Swift and Jack Antonoff have worked together on some of her most acclaimed pop songs. The "Love Story" singer, however, has also spent a lot of time writing on her own. As a tween, it was just Swift and her guitar on her bedroom floor before meeting with co-writers like Liz Rose - but for her third studio album, Swift went solo again.

The pop star was tired of critics suggesting she wasn't pulling any weight in her songwriting sessions. When she released Speak Now in 2010, every song on the tracklist was self-written, proving the critics wrong. Once she proved her point, she went back to collaborating, but has at least one self-written song on all her albums, except Reputation. Swift works with other artists not because she needs to, but because it helps her break out of her comfort zone and grow as an artist. This, however, doesn't take away from how many great songs she's written solo.

The following songs, written solely by Swift, are ranked based on a variety of factors. The leading factor, however, is the quality of the writing itself, in of storytelling, cleverness, rhyme, and more. From the beginning of Swift's career to her most recent album, here are her 10 best solo-written songs, ranked.

10 Love Story

Fearless (2008)

When Taylor Swift released "Love Story," it became the first song to top both the country radio charts and the pop radio charts. It was also the first inkling that Swift might have her sights on more than just country music. Swift wrote a lot of her catchy pop songs with co-writers like Max Martin and Antonoff. With "Love Story," however, the singer-songwriter was able to create an earworm entirely on her own.

To this day, it remains one of her most widely known songs, and has been performed on every single one of her tours. In recent years, Swift's poetic lyrics have regularly been compared to Shakespeare's writing. With the Fearless track's mention of Romeo & Juliet, "Love Story" foreshadowed the lyrics Swift would go on to write.

9 Our Song

Taylor Swift (2006)

"Our Song" was the third single from Taylor Swift's debut album, and it is also one of her most clever hits to date. Swift initially wrote the song for her high school talent show and later put it on her album because her classmates liked it so much. In "Our Song," Swift sings about a relationship where they don't have a song, so her boyfriend comes up with a unique one.

The sound of slamming screen doors, late-night phone calls, and laughter are all a part of the song that represents their love for each other. "Our Song" made Taylor Swift the first female solo country artist to ever solo-write and perform a #1 country song. This is a legacy Swift would continue to carry, and although she has written even better songs than this one, the fact it happened so early on in her career makes it extremely notable.

8 Long Live

Speak Now (2010)

Every song on Speak Now was solo-written, but "Long Live" is one of Swift's most personal songs on the album. It makes sense that she wouldn't involve any co-writers in this one, as only she would understand the experience of seeing her dreams come true. When she performed "Long Live" on the Speak Now Tour, Swift told the audience that she got the melody for the song in her head while waiting to go on stage during her former headlining tour for Fearless.

The song chronicles Swift's career journey from the days when she and her band were just "a band of thieves in ripped-up jeans" until a hypothetical future where fate ended her career. Despite being about her and her band , "Long Live" is also for the fans. When Swift would hide phrases in her lyric booklets, the song's hidden message was "for you." While "Long Live" was only on the Eras Tour setlist for a limited time, it will always represent the unbreakable connection between Swift and her fans.

7 Lover

Lover (2019)

With Reputation, not only did Swift not solo-write any songs, but the production was mostly very heavy, leaning into trap influences. With Lover, Swift returned to her singer-songwriter roots, especially with the album's title track. "Lover" was the first time one of Taylor Swift's albums had a title track since Red, and it was also the first acoustic guitar-heavy song since that album. "Lover" is one of Swift's best-written and most honest love songs. For years, Taylor Swift wrote love songs about the kind of relationship she dreamed of but was never in.

Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand

With every guitar string scar on my hand

I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover

My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

All's well that ends well to end up with you

In "Lover," she sings from the perspective of someone who has finally found that relationship. The bridge is arguably the best part of the song, as Swift puts her own twist on wedding vows. She sings about the "guitar string" scars on her fingers from writing so many breakup songs. It's a metaphor for how her partner has vowed to take her hand in marriage, past relationship baggage and all. "Lover" is a defining song of the album and was a breath of fresh air for fans who missed her more acoustic sound from her early career days.

6 Fifteen

Fearless (2008)

From "22" to mentions of being seventeen and not knowing anything in "betty," Swift has always loved numbers. Despite the popularity of "22," her first time naming a song after an age was "Fifteen" off her sophomore album Fearless. The song is a retrospective take on being a teenager, navigating high school, popular kids, and heartbreak. Swift mentions her best friend, Abigail Anderson, twice in "Fifteen."

