rambling review: 'folklore' by Taylor Swift

If you follow me on Instagram, it’s no secret that I’m a bit of a Taylor Swift fan- even though I recognize she has her problematic areas, and likely will write more on them one of these days. Though I only got into her music during the ‘reputation’ era, therefore am a somewhat late-blooming listener, I’ve come to value her discography, both for its evergreen relatability and for its ability to fascinate me with it’s constantly evolving level of self-awareness, social commentary, and (sometimes problematic) subject matter. 

On Thursday morning, she announced a completely out-of-the-blue new album that she wrote and produced during lockdown would be dropping in less than 24 hours, sending ‘Swifties’ and more casual fans alike into a frenzy with both the new approach (in contrast, Taylor has been famously extra with album release fanfare in the past) and the near-complete shift in visual aesthetic from the kitschy pastel and sparkle of ‘Lover’ to a simple, folk-inspired theme in sepia and dreamy earth tones. Leading up to the drop at midnight on Friday, speculation about the sounds of the album flourished, with many wondering if it would be pure folk (like ‘Safe and Sound’, a beautiful and haunting song recorded with the folk duo The Civil Wars for the ‘Hunger Games’ soundtrack), her original breakout genre of heartfelt country, or something totally new. 

Something new is what we got- chill, emotive alternative/indie folk-pop, very unlike most of the hook-y, commercial bops Taylor has become known for, yet still recognizable as Taylor in a way that feels like a genuine paradigm shift from pop star to mature and self-possessed artist for the 30-year old industry giant. In her Netflix documentary, Taylor mentioned not knowing how much longer she had until she aged out of the pop industry. 

This album and it’s stripped back process of germination and birth seem like a proactive step to doing that on her own terms. The lyrics are more mature than almost anything else she’s written, despite approaching similar themes to some of her older albums- breakups (of course), young love, infidelity, and the sweeping, confusing experience of being young and navigating all of these things. Unlike her older songs, however, the treatment feels detached and musing, full of gentle critique, tenderness, and understanding that while such drama-filled flings feel like the whole world when you’re young, they are in fact a part of a larger picture and are filled with nuance, personal responsibility, and cultural implications. This is further reflected in the non-chronological nature of the storytelling, which is conveyed in large part through the exploration of a few key overarching storylines and characters, which require some care to unravel. Looking through each song in order might not be the best way to approach the album, but for ease that’s what I’m going to do here. Maybe I’ll do a follow-up post after I’ve lingered with the album longer.

‘the one’

Emotionally and even sonically, this feels to me like a natural continuation of track 1 from ‘Lover’-‘I Forgot That You Existed’. Upbeat and unbothered, but with lyrics that betray the inevitable level of ongoing bittersweetness of loss. It also sets up the album’s narratives with it’s reminiscing tones that could apply to multiple storylines throughout the rest of the tracks. It’s also the only track that made me ugly cry (the music video for ‘cardigan’ also had me teary, but more on that in a minute). It’s very cathartic, and helped me realize that I’m mentally ‘not leaving well enough alone’ in a emotional entanglement I thought I’d moved on from. Good old Taylor, pulling through...who needs therapy.  

 The fact is, no matter how much you move on, when someone genuinely affects you at the heart level, you can’t truly forget them, and that’s not wholly a bad thing. Someone I follow on Instagram pointed out how the extended down time many of us who are privileged enough to WFH have had during 2020 has given us opportunity to re-process experiences we might have felt like we were over. This song is at peace, yet rueful and still curious about what a future with a past lover could have been like, noting:

“You know, the greatest films of all time were never made” 

and admitting:

 “I persist and resist the temptation to ask you-

If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?

    (That's where I REALLY ugly cried.)

It concludes with what feels like the moment where you inhale sharply, sit up a little straighter, and shake off the daydream about ‘what ifs’ you’ve fallen into about a situation that no longer dominates you and your feelings, but will nonetheless never be erased from the landscape of your emotions:

 “In my defense, I have none 

For digging up the grave another time

But it would've been fun, If you would've been the one.”

