Folklore - Taylor Swift

Holy shit guys! Taylor Swift just dropped an album OVER NIGHT, and I was not prepared, but it’s fine, it’s okay! I got this! For whatever reason, I feel drawn to make a review to this album. I am intrigued by the title because there doesn’t seem to be a song on the album called “Folklore”, which makes me think that this album is simply Taylor free writing. It’s possible that a lot of these songs aren’t even about her life, but about random stories or other’s lives, etc. Let’s jump in!

First up, we have “The 1”, here we go. Is our girl single?? Taylor, honey, my heart. This is the sweetest breakup song I have ever listened to. She starts off with a light piano track and then adds some guitar in there. It starts off positive, with her telling whoever the “you” is in this track (we’re not going to make assumptions based off one song here guys), that she’s doing better now. Her first inclination that this might be about a breakup comes in pretty quick when she drops the line “you know the greatest films of all time were never made”. WHAT. A. METAPHOR! This song is her way of saying, I was hurt, I bled, and it was awful, I saw you in everyone, BUT I’m healing. It’s her way of saying she’s sad that something has ended, “it could have been fun if you were the 1”, but it’s alright.

Song #2! Cardigan. Oof! Cardigan has this…20’s…jazzy vibe to the verses that that I ADORE. I just want to point out that I am writing this review AS I listen to the song. I should be recording myself honestly cause WOAH. This song, to me, comes across as Taylor telling us about how she was dating and feeling like “just an old cardigan under someone’s bed” but then she met someone who made her feel like she was everything. Challenging the people that she calls in the first verse when she says “when you are young, they think you know nothing” by stating “but I knew you” in the chorus. She’s saying they think we’re too young to know what love is…but we had it. And THEN we get to the bridge…THE BRIDGE! The bridge is the drama of the song. This is where Taylor talks about the pain of losing someone BUT still knowing who they are, still knowing this person, she knows “you’d come back to me”. She ends the song with a recap of the phrase “just an old cardigan under somebody’s bed, you put me on and said I was your favorite”. This is such a beautiful song! It tells an amazing story in such a wholesome way. I am so curious about song #3 now…this album seems to be in a timeline.

Song #3! The last great American dynasty. Well that’s one hell of a title. Let’s do it. I was not expecting those drums. Oof this is a love story…. kind of? Wait. This might take me a few listens hahaha. I’m so confused WHAT just happened…Sorry guys this is an AWFUL review moment. So, at first, this song is telling a story about a rich man who marries this divorced woman from a smaller town. However, they end because he dies, and everyone blames her. They call her a mad woman, they say “if she never showed up who knows what could have been”. This concept repeats itself in all of the verses. HOWEVER, we get to the damn bridge -and we all know that’s Taylor’s WOW factor, it’s her favorite – and she takes the chorus…and CHANGES all the “she’s” to “I” Taylor IS the woman in the song. The song ends with a repeat of the phrase “I had a marvelous time ruining everything”. Now, again this is off one listen, but this sounds like Taylor predicting what people are going to say about her after a breakup, and just playing that character for them. However, that last line, sounds almost sad. It is as if she’s saying, “I accept that I apparently ruined everything again, but I had a marvelous time with you doing it”. She wasn’t purposely trying to ruin everything or be vindictive, you know? Ugh next song!

Song #4: Exile. BEAUTIFUL piano in this song. OH HELLO! So, this song features Bon Iver, but I didn’t expect his deep voice to be the first I hear. Okay. We’re good. Carry on! Oh man. This is another processing the breakup song, but this song tells the story of the breakup as it’s happening. In my head, when I hear these lyrics, I picture Taylor standing in her house with a man who is holding the suitcases that he packed up way too fast. She’s watching this happen in front of her, but she’s not present. It’s like she’s watching a movie that she has seen before, which she states with the line “I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending”. She knows what’s coming. The bridge is amazing in this song, it’s a conversation between them both. To give you a quick example, Bon Iver sings “You never gave any signs” and she overlaps that a bit with “I gave so many signs”. This is beautiful. There are so many lines in this song that the songwriter in me is just screaming over. This is my favorite so far.

