Captain's Log, Day 27: This Track-by-Track Review Will Go On For "evermore"-- Part 2: "no body, no crime," "happiness," "dorothea," "coney island," and "ivy"

Date: December 26, 2020

Time of post: 2:37 AM

Quarantine Day: 276

Last Song I Listened To: “ivy” by Taylor Swift

Last Person I Communicated With: my parents when I said "goodnight" 

Last Thing I Ate: some Ritz crackers and jalapeño dip 

Last Thing I Read: an old article about Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris

Current Mood: pretty sleepy, actually

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today (technically yesterday): Had a lovely, quiet Christmas with my parents and brother; gave gifts; laughed a lot; ate good food

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: maybe finish a book I brought home so I can start a book I got for Christmas

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: I've weirdly started to worry that other people will start publishing Taylor Swift academic articles and then "the world" won't want mine--this is pretty false, but idk, 2020 messes with your head, and academia already does that

One Reason I’m Happy Today (technically yesterday): CHRISTMAS!!!!

Dear Apocalypsers,

I hope you all had a very Merry-As-Can-Be Christmas if you celebrate it, even if it may have looked different this year. And, if you didn't, that sucks, but it's okay. It's a sucky year, and you don't have to perform joy just for the sake of it. If things are safe in, like, July, you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be having a "Christmas in July" to compensate for this weird, unChristmasy time. 

Anyway, though, welcome back to Part 2 of 3 of my track-by-track review of evermore! If you enjoyed my rantings, ravings, and ramblings for the first 5 tracks, boy oh boy, will you be weirdly excited about these 5! This post takes you through Tracks 6-10: "no body, no crime," "happiness," "dorothea," "coney island," and "ivy." There's a lot of nonsense, a lot of links, a lot of videos, and a lot of fun, so thank you for reading!

Let's go!

I was truly unprepared for both of these songs.

Track #6: “no body, no crime ft. HAIM”

Favorite line(s): “Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was fifteen / And I've cleaned enough houses to know how to cover up a scene / Good thing Este's sister's gonna swear she was with me (She was with me, dude)”

Initial thoughts and feelings: Okay, who doesn’t love a good old fashioned “woman kills adulterous man” country song? Well, probably cheating husbands, but they deserve it, sooooo….*shrugs.* This song isn’t new; Carrie Underwood’s “Two Black Cadillacs,” Miranda Lambert’s “Gunpowder and Lead,” The Chicks’ “Goodbye, Earl,” Vicki Lawrence’s “The Night the Lights Went Out inGeorgia” (which was re-recorded by Reba McEntire in 2009)—even Loretta Lynn threatened to take her lover’s mistress to “Fist City” back in 1968. There’s a fairly long history of badass women not tolerating adultery, and I’m so glad that Taylor Swift has joined those ranks. It was time for another chart-topping country murder song.

taylor swift and haim - no body, no crime (2020) pic.twitter.com/fGJZnF6ClT

— comrade carlos (@szacut) December 11, 2020

And “no body, no crime” really does check all the boxes of a classic “country murder song”: cheating husband, unapologetic murderess, very specific reference to something that wouldn’t ordinarily be in a song (here, it’s Olive Garden), and a little bit of wine. This song is a bop. Multiple people told me it reminded them of me, and I took that as the highest form of compliment. It makes me want to seek vengeance on every man who has ever wronged me or a friend of mine. Singing along makes me feel cool, like I’ve figured out who the killer is before the end of the episode. And, like, every set of female best friends in the country has texted each other some version of “I’d kill your husband if he cheated on you” since this song dropped. It’s a little bit chaotic, a little bit empowering, and a lotta bit iconic. #nobodynocrime4ever

If you've ever wondered why I am the way I am, my mother just told me that she "giggled the whole way through 'no body, no crime' because it's so much fun." God, I love her.#TaylorSwift #evermorealbum #nobodynocrime pic.twitter.com/UGu75A27Sa