 ‘cardigan’

The first of three separate songs about the same summer in what is known as the ‘Love Triangle Trio’, this song is from the point of view of a girl who will later be named as ‘Betty’. She is mourning the loss of a relationship, after what seems to have been a fairly long passage of time. Despite having been ‘put on like a favorite cardigan’, she was left by the boy she loved, James, and despite still having feelings for him, moves on to adulthood without him. The lyrics also seem to imply that in many ways, Betty felt the relationship was doomed from the beginning, comparing James’ abandonment to that of her father and drawing parallels to ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’. It’s a gorgeous, heartfelt song with simple but layered production and lyrics, with imagery and emotiveness that calls back to Taylor’s previous work. 

The music video is cinematically stunning, set on three ‘locations’ and shot with social distancing measures in place. As noted above, it had one of the tearjerker moments of the release- a moment where Taylor is transported to the middle of a stormy ocean, and is able to save herself by clinging to a piano that is tossing on the waves nearby.

Also of note about the video is that only one outfit is worn- a capacious, plain shift style dress that is a complete departure from the figure-fitting, glamorous outfits and costumes changes that have defined her style since her earliest albums. This sartorial choice is striking, in particular alongside the lyrics in the first verse that slyly jab at a culture that both exploits and degrades the feminine form and women’s intelligence in arts and politics:

 “Vintage tee, brand new phone 

High heels on cobblestones 

When you are young, they assume you know nothing 

Sequined smile, black lipstick Sensual politics

When you are young, they assume you know nothing…” 

It feels like one of the most powerful statements about the album, to me. The entire shoot is similarly styled, by Swift herself, with most of the outfits oversized, antiquated, and mysterious, reminiscent of a period drama but with the subversiveness of a woman deconstructing the very standards she has been a part of upholding throughout her life.

‘the last great american dynasty’

This track is a clever and quick-paced ballad of sorts, detailing the story of a woman who gained a reputation for being outlandish and even destructive, but ultimately passed into ‘folklore'- leaving behind a house in Rhode Island which Taylor now owns. The story is available to read elsewhere, and is faithfully told in the song, but the key thing about this piece is how it deals with a similar theme as much of the ‘reputation’ album and another song on this album, ‘mad woman’, but in a carefree, frank way that playfully shrugs off the burden of a tangled and bombastic reputation for the mythos of a multifaceted figure who occupies far less space in the grand scheme of the world than most songwriters- Taylor included- typically admit. Her emotional kinship across the gap of history with Rebekah, the woman in question, comes across as something that has informed growth in her understanding of herself, which gets at the heart of the entire album- that the stories of others connect us not only with them, but allow us to become more fully ourselves. Our ‘folklore’ as humans can be key to healing and transformation.

 ‘exile’ ft. bon iver 

Confession: I love the song, but I really don’t love Bon Iver’s voice, especially not in the beginning half of the song. It contrasts well once Taylor comes in and he switches registers, but it’s a little off putting until you get used to it. If I could choose, Hozier would have been the feature on the song, as he has a similar tone and rasp but with a more lyrical sweetness of tone placement- but also, something that beautiful wouldn’t have left any of us alive to hear the rest of the album, so maybe it’s better this way…

 Male vocal preferences aside, this song is so raw and cinematic. It’s a back and forth conversation (or maybe just thoughts?) between two parties in a crumbled relationship, that explores the pain and culpability of both sides without choosing or condemning either. This observational gentleness continues on many of the other songs. Lyrically, it captures the story and the feelings in a masterful way, pulling all of Taylor’s previous breakup song skills to fine and grown-up use... I can’t pick a favorite lyric from it, but with all of these songs I’d encourage a read of the full album if you listen to really appreciate the complexity and skill of it as poetry, as well as song. The harmonies and antiphonal lines in the chorus are heart-wrenching, and are supported perfectly by the haunting, driving quietude of the accompaniment. The whole track feels like meeting someone who hurt you on a walk in the rain and just… staring at them, with honesty that is too late to fix anything.

