“All Too Well” is widely considered Taylor Swift’s best piece of songwriting (and that’s saying something.) The fifth track from her 2012 album Red offers an up-close-and-personal look at one of her most controversial relationships. The song gained even more popularity when Swift released a 10-minute version on her 2021 Red re-release. With devastating lines like, And I might be okay / But I’m not fine at all, everyone can find something to relate to.
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That includes arbiters of the law. A California judge recently demonstrated the versatility of Swift’s songwriting.
“We Were There”: Judge Tosses Out Metallica Lawsuit
On Monday (March 18), a California appeals court threw out Metallica’s insurance lawsuit related to several canceled shows in 2020. Metallica had requested a payment of losses totaling more than $3 million stemming from six canceled tour dates in South America.
British insurers Lloyd’s of London denied the claim, pointing to an exclusion in their contract for any losses accrued from “communicable diseases.”
A Los Angeles judge ruled against Metallica in December 2022. However, the band appealed the decision, arguing that a jury might have determined that non-pandemic reasons caused the cancellations.
Justice Maria Stratton found this claim “absurd.” “To paraphrase Taylor Swift: ‘We were there. We remember it all too well,’” she wrote in her ruling.
Other Times Taylor Swift Found Her Way into the Courtroom
This wasn’t the first time Taylor Swift’s words ended up amongst legalese. In 2022, her “Eras” tour became the subject of a Senate hearing.
[RELATED: Taylor Swift Fans Are Organizing a Ticketmaster Take Down]
When the tour launched its pre-sale through Ticketmaster, the demand crashed the ticketing platform’s system. The ticketing giant eventually canceled its general sale, citing insufficient inventory.
As a result, the Senate held a bipartisan hearing in January 2023 to determine whether Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, was to blame for the fiasco.
The lyrical references were plentiful. “Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror & say ‘I’m the problem. It’s me,'” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut. Blumenthal was referencing “Anti-Hero,” the lead single from 2022’s Midnights.
Featured image by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for MTV