— Katie Cline (@katiebethbug) December 12, 2020

My one complaint about this song is that there isn’t enough HAIM. I know she wrote the song herselfand only asked HAIM to sing on it after it was basically finished, but I feel like every single one of her female collabs leaves me wanting more. She gives full verses to Ed Sheeran, Gary Lightbody, Bon Iver, and The National—even rappers like Future and Kendrick Lamar get significant time for their features—but when she “features” women on songs, they’re basically relegated to backup vocalists. You wouldn’t even know The Chicks were on Lover’s “Soon You’ll Get Better” if it wasn’t listed on the tracklist. I just feel like it’s really unfortunate, because she’s friends with so many women in the industry. And maybe that’s why she doesn’t feature them as much; she might be worried about mixing business and friendship. Or maybe she likes the contrast of a male voice. And, let’s be honest, a lot of female artists today could out-sing Taylor; she’s grown astronomically as a vocalist, and she’s good (so, so, so much better than me) but her songwriting is her biggest strength—so maybe she’s at least subconsciously worried about a woman showing her up on a feature. I don’t know. But, if she’s dipping her toe back into country, I would really, really like to see her and Kacey Musgraves do something together. I think that could be really fun.

Other T. Swift songs it evokes:

“Should’ve Said No” (Taylor Swift, 2006): After the police siren and initial ominous “He did it,” there’s a little guitar riff that sounds very similar to what I’d call the iconic “Should’ve Said No” riff, which is fitting, because “Should’ve Said No” and “no body, no crime” are both “angry cheating songs.” I guess I understand why 16-year-old Taylor didn’t suggest murder on her debut album, but I’m really excited that we finally got to that point. “Should’ve Said No” was a statement in 2006 that said, “You really shouldn’t cheat on Taylor Swift because she’ll probably turn it into a banger, embarrass you, and make money off of it,” and “no body, no crime” is a 2020 statement that Taylor Swift has binged enough true crime drama during quarantine that you shouldn’t cheat on her or her friends.

My most ridiculous theory involving this song: To elaborate on the theory I introduce in “‘tis the damn season,” I’m somewhat convinced that Este’s husband is Dorothea’s ex-turned-mistress—and it’s all because of Taylor’s sudden preoccupation with truck tires. In “‘tis the damn season” there’s the line “Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires,” and in “no body, no crime” there’s the line “And I noticed when I passed his house / His truck has got some brand new tires.” Now, Taylor hasn’t talked about trucks and truck tires in a while, so for the phrase to pop up on the same album after years kind of forces my hand here. In “‘tis the damn season,” the reference to truck tires is cute and small-towney, but, 2 tracks later, the implication is that Este’s husband got new tires to obscure evidence of murder (probably his tires got messy while dumping the body and/or he knew he left tire tracks at the scene). So, I’m not saying that you should turn all this into a CSI episode, but I am definitely saying that you could.

 

Track #7: “happiness”

Favorite line(s): “There’ll be happiness after you / But there was happiness because of you / Both of these things can be true / There is happiness”

Initial thoughts and feelings: The roller coaster from “tolerate it” to “no body, no crime” to “happiness” is unreal. How dare Taylor sandwich such a bop between two of her saddest songs ever written?!?!? It’s just cruel. And “happiness” is, well, not happy, but, wow, is it beautiful. I’m just stunned by the growth we’ve seen in Taylor over these last 2 albums (and, really, even since Lover, if I’m being real). I know “happiness” is a fictionalized story probably about a divorce (or at least the end of a serious relationship), but Taylor’s found some serious self-awareness. This song doesn’t just blame or villainize the other person, and I think that’s part of what makes it. Hurt. So. Much. I mean, I don’t know when I started crying, but it was probably when she said, “There’ll be happiness after you / But there was happiness because of you, too, / Both of these things can be true” and it continued through “There’ll be happiness after me / But there was happiness because of me / Both of these things I believe,” and really got into sobbing territory by “No one teaches you what to do / When a good man hurts you / And you know you hurt him, too,” and then I was rendered inconsolable by the time we got to “There is happiness in our history.” And, like, yes, all those things can be true, but that’s almost an uncomfortable thing to admit, because you want to be able to blame the other person in a breakup; you don’t want to admit that you messed up—even though it’s probably true. You don’t want to think about all the good times, because that hurts knowing you won’t get that again (at least with that person). I think this narrator shows an incredible amount of strength in being able to say, “I’ll be happy again, and you’ll be happy again, but right now this hurts.” That’s a level of post-breakup maturity that I don’t think I have. I’m willing to admit that my breakup persona is way more “no body, no crime”—and we can unpack what that says about me as a person later.