 ‘my tears ricochet’

For whatever reason, this isn’t my favorite… I like it, it has some moments I love, and is beautifully written, but the verses overall don't draw me in on a personal level. So I think it may simply be that I can’t relate to it as well as some of her other songs, leaving it fairly low on my ranking of the tracks. Many speculate it is in part about her troubled relationship with previous boss, Scott Borchetta and his betrayal of her by selling the rights to her work without her input, and her mourning of both the loss of artistic ownership and what she had considered a friendship despite some rough patches. The choruses are my personal favorite aspect, as I can relate to 'not going with grace' and needing to have a last word. Each one is a variation on this:

“I didn't have it in myself to go with grace

'Cause when I'd fight, you used to tell me I was brave

And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake?

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed

Look at how my tears ricochet”

Deceptively simple, psychologically profound. Really great songwriting. Dang, the song is growing on me more just from writing about it.

 ‘mirrorball’

This song is one of my favorites on the album. It’s reminiscent of both the iconic Mazzy Star, with it’s dreamy psychedelic beat and softened vocals, and also of shoegaze-influenced alt-rock like Wolf Alice with it’s gentle distorted guitar and synths, while retaining the direct lyrical clarity of all of Swift's best work. It’s thematic content is strikingly reflective (no pun intended) and self-aware, in the vein of one of Taylor’s best songs ‘The Archer’ (which I would describe as one of my ‘desert island’ songs- i.e. if I had to pick 5 songs to save, ‘The Archer’ would be one without question). 

Lyrics like:

 ‘I want you to know, I'm a mirrorball… I'll show you every version of yourself tonight’ 

and 

‘I'm still on that tightrope, I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me 

And I'm still a believer, but I don't know why- I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try’ 

are so deeply relatable for any perfectionist and people-pleaser (of which I am one), particularly if that individual has grown enough to be self-aware of the tendency, often through having the illusion of being able to keep people happy destroyed by some kind of unpreventable relational fall-out. Taylor certainly shares such tendencies and history, as evidenced in the entire saga of her relationship with the media, especially in the long aftermath of Kanye West’s dishonest name-drop in one of his songs. While both in her public persona and her music, she seems to have come to grips with and shaken off the need to be everything to everyone, it’s a personality trait that requires ongoing deconstruction- and for a songwriter, that’s in part through crafting breathtaking confessionals like this one.

 ‘seven’

An fan favorite, this song jumps back to childhood and describes the innocent wisdom of children with an unavoidably melancholy lens of adulthood. It’s one of my favorites. It has piccato strings and shimmering piano underscoring lyrics like:

“Please picture me in the trees

I hit my peak at seven

Feet in the swing over the creek

I was too scared to jump in”

“Please picture me in the weeds

Before I learned civility

I used to scream ferociously

Any time I wanted”

And 

“Pack your dolls and a sweater

We'll move to India forever

Passed down like folk songs

Our love lasts so long”

Which are all so poignant and can strike a chord with many. As someone who grew up in a rural area and spent nearly all my time out of doors, it vividly takes me back to the age depicted. And, as an avid bookworm, ‘dolls and… India’  are connected for me to the books of Frances Hodgson Burnett, which though rooted in a level of colonialism and classism inherent to their time, remain among my most treasured childhood books due to their evocative writing style. 

 ‘august’

This one feels most quintessentially ‘Taylor Swift’. The simple and repetitive melodies, punchy guitar and pop beat, and melodramatic lyrics are all very in line with her older discography, especially 1989, although at the bridge it shifts dramatically to a unique theatrical or cinematic sweep that sets it apart from standard fare. The lyrics are gut-punching:

“Back when we were still changin' for the better

Wanting was enough

For me, it was enough

To live for the hope of it all

Canceled plans just in case you'd call

And say, "Meet me behind the mall"

So much for summer love and saying "us"

'Cause you weren't mine to lose

You weren't mine to lose, no” 

Somehow they capture both the intensity of a summer fling and the longing of its aftermath in equal measures at once. It really feels like you’re reminiscing about the events along with the narrator. It definitely belongs on the same playlist as ‘Style’, ‘Wildest Dreams’, ‘Call it What You Want’, and ‘Cruel Summer’- the playlist you lie in bed and cry to after watching a rom-com and realizing you’ll never have as happy of an ending in life as Kathleen Kelly… so you might as well embrace the sad songs now.

