The old “Look What You Made Me Do” guy can’t answer the phone right now. Why? Before Taylor Swift’s future album Reputation (Taylor’s Version), the song has been fully updated and re-recorded. It was also played almost in full in the most recent episode of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
When the new episode starts, the song plays right away. The handmaids, led by Elisabeth Moss’s June Osborne, are rising up against the Commanders. The women of the show walk in a line while the new version of the pop star’s “Reputation” lead single plays in the background. It has re-creations of Jack Antonoff’s original synths and a throbbing drum beat, as well as a new vocal take from an older, more experienced Swift. At one point, June just barely makes it into the back of a truck as explosions go off behind her.
Elisabeth Moss, star of The Handmaid’s Tale and executive producer, told Billboard in an exclusive interview that this musical moment has been a long time coming.
“I’ve wanted to use a Taylor song on the show for years, and we finally found the perfect spot for one. I’m so glad we waited, because there couldn’t have been a better song for the moment,” says Moss, who went to a stop on The Eras Tour in Toronto last year with her Handmaid’s Tale co-star Bradley Whitford. “For me, Taylor has been such an inspiration.” As a Swift fan, I think I can speak for my co-star Yvonne Strahovski and the rest of the group when I say that it’s an honor to be able to use her music in the last episodes of our show.
“I told Wendy, my editor, ‘I really want to find a place for a Taylor track in the last two episodes of the show.’ We were looking for music for the beginning of episode 9, and Wendy picked this track for that spot!”
Editor Wendy Hallam Martin, who won an Emmy for her work on The Handmaid’s Tale, said that some music syncs are just “meant to be,” and they both agree that this one was.
In an exclusive statement to Billboard, Hallam Martin says, “We tried many songs for this specific moment in our series and knew how much Lizzie wanted a strong female voice and message. Taylor was really the artist that delivered both lyrically and tonally.” As June, our strong main character, said in this scene, “Look what you made me do!” and the song couldn’t have been more fitting. A great match. It was like magic when I put the song next to the scene—it fit exactly in terms of theme, rhythm, and all the edit points. That happens sometimes when something is meant to be. When I showed it to Lizzie, we both knew right away that it was the one!”
Here is the first scene of The Handmaid’s Tale season 6, episode 9. You can also listen to the new version of “Look What You Made Me Do” below.
This is one of the first real tastes that Swift fans have had of Reputation (Taylor’s Version), and it’s a big one. There are two choruses and the full first and second lines of “Look What You Made Me Do” in this sequence.
“Look What You Made Me Do,” which came out in 2017, was the first song in Swift’s edgier Reputation era. The record topped the Billboard 200 for four weeks, and the song was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks.
Swift’s 14-time Grammy winner self-titled debut album from 2007 is one of two songs she has yet to re-record as part of her ongoing plan to get back the rights to the masters of her first six albums. Out of the four re-recordings she has done so far, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) have all gone straight to No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
With the 1989 re-record, Swift’s fans can’t wait for the next album in the series, which will come out in October 2016, two years after the last one. The musician has only dropped a few hints about Reputation (Taylor’s Version) so far. In March 2024, she shared a short clip of the reworked “Look What You Made Me Do” in an episode of Apple TV+’s The Dynasty: New England Patriots. This was just a few months after the track was used in a teaser for Prime Video’s Wilderness. In August 2023, she also sang “Delicate (Taylor’s Version)” on The Summer I Turned Pretty on Prime Video.
Many Swifties are sure that the pop star will say something at the American Music Awards on Memorial Day (May 26), possibly the release date for Reputation (Taylor’s Version). This is because her website and social media accounts have been giving them hints.