The first mention comes when she sings about befriending Anderson in class. The second is when she sings a vulnerable line about Anderson giving "everything she had" to her boyfriend, who ends up breaking up with her. Most of all, "Fifteen" is advice to any of Swift's young listeners and a reflection on how much she has grown since. This personal touch that has such an honest message certainly makes it one of Swift's best solo-written songs, behind only a few others.

5 My Tears Ricochet

folklore (2020)

Another song Swift could have only written alone is "my tears ricochet." It is one of Swift's strongest track 5 songs and one of her most heartbreaking ever. When Swift wrote folklore, most of the songs were fictional tales based on movies and books she consumed during the COVID-19 lockdown. "my tears ricochet" has fictional elements, too, as Swift sings about an abusive husband attending his wife's funeral.

The song, however, is also about the falling out between Swift and her former record label president, Scott Borchetta, who sold her music out from under her. This is made clear through the lyrics, "When you can't sleep at night / You'll hear my stolen lullabies." While Swift's co-writers might know her better than anyone, only she could fully understand the pain of losing her life's work to someone she thought would always have her back. It was the ultimate betrayal, and Swift was able to put it into words brilliantly, bringing her pain to life.

4 Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me?

The Tortured Poets Department (2024)

While Swift wrote a lot of The Tortured Poets Department with frequent collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, she wrote a few songs alone, too. "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" was one of the album's solo-written tracks. Swift described the song as being something she wrote after feeling very frustrated about growing up in the music industry. The bridge, when she refers to the industry as "the asylum where they raised me," showcases her frustration best.

When Swift coined the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical" to describe The Tortured Poets Department set on The Eras Tour, "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" served as a centerpiece, which offers a perfect summary of the song itself.

She also seems to address the singers coming up in the industry now who have disrespected her with lyrics like "But my bare hands paved their paths / You don't get to tell me about sad." However, the chorus of "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" is one of the song's strong points. Swift lets out a blood-curdling scream while singing the lyrics and later compares her career to "the circus life." It is one of the most powerful tracks on the album, with vigorous lyrics that Swift needed no assistance writing, and certainly one of her most memorable ever written.

3 Cornelia Street

Lover (2019)

Another self-written ballad off of Lover is "Cornelia Street." On 1989, Swift wrote about moving to New York City in her 20s. At the time, she'd just bought a penthouse in Tribeca, Manhattan, which she still owns today. During a period when it was under construction, however, Swift was renting an apartment on Cornelia Street, a small block not far from Washington Square Park.

During the Reputation era, when Swift was staying mostly out of the public eye, she spent a lot of time at this apartment with her partner. In "Cornelia Street," she sings about the secret affair, mostly focusing on how she would never be able to walk down that street again if her partner left her because the memories would haunt her. "Cornelia Street" is quite haunting itself, but it's also a beautiful ballad about the sometimes delicateness of relationships, and its status as such a fan-favorite makes it one of her best written.

2 Nothing New

Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)

On the original Red, Taylor Swift had solo-written eight of the tracks. However, when she rereleased it as Red (Taylor's Version), she included a few more solo-written songs, including "Nothing New." Returning to her fascination with age, Swift sings about knowing "everything at 18 but nothing at 22." The song connects to both "Fifteen," which she released at 18 when she felt much wiser, and "22," where she mentions feeling "confused and lonely." The song also connects to a line from "The Lucky One," about young singers coming to replace Swift, as "Nothing New" is centered on this topic.

I had too much to drink tonight

And I know it's sad, but this is what I think about

And I wake up in the middle of the night

It's like I can feel time moving

How can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22?

And will you still want me when I'm nothing new?

Swift seems to feel as though she is old news, and soon, everyone will get bored of her. She saw herself in her early career as a sparkly new toy everyone was fascinated with, but on her fourth record, she felt dated and assumed a new "ingénue" would steal everyone's attention. "Nothing New" is quite anxiety-inducing, even if, at 35, Swift is still one of the biggest stars on the planet. It's incredibly vulnerable, and Swift fans are lucky the singer decided to free the song from the vault. Only one other manages to best this masterpiece.

1 Dear John

Speak Now (2010)

At only 19 years old, Swift was a prolific songwriter, and her solo-written track "Dear John" is one of many examples. It's a heartbreaking ballad about dating an older man and then being left out in the cold. Like many Taylor Swift songs, it has a powerful bridge with clever rhymes and symbolic lyrics. Swift sings about ignoring warnings of her partner's toxicity, how she overlooked his obvious manipulation, and how she should have known he was bad news from the start.

The song is a reference to Dear John letters, which women typically sent to men in the military to call off romantic relationships. Swift cleverly uses this as a way to let her former partner know the relationship is over, and she has seen so much clarity since ending things. If any of the songs Taylor Swift has written alone were to prove just how lyrically talented she is, "Dear John" is the one.