‘this is me trying’

“They told me all of my cages were mental

So I got wasted like all my potential

And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad

I have a lot of regrets about that”

This is a personal attack disguised as a lyric. Anyway, this track really leans into the cinematic synth, alt-rock vibes… the drum beat mirrors the step-by-step resolve of the narrative, and the lyrics are very confessional and raw. Genius contributors suggest it has some ties to Taylor’s media disappearance in 2016, which makes a lot of sense. Going back to the themes of Mirrorball, this song also deals with perfectionism and attempting to justify things to people, whose approval doesn’t actually have the final say over the effort you may be making. 

“...It's hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you

You're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town”

Haven’t we all felt the uncomfortable dissassocitan of realizing anywhere you are feels wrong because that one person isn’t there, and being reminded of them constantly like a skipping film?

‘illicit affairs’

Musically, it has a strong alt-country throwback feel, which serves to highlight it’s contrasting lyrical divergence from so many of Taylor’s early songs about being cheated on or left behind and raging at both boy and ‘other girl’. This song is written from the perspective of ‘the other woman’ with understanding and wistfulness about the many complications of attraction, impulse, and the consequences that come with them- for everyone involved. It concludes as a cautionary tale- chasing “Dwindling mercurial highs” will only lead to becoming a “Godforsaken mess”, even though the narrator rues she would keep going on in this vicious cycle just to experience the rush she feels with the boy she thinks she loves.

‘invisible string’

This one is the most ‘folk’ on the album in my opinion, and for that reason alone it would be a favorite- you could easily hear The Wailing Jennys singing this one. But furthermore, the lyrics are so sweet and heartfelt, they almost make me believe in love again… tracking along with simple life experiences like reading in the park or working at a yogurt shop, and marvelling at the way these mundanities lead to magic with an ‘invisible string’, at how love slowly heals hurt from the past by revealing how it that pain was necessary to arriving in the present-  even as far as ‘sending presents to your ex’s babies’. 

Also, I’m not one to bite the hook on speculations about hidden marital messages in lyrics but.. “One single thread of gold//Tied me to you” sure could be a wedding band.

‘mad woman’

 A song ostensibly about ‘a misfit widow getting gleeful revenge on a town that disowned her’, is in my opinion the weakest song on the album in some ways, because it falls back on the indignant self-centering of some of Taylor’s previous work yet somehow doesn’t pack the emotional punch of similar songs like ‘Better than Revenge’, ‘Blank Space’ or ‘I Did Something Bad’. It feels like a slightly tired trope- and perhaps that’s the intention. Unfortunate though it may be, culture continues to crucify the ‘angry’ woman as unhinged and irrelevant, and so Taylor continues to write about it. That being said, it’s simplicity and direct statement about the give and take of this phenomenon does give it a new spin, and it progresses into a devil-may-care cheerfulness at the end that helps redeem it.

‘epiphany’

Unlike anything else on the album, or for that matter anything else she’s created, this track is inspired by both her grandfather’s military service, and current pandemic conditions and the efforts of medical workers, using vague and ethereal fragments of lyric to connect them and convey the trauma and tragedy inherent in such circumstances. The production is icy and vast, almost angelic, conjuring up grainy film reels of wartime or the sterile environment of a hospital.

“Only twenty minutes to sleep

But you dream of some epiphany

Just one single glimpse of relief

To make some sense of what you've seen”

The chorus repeats twice, highlighting the deprivation of both soldiers and nurses serving in the face of nonsensical horror, much of it unnecessary. The epiphany doesn’t come, yet in the broader context of the album, the great flow of lived story is in a way the answer. It doesn’t always make sense, but it goes on and new things follow it until the things you lived become a story to tell someone else whose hurting. 

