An Exploration of Evermore by Taylor Swift

In 2020, Folklore released on the 24th July was the top-selling album in America with approximately 1.2 million copies sold beating Map of the Soul released by South Korean boy band, BTS, on the 21st February which sold approximately 674,000 copies. An even more impressive feat is that Evermore was the tenth best-selling album of the year, with 283,000 copies sold even though it was released on 11th December.

Evermore, like Folklore, is a brilliant album with lyrics that hold so much meaning when examined and carefully picked apart. I find myself listening to the lyrics rather than singing along as I did with her other albums.

The lyrics are, what I like to call, “so very Taylor” as they can be interpreted in many ways and she leaves so many “Easter eggs” that despite all the scavenger hunts conducted there are many references that fall through the cracks. On Folklore “August” has the lyrics on the chorus “sipped away like a bottle of wine” the sentiment of love having an intoxicating and dizzying effect is continued in “Willow” on Evermore as the opening verse has the lyrics “lost in your current like a priceless wine”.

Taylor described Evermore as being the “sister album” to Folklore and I think this perfectly captures the meaning of both albums — similar in some ways and very different in others.

Sometimes there is a contrasting and at other times a symmetrical pattern between the two albums — Folklore starts with “The 1” a song about losing the love of your life whereas on Evermore “Willow” is about finding true love. The tenth songs on both albums are about affairs; on Folklore, it is explicit as the song is titled “Illicit Affairs” and on Evermore in “Ivy” it is implied in the lyrics, “what would he do if he found us out?”. The thirteenth song on Folklore “Epiphany” is about her paternal grandfather, Archie Dean Swift, and on Evermore “Marjorie” is about her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay.

Evermore seems to pick up right where Folklore left off — the video for “Willow” starts where the video for “Cardigan” ended as Taylor is wearing the same clothes sitting in front of the same piano clutching a golden lasso. The sense of continuity is evident in the lyrics as well for example “Happiness”, the seventh song on Evermore opens with “honey, when I’m above the trees” and on Folklore, the song also titled “seven” begins with “please picture me, in the trees”.

I was recently reading about the “rule of three” a principle that is implemented in a variety of industries ranging from economics to computer programming. In writing it is where a trio of characters or events that happen are deemed to be more conducive in telling the story as it makes it more memorable than just one or two characters or events.

Taylor has implemented this principle in Folklore as it has 3 songs, “Cardigan”, “August” and “Betty”, that tell the story about a love triangle between three fictitious characters Betty, James, and an unnamed woman. The “rule of three” seems to recur throughout Evermore; in “No Body, No Crime” Este suspects her husband of having a mistress and in “Long Story Short” there is a relationship between two people and the third party is their nemeses.

Taylor confirmed that the songs “Dorothea” and “‘Tis the Damn Season” are connected, “Dorothea, the girl who left her small town to chase down Hollywood dreams — and what happens when she comes back for the holidays and rediscovers an old flame.”

I think the 3 songs that can be tied together on Evermore are “‘Tis the Damn Season”, “Dorothea” and “Ivy” as Dorothea could have a husband but actually be a lesbian having an affair with a woman from her hometown.

The opening verse on “Dorothea” is her lover reminiscing about the times they spent together when they were young. My theory is that the lyrics “I guess I’ll never know, and you’ll go on with the show” imply that Dorothea is homosexual but no one other than her lover knows this and in “‘Tis the Damn Season” Dorothea returns to her hometown and they start to have an affair even though she has a husband. Then in “Ivy” Dorothea discovers that she is in love with her lover and not her husband, and is ready to admit to everyone that she is a lesbian. In my opinion, this is heavily implied in the third verse.

“I’d live and die for moments that we stole

On begged and borrowed time,

So tell me to run

Or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become

And drink my husband’s wine”

“‘Tis the Damn Season” doesn’t have any lyrics that mention gender and is from Dorothea’s perspective. Furthermore, “Dorothea” is from her lover’s perspective, yet there is no mention of gender in the song either.

On Folklore, the characters in the love triangle mentioned earlier have the names of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds daughters, both are good friends of Taylor. The identity of Dorothea and the source of her inspiration remains a mystery, but I do have a few theories.

Marjorie Elizabeth Millsap, whose stage name was Dorothy Lee was an American actress and comedian who had been married six times, could have inspired the name “Dorothea”. Taylor is no stranger to writing about real people as she wrote a song on Folklore, “The Last Great American Dynasty”, about Rebekah West Harkness who was a philanthropist, sculptor, and founder of Harkness Ballet.

Another theory is that Dorothea could be referring to Selena Gomez as the name is an amalgamation of the names Dorothy and Thea, the former name is the lead character in The Wizard of Oz, Selena’s favourite childhood film, and the latter name when spelled as “Theia” is a Greek goddess and mother to the goddess of the Moon, Selene. The lyrics can support this theory as Taylor sings “selling makeup and magazines” which could refer to Selena's makeup brand, Rare Beauty.

In response to a fan’s query about Dorothea, Taylor responded in the premiere chat of the “Willow” music video that “you’ll meet her soon” but the music video for “Dorothea” only has the lyrics against a background of a field. Could Dorothea be the name of another cat that she has adopted? I must admit this theory is rather far-fetched but Taylor loves cats and already has three named Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson, and Benjamin Button.

My favourite song on the album is “No Body, No Crime” which is about a murder carried out as revenge on behalf of a friend, Taylor wrote it after being inspired by her love for crime documentaries. On the song, she collaborated with Haim, a band consisting of 3 sisters, Este, Danielle and Alana Haim who provide the backing vocals. I must confess as soon as the song starts playing, I stop working and start playing the riffs on my imaginary guitar whilst singing it at the top of my voice. As you can imagine, once the song ends, I receive a standing ovation and a request to not sing any more songs as my amazing voice might become strained.

I wonder if the title, “No Body, No Crime”, is metaphorical and refers to her being prevented from owning the rights to her master recordings by Big Machine Records and not being able to perform her music at the American Music Awards. A long story short, Scott Borchetta founded Big Machine Records in 2005 and Taylor was signed to the company with the condition that she would produce 6 albums and they would have the rights to them. Big Machine Records was sold to Ithaca Holdings owned by Scooter Braun. From a legal viewpoint, there is nothing wrong with the events that occurred. According to Taylor, when she was presented with the opportunity to purchase her work there was a condition that for every new album she produced she would be given the rights to one of her previous ones.

I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to both albums, Folklore and Evermore, as the storytelling in the songs is exactly what I have needed during the pandemic as they have provided a much-needed escape into a fictional world.

Originally published on Medium