The iconic and concerning "beautiful little fool" line

And we haven’t even talked about the 

Great Gatsby references! I’d have to return my English degrees if I didn’t bring those up! So the obvious ones that I caught of the first listen-through were “I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool / who takes my spot next to you” and “All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness.” The “beautiful fool” line references a pretty iconic Daisy Buchanan line, where she says of her daughter, Polly, “And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” The “green light of forgiveness” references the literal green light that hangs on Daisy and Tom’s dock in East Egg that Gatsby can see across the bay from his home in West Egg. It’s—uh—highly symbolic to say the least, and it’s pretty cool to think about in terms of the song. In the novel, the green light is what Gatsby fixates on at night—it’s so far away that he can’t reach it, which is symbolic of how he can’t have Daisy, can’t fit in with the “old money” of East Egg, and can’t really have that coveted “American Dream” (real question: Has anyone ever achieved the American Dream? Because every novel about it is just really sad.) In the song, “the green light of forgiveness” could be read as something else that’s just an unattainable, pretty thing. Some less obvious references could be “the great divide,” which could refer to the bay between East and West Egg, and “the dress I wore at midnight,” could refer to the lavish parties Gatsby threw to get Daisy’s attention. Honestly, someone should write this paper. Taylor’s got some legit classic lit references on this album.

Connection to other songs on folklore & evermore:

“closure”: I am super convinced that “closure” is a response to “happiness.” There’s one line in “happiness” that references “across the great divide,” and then in “closure,” there’s a line “reaching out across the sea that you put between you and me.” You also have the parallel between “All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness” in “happiness” and “I know I’m just a wrinkle in your new life / Staying friends would iron it out so nice.” Obviously the other party is reaching out to (at least pretend to) make amends, so they’re looking for the narrator’s forgiveness here, too. And, thematically, the songs fit together in a way that chronicles a broken relationship from the moment of the breakup (“happiness”) to some later point where the narrator is clearly doing better (“closure”). And, despite being called “closure,” the song is actually about not getting closure and finding a way to be okay with that, which fits nicely with the message from “happiness” that “there’ll be happiness after you.”

Other T. Swift songs it evokes:

“Afterglow” & “Daylight” (Lover, 2019): These songs are “sisters” for me, so I have to group them together. For me, “Afterglow” is just this beautiful moment of self-awareness (“Hey, it’s all me, in my head / I’m the one who burned us down”), and you see that same self-awareness reflected in “happiness.” I think “Afterglow” and “happiness” have the same tone, too; they’re both in the middle of a mess, but where “Afterglow” is saying “we can make this work,” “happiness” knows it’s not going to work, but that’s okay…or, it will be okay, eventually.

For me, you need “Afterglow” (the song) to get to “Daylight” (the song), meaning you can’t get to the good without that kind of painful self-awareness. I know “Daylight” is a love song on the surface. Like, “I don’t wanna to look at anything else now that I saw you (I could never look away/ I don’t wanna think of anything else now that I though of you (things will never be the same)” very much situates the song as being about a love interest. But I’d argue that “happiness” has a “What if ‘Daylight’ was about yourself?” kind of spin. Because after a breakup, I think you do have to relearn how to find happiness in a lot of ways, and I think, a lot of times, you have to reckon with yourself and learn how to find happiness with yourself. So, when the narrator says, “There’ll be happiness after you,” I like to think that she’s finding happiness with herself first. And then on a more literal level, “happiness” does reference “the glorious sunrise” which feels a lot like “Daylight.”

Track #8: “dorothea”

Favorite line(s): “This place is the same as it ever was / But you don’t like it that way” or “The stars in your eyes shined brighter in Tupelo / And if you're ever tired of being known for who you know / You know, you'll always know me, Dorothe—ee—a”

Initial thoughts and feelings: “dorothea” is a fun little song, and thank God it follows “happiness,” because we all needed something light after that one! I immediately thought of The Lumineers when I head this song, and I’m not sure if it’s because the names “Dorothea” and “Ophelia” (also a popular song by The Lumineers) sound similar enough in my head or if it’s the bouncy piano and muted drum or if it’s the way she does the “oohs,” but something just reminds me of them—and I’m not complaining at all! This song makes me feel like I’m down in the park making a lark of the misery, just sitting in sunshine with an old friend and catching up. It’s a very “wheat-field-at-sunset” colored song in my mind. Make of that what you will.