‘betty’

This song most skillfully displays a shift from the heavy-handed social commentary of 2019’s ‘Lover’, with songs like ‘The Man’, ‘You Need to Calm Down’, and to a lesser degree ‘Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince’ which offered in-your-face challenges to double standards and political issues, to the subtle contemplation and empathetic, implicit analysis of songs like this track  in which one character, James, comes back to his titular girlfriend after cheating, with careless lack of responsibility despite the havoc his actions have wreaked on both Betty and the girl he cheated with over the summer. 

Inspired by a young Bob Dylan, harmonica and all, the narrative is crafted in a way that makes the listener recognize exactly what is wrong with this picture while remaining sympathetic to the humanity of the feckless 17-year old boy who got caught up in a summer fling and won’t quite own up to his own culpability and the pain he inflicted on them both. The upbeat folk rhythm and key change convey his optimism and lack of perspective about the gravity of the situation, but also gives us reason to hope along with him. He uses youth as an excuse, but by tying the narrative to ‘cardigan’ which is sung from Betty’s POV, we realize that she recognizes that the ignorance of youth is no excuse for bad choices and Jame’s hope will not be realized.

‘peace’

Most fans are obsessing over the cleverly written ‘Love Triangle’, but my heart is found in the ‘Confessional Trio’ of ‘mirrorball’, ‘this is me trying’, and this track. Over the most simple of rhythm and a bass line, she candidly expresses insecurity about her own sufficiency for her lover, promising to cherish and sacrifice but worrying that her penchant for drama might sabotage the love of someone she’d die for. Paralleling ‘The Archer’ in many ways, it alludes to the fear she’s expressed in interviews that being famous precludes the ability to have a genuine and lasting relationship- countered  by the conviction that a lover who is also a friend is a true lover, like she also explores in ‘It’s Nice to Have a Friend’. 

Sara Barielles has a song, ‘Someone Who Loves Me’, which contains similar themesl, with the shared indication that, even apart from fame, a woman who is learning not to run from her convictions will always be followed by turmoil. 

‘I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best

But the rain is always gonna come if you're standin' with me’  is Taylor’s expression,

While Sara frets, “I'm the worst I've ever been, afraid of almost everything

The skies are clear, but storms are always comin'

Your gift to me is just to be

Bracing for the winds I always summon”

It is, to me, a poignant, personal, and telling lyrical theme to trace in the lyrics of female songwriters, in particular. Contrasted with some of the more defiant, bombastic lyrics both Taylor and Sara have produced, lines like these reveal a deeply held tension that is probably felt by many women who outgrow societal norms or begin to push against the status quo and feel rendered less desirable even as they step into power as an individual. In this context, the words are almost a challenge to the man they love- can he hold space for all that they are? Can he see them as at once just enough and enormous? Can they not only be at peace together, but also remain strong in the face of conflict? It’s a tantalizing, real, and raw motif and one that renders this one of my very favorites on the album. 

‘hoax’

One of the most mysterious songs on the album to me, it encapsulates many of the themes through- film, ocean, war, madness, and lingering love for a toxic relationship but also sets apart as its own narration in itself. Tinged with the long sadness of a broken heart, and produced minimally, it’s a heartbreak song that almost reminds me of Lorde. It’s an unusual choice to close out the album, especially for Taylor, but it also brings the album full circle to the trip down (real and imagined) memory lane that began in ‘the 1’. 

So there it is, my rambling initial review of ‘folklore’. Overall, it’s one of my new favorite albums. I really like the production style, the content and the themes, and the new territory it marks for Taylor Swift. In many ways, it’s similar to the kind of album I’d like to someday record. And, it’s so deceptively mature. All the craft she has honed is on display, but serving story instead of sales and leaving behind, perhaps indefinitely, the radio-friendly and commercial work she’s made before in favor of writing what she wants, how she wants, and when she wants to. Most of all, it’s an album that makes me want to go sit down with my own guitar and write after listening to it- and that, to me, is the mark of an artists’ job well done.

recommended reading: 

THIS Rolling Stone piece, which is so much better than mine

https://open.spotify.com/album/2fenSS68JI1h4Fo296JfGr?si=vaKEG-tYTO2sNaLnKAcWkw