On Monday, October 1, Taylor Swift teased the title song off her forthcoming album Red.

In a quick introduction, Swift said, “I wrote the song about the fact that some things are hard to forget because the emotions involved with them are so intense. And to me, intense emotion is red.”

Swift has been keeping busy in advance of her album release and will grace the covers of two magazines in November. In Glamour, she touches on the where, what, why and most importantly who of her songwriting, but proves a tough nut to crack when questioned about reported boyfriend Conor Kennedy.

“I don’t talk about my personal life in great detail. I write about it in my songs, and I feel like you can share enough about your life in your music to let people know what you’re going through.”

Swift also shows a new, more mature side of herself when talking about the public’s perception of her, saying, “I think some people think it’s just apple pie and sunshine and sprinkles and ponies. Which is just funny. But I never feel the need to go out and make some grand statement that I’m dark and twisty and complicated, because I’m not that either. It’s just not as simple as ponies and rainbows, though I do love ponies and rainbows.”

Meanwhile, in a behind the scenes video of her photo shoot for Marie Claire UK, Swift talks about relationships — in relationship to her album.

“My album Red is inspired by all the different tumultuous, crazy, wonderful, awful, exciting, riveting, intense, terrible relationships I’ve experienced in the last two years. They’re not beige. It was either intense love or intense regret, frustration, all that. All of it to me seemed red. So I wrote a song called “Red” that, to me, really mapped out what all those relationships stood for.”

Swift will appear on an episode of Storytellers, debuting on VH1 on November 11, but she seems to be telling a few stories already. She addressed John Mayer’s past comments to Rolling Stone on her song “Dear John,” which was widely rumored to be about him,  by telling Glamour it was “presumptuous” for Mayer to assume he was the subject. She went on, saying, “I think that song really hit home with a lot of girls who had been through toxic relationships and had found their way to the other side of it. I’ve never looked out while singing a song during a concert to see so many girls crying.”

Red is out on October 22. 

-Courtney E. Smith, CBS Local