I still want to know who the "me" is in "dorothea"

I really like the idea of “knowing” that’s presented in this song. Like, the narrator says, “And if you’re ever tired of being known for who you know / You know, you’ll always know me.” They’re obviously referencing the exhausting cycle of “knowing the right people” in the entertainment industry (or, honestly, any industry, but especially in entertainment), but they’re also saying that they haven’t changed; they’re still the same person they were when Dorothea was last in their life—which seems to be high school. Now, let’s hope that’s not literal, because we want to see growth past the age of 18, but the implication is that there’s a familiarity and comfort and homey-ness and maybe even love that they can bring to her life that L.A. can’t. And then that certainty is contrasted when they ask, “But are you still the same soul I met under the bleachers / Well, I guess I’ll never know.” They probably feel like they “lost” her when she moved, and that’s a valid feeling to an extent, but I hope they trust this “soul” (that they obviously have a connection with) enough to allow them to grow without assuming the “right” version of Dorothea is the one they personally liked.

Now there are a few little things (that maybe I’m overthinking; feel free to let me know) that just don’t quite sit right with me: 1) I don’t like the line “It’s never too late to come back to my side”; it feels a little condescending, like they’re saying, “It’s okay to quit and come back and be part of my life again,” because the statement assumes she wants to come back and be with them 2) I don’t like the implication that going off to the big city (whether you eventually return permanently or not) fundamentally changes you and that, if it does, that’s a bad thing. The narrator clearly wants Dorothea to come back to Tupelo where they claim her eyes shined brighter, and they bribe her with…what?...a high school ex who never left their hometown? What if neither of them are the same? What if she’s changed her mind about ideas they were raised with? What if she’s had life experiences that her ex can’t understand? What if she is different and she’s happy about that? Okay, now I’m definitely projecting. (Can you tell that  I identify with Dorothea a little?) And I don’t want to say that you have to leave your hometown to grow as a person…but I’d highly advise it, at least for a few years. As someone who’s left her hometown and come back, you don’t come back the same person. And, I, for one, am okay with that. It doesn’t mean I don’t still love my hometown and where I came from and the experiences I had here; it just means I can better put my hometown and my upbringing in a bigger context, for better and for worse.

Connection to other songs on folklore & evermore:

“‘tis the damn season”—We know that these two songs are connected because Taylor straight up told us as much, writing that some of the songs talk about “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.” Now, Tupelo isn’t exactly the “small town” I pictured when I listened to “‘tis the damn season” the first time—it has over 38,000 residents as of 2018—but it’s also smaller than the college town I currently live in, so maybe it’s small enough. It’s definitely Southern, so that helps the “dorothea” line “this place is the same as it ever was” stick a little harder.

And to emphasize my earlier point about “knowing,” in “‘tis the damn season,” Dorothea also explains that the narrator of “dorothea” the song also knows her pretty well: “And wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm fakin' / And the heart I know I'm breakin' is my own.” He knows her well enough to know when she’s really happy (as she hints that she is in L.A. with her “so-called friends”), and she also knows herself well enough to know that she finds a not insignificant amount of comfort with this person.

“betty” & “august”—In the YouTube chat before the “willow” music video premiere, Taylor said that while “dorothea” isn’t a continuation of the Betty/James/Augusta storyline from folklore, she does imagine that they all went to high school together. And, if that’s the case, that means a few things: 1) “betty” is canonically set in Tupelo, MS and 2) that high school must have been wild. Now, I also need to know if Este went to their high school, because, if you choose to believe my conspiracy theory, that would make for one hell of a small town high school reunion!

Other T. Swift songs it evokes:

“The Lucky One” (Red, 2012)—this is a pretty distant connection, but when the narrator says, “the tiny screen’s the only place I see you now” and “You’re a queen selling dreams, selling makeup in magazines” and “If you ever get tired of being known for who you know,” I think about the protagonist from “The Lucky One,” which is another song about a young woman finding fame in the big city. From “‘tis the damn season,” we know that Dorothea doesn’t love the “glamor” of L.A., but to her old flame in Tupelo, it sure looks like she’s living the dream, even if he seems to realize that being known for who you know could get exhausting, a fact that ends up being the main point of “The Lucky One.”

