Taylor Swift's "Invisible String" Is the New Anthem for Hopeless Romantics

The first strings of the four-minute and 13-second track sets us up for a fairytale, but not just any fairytale. This one takes us through the trials and tribulations of Taylor Swift's public and often ridiculed love life. She reflects on how each failed relationship brought her closer to the One. Although the song has a melancholy feel to it, she takes comfort in the fact that all of the pain and suffering led her to her current love.

Swift holds no bitterness toward any failed relationships or flings and considers what felt like a lifetime of heartache actually set her up for the best love of her life. In the beginning of "Invisible Strings," Swift paints a bittersweet scene of being surrounded by green grass and beauty yet overcome with loneliness.

Green was the color of the grass

Where I used to read at Centennial Park

I used to think I would meet somebody there.

Teal was the color of your shirt

When you were sixteen at the yogurt shop

You used to work there to make a little money.

Swift as the hopeless romantic she is, re-imagines herself alone waiting for love as a teenager, meanwhile her future love in his teal-colored shirt, is preoccupied at the yogurt shop, oblivious to Swift's existence.

Time curious time,

Gave me no compasses gave me no signs,

Were there clues I didn't see

Isn't it just so pretty to think

All along there some invisible string

tying you to me?

After years of yearning for true love, Swift questions if there were clues along the way that she missed. Each heartbreak had once seemed in itself a new barrier, when in fact, it showed her more about what was waiting for her rather than her own shortcomings. Swift uses a play on words to describe her partner's experience of being in a Los Angeles cab, referencing her 2014 hit song, "Bad Blood."

Bad was the blood of the song in the cab

On your first trip to L.A.

You ate at my favorite spot for dinner

Fast forward to the third year of Swift's relationship, and it is clear that the rest is smooth sailing.

Bold was the waitress on our three-year trip

Getting lunch down by the lakes

She said I looked like an American singer

There is a vulnerability to "Invisible Strings" which brings us back to "Teardrops on My Guitar" which similarly to the Folklore song uses small details to capture the listener. Swift's soft vocals and tone of the song paints a once sad scene with strokes of optimism.

In the last verse, Swift mentions a particular ex and unlike many of her other songs, there is a sense of platonic love and forgiveness. She holds out the olive branch in her lines:

Cold was the steel of my axe to grind

For the boys who stole my heart

Now I bring their babies presents

This is the first time in Swift's songs where she acknowledges and openly accepts a former partner moving on and finding happiness of his own. Once Swift herself realized that she has finally found the one, all of the bitterness and angst toward some of her former loves have subsided. The verse signifies personal and music growth for Swift.

At the end of that verse, Swift comes full circle. The park that teenage Swift associates with reading alone waiting for love has now become a place where she and her current lover go to spend time together.

Gold was the color of the leaves

when I showed you around Centennial Park

Hell was the journey that brought me heaven

The beauty of "Invisible Strings" is that in just four-minutes and 13-seconds we are able to relive Swift's past romances, heartbreaks, and current relationship in what feels like a cinematic way. Many of Swift's songs are about that one specific person, and the heartbreak that almost tore her apart but with this indie-folk song, Swift is covering a lot of ground while letting the tabloids know, she and her new man are doing just fine.

On some of her past albums like Tim McGraw and Fearless, Swift has made it clear that she is a hopeless romantic, and has made headlines by "grinding her ax" as she calls it, for the men who broke her heart, but in Folklore, Swift isn't just a hopeless romantic, but finally in the arms of the one she's been searching for all along.