Song #5: My Tears Ricochet. The title alone makes me think this is going to be a…powerful song. A song about her coming out of the pain. Let’s see if I’m right. The intro to this song is overlapping vocals by Taylor and for some reason when I hear it, I picture the movie Robin Hood hahaha. I love it. YES! Okay. So right away Taylor is telling a story about how she has been put through so much by this man, stating “even on my worst day, did I deserve babe, all the hell you gave me?”. She’s calling someone out in this song. She’s being true to herself saying “I didn’t have it in me to go with grace and you’re the hero going around saving face”. She’s owning that this sucks, she’s hurting, she’s going to say it. She’s going to feel. I appreciate that. This song is her telling someone that “if I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake, cursing my name, wishing I stayed, look at how my tears ricochet”. Yes. She is saying, it’s done. It’s over. You can throw shade at me now all you want, but I made my peace. I LOVE this song.

Song #6: Mirrorball: This song is sweet. The verses and chorus are simple, they seem to be telling a story about how she is a mirrorball – which in this song is quite literally a mirror-ball. She uses that word (that I don’t think is a word which I love) as a way to represent herself. She says, “I’m a mirrorball I can show you every part of you”. She also uses is towards herself, saying “I’m a mirrorball I can change everything about me to fit in”. She’s essentially saying she’s a chameleon and she can change to be what she needs to be in the moment, but she can also show you your true colors. The bridge is where she gets vulnerable, talking about a circus and how she is doing everything she can, walking on a tightrope, hanging on a trapeze, to keep him looking at her. To keep him interested.

Song #7: Seven: This is adorable already. This is about her childhood. The peace and ease of an innocent childhood. She’s talking to someone though in this song…herself? An old friend? She wants someone to remember her at 7. She tells this story as if she’s writing it as a 7 year old, saying “I’ve been meaning to tell you I think your house is haunted….I think you should come live with me and we could be pirates”. This sounds like a song to an old friend, maybe? This was a shorter, simpler, song. It is so sweet and I love the concept of this song, I just wish I could understand it a little more but that’s kind of the beauty of it.

Song #8: August: This song uses the month of August as a metaphor for the relationship she was in. She starts off by saying “august slipped away into a moment in time cause you were never mine”. This is a beautiful song. This is her reminiscing on the good times but looking back on them from almost a sad point of view because now they’re memories that will never repeat themselves. She was “living for the hope of it all” in this song. She’s reflecting on how hopeful she was, how badly she wanted him, and how now she doesn’t have him.

Song #9: this is me trying: This is what I anticipated by the title. This song is kind of a…desperate…she’s got to do something…moment. She doesn’t quite know how or what to say but she’s showing up in the doorway of this person’s place saying, “I just want you to know, this is me trying”. She’s hurting and she’s upset, she has regrets about not doing anything sooner, but she’s there. She’s trying. I love the phrase she drops in the second verse, “my words shoot to kill when I’m mad, I have a lot of regrets about that”. That’s a very personal line, her way of saying she can be mean when she’s angry and she doesn’t like it, but it’s a fact. Beautiful, simple song, I really liked that one.

Song #10: illicit affairs: Right off the bat, this song is telling a story about meeting in secret, like an affair. She starts by saying “keep your head down, tell your friends you’re out for a run…. take the road less traveled by”. It’s a secret, but it’s a secret that never lasts. The chorus explains that illicit affairs are those moments of longing, secrecy, beauty, but they always die, over and over. The bridge is her getting her anger out a little bit, saying “don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby, you showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else”. She’s mad, she’s mad at him, herself, the situation.