My most ridiculous theory involving this song: As I stated in Part 1 in the “‘tis the damn season” entry and earlier in the “no body, no crime” entry, I have a headcanon/conspiracy that Dorothea is the mistress from “no body, no crime.” If you want to make it even more elaborate, maybe Este’s husband (who, using this theory, would be narrating “dorothea”) is just a real sociopath who was seeing a different woman with no connection to these songs when he killed Este, and just got with Dorothea when she came home for Christmas to cover it all up. So maybe Dorothea doesn’t know Este’s dead. Tbh, I don’t even know if this works at this point. I need to write down the whole timeline/plot somewhere. I’ll get back to you all on this one.

 

Me plotting out the Dorothea/Este's husband/Este conspiracy theory

Track #9: “coney island ft. The National”

Favorite line(s): “And do you miss the rogue / Who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?” or “And if this is the long haul / How’d we get here so soon?”

Initial thoughts and feelings: I might lose my Swiftie card for this, but “coney island” was evermore’s “exile” for me…and I don’t mean that in a “omg this is my favorite song” kind of way. To be completely honest, I didn’t love “exile,” but hearing the Long Pond Studios version has given me an increased appreciation for it. Similarly, “coney island” wasn’t my favorite on the first listen through, and I doubt it ever will be. But I did come up with/read some interesting theories that make me like it more (see below for said theories). My immediate impression was that it does a great job of painting a picture. The lyrics are sad and gray and lonely. I’m not from New York, and I’ve never been to Coney Island, but I picture it very bright and lively with colors and cotton candy—and this song is the opposite of that. So I do think the juxtaposition of those visuals is really interesting.  

I guess I appreciate the craft in this song more than I can say I like this song as a whole. I think some of the lyrics are just jaw dropping. I mean who thinks to write “And do you miss the rogue / Who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?” into a song???? That is some straight up Romantic poet stuff, but Taylor will have me singing it with my whole chest for the rest of my life.

My most ridiculous theory involving this song: Okay, so I have 2, and I actually need you to read them before you read about the connections to other songs. The first conspiracy theory is actually all mine: I think the love interest is dead. “Okay, Katie, but why?” A variety of reasons, but I think the lines “And if this is the long haul / How’d we get here so soon?” could definitely be read as someone feeling like they came to the “til death do we part” bit of marriage too soon. Like, when you get married, you know, rationally, that you’ll die someday, but you kind of assume you’ll have 40 or 50 or 60 years before that happens—but what happens when you only get 2 or 3 or 5? “Where did my baby go?” doesn’t just have to be about a breakup; they died. “How did they die?” you ask. Why, in the accident referenced in the bridge, of course! And the podium that’s referenced then refers to the podium at the funeral where the lover/spouse gave a eulogy. If I could do a music video for this song, I’d have one person sitting on a sad, lonely bench on Coney Island during the off-season, and the whole music video is interspersed with a mixture of happy moments of the couple (probably a lot at Coney Island), them fighting, and then one of them driving off and getting into The Accident. I don’t know. I feel like it would hurt.

My second theory is that the bridge is referencing other songs that reference former/lost loves. It’s kind of meta, because this theory doesn’t imply that the song is about any exes, but rather that she’s referencing old songs that are about exes. I saw this on Twitter. But I’ll add to it that it’s interesting to interpret it this way because all of the songs are from albums that she currently doesn’t own the Masters to, so, in a sense, they’re lost/dead, too. (See below for a breakdown of the bridge.)

nbd but @katiebethbug and I are detectives pic.twitter.com/vQjWHCrQh9

— LN ..VOTE OSSOFF & WARNOCK.. (@what_the_elle__) December 11, 2020

Other T. Swift songs it evokes: Below is the “coney island” bridge followed by the previous Taylor Swift song that it probably references.

Top: Big Ben clock tower in
London, home of several of
Taylor Swift's exes
Bottom: The clock in Grand
Central Station in NYC,
where Taylor Swift has a
residence

“Were you waiting at our old spot

In the tree line by the gold clock

Did I leave you hanging every single day?

