The music video for Taylor Swift's song "Fifteen" tells a narrative story through flashbacks. It begins by showing Taylor looking at an old photo from when she was 15, which causes her to reminisce about that time. The video then flashes back between scenes from her past at 15 and her current self at her old school. It uses changes in lighting, color, and weather to represent the shifting tones between the happy memories and sad realizations. Throughout, it closely matches the lyrics with corresponding visuals to illustrate Taylor's experience and message for younger viewers.

2. Fifteen Lyrics
You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors
It's the morning of your very first day
You say "Hi" to your friends you ain't seen in a while
Try and stay out of everybody's way
It's your freshman year and you're gonna be here
For the next four years in this town
Hoping one of those senior boys will wink at you and say
"You know I haven't seen you around, before"
‘Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
And when you're fifteen
Feeling like there nothing to figure out
Well count to ten, take it in
This is life before you know who you're gonna be
Fifteen

3. Fifteen lyrics
You sit in class next to a redhead named Abigail
And soon enough you're best friends
Laughing at the other girls who think they're so cool
We'll be out of here as soon as we can
And then you're on your very first date and hes got a car
And you're feeling like flying
And you're mommas waiting up and you think hes the one
And you're dancing round your room when the night ends
When the night ends
'cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
When you're fifteen and your first kiss
Makes your head spin round but
In your life you'll do things greater than dating the boy of the football team
But I didn't know it at fifteen

4. Fifteen lyrics
When all you wanted was to be wanted
Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now
Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday
But I realized some bigger dreams of mine
And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy
Who changed his mind and we both cried
'cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
And when you're fifteen, don't forget to look before you fall
I’ve found that time can heal most anything
And you just might find who you're supposed to be
I didn't know who I was supposed to be at fifteen
La la la la la .. la la la la la .. La la la la la
Your very first day
Take a deep breath girl
Take a deep breath as you walk through those doors.

5. The music video I am analysing is ‘Fifteen’ by Taylor Swift . The
video was directed by Roman White. The song was released on
September 1, 2009 by Big Machine Records.

6. The genre for the song is county/pop. The typical conventions for
country/pop music videos are; bright colours, close ups and
extreme close ups, costume changes, dance sequences, lip
synching and there is usually a lack of instruments.

7. ‘Fifteen’ is uncommon to pop video's as it
breaks and challenges the traditional
conventions of a pop video. It does this by using
Taylor’s star image (instrument playing) as an
advantage.

8. This is a narrative based video with elements of
performance.

9. ‘Fifteen’ meets the common pop conventions by having a
relationship between the lyrics and visuals. Throughout the song
there are many examples. The first example is when Taylor sings
‘you walk through the doors’ and on screen Taylor walks through
the door. Another example of this is ‘You sit in class next to a
redhead named Abigail’ when this is sang, a redhead girl appears
on screen.
One more example of this is when the word ‘night’ is sang, on
screen, night appears.

10. Like usual pop videos, ‘Fifteen’ uses extreme close ups and close
ups of the artist. The extreme close ups of Taylor singing are
used in this video to engage the target audience as if she is
singing to them personally. Extreme close ups are also used to
show Taylor playing her guitar, this is to allow her audience to
see that she is a talented musician, whilst again linking with her
star image. An establishing shot is used at the start of the video
to create the setting for song.

11. ‘Fifteen’ is very similar to the style of video
commonly used by Taylor, by which, the clothes
she wears, the performance based shots, and
her appearance are traditional to her niche. This
creates Taylor’s star image to help her sell her
albums. Her hair is again in blonde curls.

12. When the song starts Taylor uses the notion of a
flashback to when she was 15. She does this by
looking at an old photo of her and her best
friend.
The song then flashes back to the real world at
the end and shows Taylor standing in the rain at
her old school. The camera focuses on a girl in
the school playground to show Taylor singing to
the girl because she doesn’t want her to make
the same mistakes as she did when she was 15.

13. The song is split into two halves. The first half uses the pop
conventions of being bright and happy with the sun out, whereas
the second half of the song uses dark colours, pathetic fallacies
and the pouring rain. This again matches lyrics to visuals, as the
first half is the song is happy and the second half is sad. The
video cleverly uses the weather and colours to address this.
The second half of the song is unhappy and sad. This is shown
through a variety of ways. A pathetic fallacy illustrates this as
when the girls are upset the weather is raining and the sky is
dark just as though it is in sympathy with her. And at the end of
the song Taylor is dressed in black. Black is a colour which
symbolises sadness.