Song #11: Invisible string: This intro is a little folksy and I like this. She’s back to using color in her songs with this one, a little bit of a Red album flashback, love that. This song talks about the nuances before she met her lover, all the little things that hinted at them being together before they even knew each other existed. The 3rd verse, after the chorus, opens with “bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA” – she is referencing her song bad blood here. In the next line, she says “you ate my favorite spot for dinner”. These are things that happened that tied them together, like an invisible string. An invisible string that pulled her out of all the wrong relationships and into him.

Song #12: mad woman: This song starts off as her confronting someone after a fight, saying “what did you think I’d say to that? Does a scorpion string when fighting back?” She’s angry and saying, how can you be surprised? She calls someone out for calling her crazy and angry. She is mad in this song…and she isn’t hiding it. She’s talking about being a mad woman and how he made her this way. That he made her crazy from poking at her wounds and digging up the graves. Her bridge talks about how she’s taking her time, she’s going through the motions, she should be mad and she’s going to let herself be even if no one knows it. People are going to judge her for it, but she has every reason to be.

Song #13: epiphany: This song speaks like a scene from a movie. It’s so descriptive, talking about a war of some kind. This song might take another listen…it seems like this song is telling small stories about the last moments of someone’s life. Not anyone specific, because each verse is a different scene. The chorus though, talks about how these people are someone’s mother, daughter, sister, friend, etc. She talks about how, in the wake of all this chaos, you dream briefly and “try to make sense of what you’ve seen”. Some kind of an epiphany.

Song #14: betty: This song is Taylor telling a story about “betty”. She’s talking about being younger, in school. This is her apology to a girl for hurting her. The song starts off with “Betty I won’t make assumptions about why you switched your homeroom but I think it’s cause of me……the worst thing that I ever did, is what I did to you”. The chorus talks about if she showed up at Betty’s house, what would happen. She mentions the phrase, “it was just a summer fling”, which to me sounds like this is about a boy. Taylor is apologizing, saying she misses Betty, but wonders if she would take her back. The 3rd verse continues to make me think this about a boy…. she’s sorry about it. It sounds like she lost a friend when she was 17 to this drama. The bridge is where she confronts Betty, she shows up at the door and just wants to make it up to her. And it takes an unexpected turn! In the bridge! Taylor is standing on Betty’s porch, saying, “ I showed up at your party, will you have me, will you love me, will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends?” Wow. AND THEN. She ties this song back to the song “Cardigan”! She says, “standing in your cardigan, kissing in my car again, stopped at a streetlight, you know I missed you”. OH MY GOSH. WHAT JUST HAPPENED. I love this. Wow. So, this was about Taylor cheating on Betty with a boy? Wait so was Cardigan about Betty?? I have questions Taylor!

Song #15: peace: This song talks about a coming of age for her. She’s owning that she is not a peaceful girl, she would never be able to give this person peace, but would that be okay? Would that still be enough? She talks about doing everything she could for this person, fighting all the wars with him/her. Choosing this person’s family as her own. And wondering if that’s still enough? She owns up to the fact that there will always be “rain if your standing with me”. She’ll do her best to keep this person warm, to always be a friend, would it be enough if there was never peace though?

Song #16: hoax: She’s talking about how something has broken her down so fiercely, like an “eclipsed sun, a smoking gun”. She’s fighting for a love that has no basis, that’s a hoax, but she still believes in it. She knows it’ s game, love is a game, but it’s a game, a trick, that she believes in with this person, “your faithless love is the only hoax I believe in”. She doesn’t want any other pain but the pain she gets from this relationship. Then she talks about how she was still in pain from the times the media pulled her apart, but then goes on to say what this person did “was just as dark…just as harsh”.

This is a beautiful album that is both complex and simple at the same time. I appreciate that this album may very well be about nobody in particular but could also easily be about her life. I appreciate the simplicity of the music and how forward and present her voice is. Her past couple of albums (although easily my top 2 favorites) were a little bit more electronic in ways. I like that Taylor kind of goes back to her musician roots for this album and just writes freely with some guitar or piano. This is a beautiful album. I love it. Congratulations Taylor <3 Another success!