Taylor Swift's Real-Life Home Vs. Her 'Back To December' Pad
Swift's Nashville home features a human-size bird cage and a koi pond.
In the new video for Taylor Swift's latest Speak Now single, "Back to December," the singer's home is reminiscent of houses one might find in her hometown of Nashville.
In the home, the singer is surrounded by various collectibles including paintings, decorative tree branches, a claw-foot bathtub and a bicycle. The decorative items look like things that could be found at local antique shops, flea markets or perhaps the Nashville outpost of a shop like Anthropologie.
In her real life, Swift lives in her own condo in the heart of Nashville, not far from the city's nightlife. She's been open about her unconventional decorating style for her new home, which includes a very unique piece.
"It's going to be my fantasy world," Swift reportedly told Rolling Stone magazine. "The ceiling of my living room is painted like the night sky. There's a pond in the living room ... The pond is a moat around the fireplace [that] may possibly have koi fish in it. ... "You step on a stepping stone in the pond in order to get on a spiral staircase, which takes you to the human-size bird cage observatory. They're delivering a human-size birdcage, which I'll put a brass telescope in."
In an interview with MTV News last June, Swift spoke about how her home, which was still under construction at the time. "It's giant! It's like people-sized!" she exclaimed about the birdcage. "You can put a table in there, and I'm going to!"
As for the koi pond, Taylor admitted she originally intended for it to have another kind of marine life: sting rays. She even had a solution for any odors they may have caused. "If there are only two of them, it wouldn't be much of an issue! You get a Glade plug-in and you're fine!"
Long before Taylor Swift released the video for "Back to December," everyone was clamoring for clues about who she was singing to in the breakup ballad. And still, the dark-haired character in the video could represent any one of her recent exes. Swift has always made it clear that though she sings about her life, she never names names, but she did talk to MTV News about writing an apology song, which she explained was a first for her.
"I've never felt the need to apologize in a song before, but in the last two years I've experienced a lot, [including] a lot of different kinds of learning lessons," Taylor told us last year, just before the release of Speak Now. "And sometimes you learn a lesson too late and at that point you need to apologize because you were careless."
In the chorus, she sings, "So this is me swallowing my pride/ Standing in front of you saying I'm sorry for that night And I'd go back to December all the time/ It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you/ Wishing that I'd realized what I had when you were mine."
Many have guessed that the tune is about her breakup with "Twilight" star Taylor Lautner. Whoever it is, Swift felt her former paramour deserved a musical mea culpa.
"Well, I've always sort of written songs about situations in life, things that needed to be said," she told E! back in October. "I write songs about people who deserve to have songs written about them, and whatever they need to hear, whatever is the right thing to say to that person, ends up being said."
While Swift may have been careless toward the guy she's writing about on the song, she's admitted he was nothing but a gentleman. "This is about a person who was incredible to me, just perfect to me in a relationship," she said. "And I was really careless with him."
Taylor Swift's 'Back To December' Video Director Explains Clip
'I wanted [Taylor] to perform a very natural way, to make her look very European,' says Yoann Lemoine.
In her video for "Back to December," Taylor Swift finds herself and her home covered in snow while she contemplates the best way to apologize to her former beau, played by model Guntars Asmanis, for breaking his heart. Director Yoann Lemoine tells MTV News that he had a certain aesthetic he wanted to capture for the chilly clip, which was shot partly in Nashville (for Swift's scenes) and Upstate New York (for Asmanis' scenes) in December.
"I wanted the video to be very simple and metaphorical at the same time," the Frenchman explained. "I wanted to work on the coldness of feelings in a very visual way, playing with the snow, the distance and sadness. [Taylor] really liked it. The winter theme was very interesting to me — the snow, the ice. I even wanted the guy to go swim in frozen lakes at some point. It was not possible, but I wanted to translate how you feel sometime when your heart is broken. The snow in the apartment is supposed to show how connected she is to him. He is outside, in the cold, but somehow she is connected to him."
Swift pretty much let Lemoine have control over the clip's look and feel, although it was her idea to have her character leave the letter for her beloved. As for Swift's look in the video, Lemoine says he was focused on making sure that it all felt real and that she came off as accessible.
"I have been going through a lot of videos and pictures of her on the Internet trying to find the best angle and style for her. I wanted people to feel like they would get to know her very intimately, and really trust in what she was saying," he explained. "I wanted her to perform a very natural way, to make her look very European. This was the main challenge to me. All of Taylor's world is very far away from my culture, but I saw something in her that could be very rough and heartbreaking; far from the princess glittery outfits and glam that she often goes for."
As for Asmanis, the duo agreed that he was the perfect fit for the part. "I wanted a boy that was fragile and beautiful. I didn't want to go for a hunk or a perfect cheesy boy that would have killed the sincerity of the video," Lemoine said. "I just imagined a face that would enhance the fragility of the video. We did cast a couple of boys and both Taylor and I loved Guntars."
Anniina
