The Story Behind Taylor Swift’s ‘Innocent’ & Its Link To Kanye West as She Forgives The Rapper

The third re-recorded album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, Speak Now (Taylor's Version), was made available on July 7, 2023, by Republic Records. One of the songs named Innocent was also included in the album in which the global star is offering Kanye West forgiveness for his interruption during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

This album is a re-recording of Swift's third studio album, Speak Now (2010), and comes after her re-recorded albums, Red (Taylor's Version) and Fearless (Taylor's Version), all of which were released in 2021. Swift is responding to her 2019 master's dispute with the re-recording. The album was announced on May 5, 2023, during the opening Nashville performance of her ongoing concert tour, the Eras Tour. Collaborations with American rock bands Fall Out Boy and Hayley Williams are included in it, reports Bustle.

Six previously unheard From the Vault tracks can be found on Swift's new re-recording of Speak Now (Taylor's Version), along with an older wound that she hasn't acknowledged in over a decade. Swift penned Innocent after Kanye West famously stormed the stage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards to cut off Swift's speech after winning Best Female Video and declare that “Beyoncé made the best video of all time.”

Swift offers the rapper forgiveness in Innocent, saying that what he did to her does not sum up his entire existence. She softly sings the chorus “It’s all right, just wait and see, your string of lights is still bright to me,” “Who you are is not who you’ve been, you’re still an innocent.” The incident was compared to falling off a tightrope by the singer, who also sang, “Every one of us has messed up too.” In the second half of the chorus, when Swift sings, “32 and still growing up now,” she makes the most obvious reference to West, who was 32 at the time of his VMAs stage intrusion.

Swift hid messages in the liner notes of the CD booklet for her album Speak Now. “Life is full of little interruptions,” she wrote for Innocent, referring to West's infamous interruption. Years after the incident, the two got along again, and in a funny turn of events, Swift even gave West the Video Vanguard Award at the 2015 VMAs, where their saga began.

"I first made Speak Now, completely self-written, between the ages of 18 and 20. The songs that came from this time in my life were marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions, and wild wistfulness. I love this album because it tells a tale of growing up, flailing, flying and crashing… and living to speak about it."  Swift said while reflecting on Speak Now on her social media.

Swift's third studio album, Speak Now, was made available on October 25, 2010, by Big Machine Records. Swift spent two years traveling in support of her second studio album, Fearless (2008) and composed the entire record by herself.