refers to a suicide note and was influenced by Swift’s love of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, according to author Emily Yahr, a Washington Post pop culture correspondent.

Swift co-wrote the song with longtime collaborator and mentor Robert Ellis Orrall at a piano in his Nashville living room. The book says the ballad featured “one of the most chilling vocals he’s ever heard.”

Yahr described the song as a sinister counterpart to Swift’s Love Story—if that romantic tale had a “horribly tragic ending.” It is one of hundreds of songs Swift has chosen not to release, despite producing 12 albums over a career spanning two decades.

Orrall, who co-wrote around half a dozen unreleased songs with Swift and helped guide her early career, is among the people Yahr interviewed for the book, which is scheduled for release on October 6.

Orrall said another artist once sought to record Dark Blue Tennessee, prompting several discussions at Sony Music years ago.

However, Swift said the song was “very special” to her and ultimately turned down the proposal. Orrall came to believe she might eventually record it herself.

Online versions of the lyrics attributed to the song include the line: “She almost called him on the night that he wrote, these simple words on his goodbye note.”

The song was reportedly a favorite of Swift’s father, Scott. Orrall believes its grim subject matter may explain why it was left off her debut album.

Swift has often drawn on people and events from her life, but the identity of the person who inspired the unreleased song Brought Up That Way remains unknown.

The track is said to tell the story of someone Swift knew who was killed by a drunk driver.

According to the book, Swift co-wrote the ballad with Tammy Hyler when she was 15.

Her parents, Scott and Andrea, were both fond of the song. But Scott Borchetta, the record-label chief overseeing promotion for Swift’s debut album, reportedly considered it “simply too sad” to include.

Other unreleased songs highlighted in the book offered a different glimpse of Swift’s early talent: her ability to turn teenage experiences into vivid lyrics with broad emotional appeal.

Love the Hell Out of You, written with songwriters Sarah Buxton and Victoria Shaw, explored the idea of failing to love someone enough to exorcise their inner demons. However, according to the book, the song’s suggestion of satanic imagery was enough to keep it off Swift’s debut album.

‘I was like: “You sure there are no other ideas?” I thought: “Well, this song will never go anywhere because she’s way too young…but those are the kinds of deep thoughts she had even as a kid,” Shaw, who co-wrote Garth Brook’s mega hit The River, said.

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Being With My Baby, which Swift wrote with Brett Beavers, was about ‘young love when it feels like you’re the only two people in the world,’ the book says.

And I Know What I Want was written with Blair Daly at his home recording studio in October 2005. It was about how Swift likes her ‘music loud and her trucks big,’ Yahr wrote, and how she ‘doesn’t want a boy who thinks the world revolves around him.’

The session went so smoothly that Daly recalled them being completely finished with it when Swift’s mother arrived at to pick her up that same day.

Another song, titled Firefly, was about trying to hold onto somebody you love but they keep getting away.

Meanwhile, This Is Really Happening was about two people falling in love and echoed the Killers’ song Midnight Show.

Another track, Me and Britany, was a ‘tale of the beauty and pain of a childhood friendship changing over time,’ Yahr writes.

Co-writer Sharon Vaughn, who has worked with hit singers like Waylon Jennings, said in the book that it was drawn from Swift’s ‘personal experience,’ though the identity of ‘Britany’ was not clear.

Speaking in 2006, Swift said that during her early recordings she wrote prolifically because she was determined to be taken seriously.

As she put it, Swift acted like she was a ’35-year-old songwriter writing every day like it was my job.’

Despite her youth, Swift said she wanted to ‘prove to people that that was what I was serious about.’

Meanwhile, Swift’s fans have been so dedicated to the flurry of unreleased songs that soon after the singer’s first album came out in 2006, Swifties started creating forums where they could swap tracks that had not officially come out. 

At some point the forum became password protected and those with access became known as the ‘Inner Circle’ who have access to the rarest of demo recordings. 

Remarkably, they never leaked any of the songs out of loyalty to Swift – and the site has since been deleted. 

Fans are now hoping that they will get a glimpse of unreleased songs next month on the 20th anniversary of the release of her debut album, titled Taylor Swift.

On fan forums, there is intense speculation that Swift will release a Taylor’s Version of the record. 

In recent years, Swift has re-recorded versions of four of her early albums after the masters ended up in the hands of music manager Scooter Braun, though she later bought them back. Just last week, she released the deluxe version of her 2025 album, The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, with four additional songs.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Swift for comment.