Were you standing in the hallway

With a big cake, happy birthday

Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest gray?

A universe away

And when I got into the accident

The sight that flashed before me was your face

But when I walked up to the podium

I think that I forgot to say your name”

 

 “gold clock”—could refer to Big Ben and just be a general reference to her multiple English exes. There’s also a large gold clock in Grand Central Station in New York, where Taylor has also been seen with former love interests.

“Were you standing in the hallway / With a big cake, happy birthday?”—“The Moment I Knew” (Red, 2012): Jake Gyllenhaal infamously missed Taylor’s 21^st birthday party, and this includes the lyrics “And they're all standing around me singing "Happy birthday to you" / But there was one thing missing / And that was the moment I knew”

“Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest gray?”—“Dear John” (Speak Now, 2010): Cleverly putting John Mayer on blast in the form of a Dear John letter (which he did not take kindly to, thereby basically confirming that the song was, in fact, about him), Taylor wrote the lyrics, “You paint me a blue sky then go back and turn it to gray.” In “coney island,” the narrator is asking if they hurt the other in a very similar way.

“And when I got into the accident / The sight that flashed before me was your face”—“Out of the Woods” (1989, 2014): In what is personally my favorite bridge of hers, Taylor says, “Remember when you hit the brakes too soon? / Twenty stitches in the hospital room” which references a very real snow mobile accident that she and then-boyfriend Harry Styles got into. Harry even tweeted pictures of the aforementioned twenty stitches.

“But when I walked up to the podium / I think that I forgot to say your name”—the 2016 Grammys: When 1989 won Album of the Year at the 2016 Grammys, Taylor didn’t attend with her then-bf of almost a year, the DJ Calvin Harris, but, instead, brought her longtime best friend Selena Gomez as her date. Calvinposted his congratulations on social media at the time, but Taylor didn’t thank him in her acceptance speech (side rant: why would she? They weren’t together when the album came out; he didn’t work on the album; the songs aren’t about him; she doesn’t owe him a “thank you” just because she happened to be dating him when her album won an award). Anyway, after their kind of messy and weird breakup, there’s been all kinds of debate about whether bringing Selena was meant to be shady, if her speech was meant to be shady, if his Instagram post was passive aggressive. Whatever the case, I’m not mad that she “forgot” to say his name at that podium.

 

Track #10: “ivy”

Favorite line(s): “How's one to know / I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones / In a faitah forgotten land” or “And the old widow goes to the stone every day / But I don't, I just sit here and wait / Grieving for the living” or “Oh, goddamn / My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand” or “Oh, I can’t / Stop you putting roots in my dreamland”

Initial thoughts and feelings: How is this song so chill but I want to scream it so badly???I mean, the bridge on this one is *insert somewhat feral choking sound that indicates my obsession.* C’mon, how do you not absolutely lose your mind over, “Yeah, it’s a fire / It’s a goddamn blaze in the dark / And you started it / Yeah, it’s a war / It’s the goddamn fight of my life / And you started it” is just asking to be screamed at someone who’s done you wrong. I don’t even have anyone in mind, but I want to scream this in someone’s face.

And the imagery! The scene! The tone! This is another song that’s just so rich and vivid, and it feels like watching a period drama in my head whenever I listen to it. Here’s the scene: Taylor’s playing a rich lady living in her husband’s family mansion in the Welsh/Scottish/English countryside; it’s isolated and lonely, because he’s away in London for “business.” One cold winter day, a young traveler shows up at their door looking for work in exchange for a place to stay. Taylor hesitates, but her loneliness and the traveler’s charming looks win out, and she invites him in where they ultimately fall in love. What I love/am still mystified about “ivy” is that it’s another affair song, but I love it and 100% will bop to it. I love how the beginning of the song is basically like, “Yeah, I’m just waiting for my husband to die so I can perform grief by visiting his gravestone when I’m actually ecstatic that I’m finally able to marry the real love of my life.” What a mood.

Please enjoy this very quick mood board I made for "ivy"

Because “ivy” is such a standalone song for me—meaning I don’t really see any strong connections to other songs—I’ll wax poetic about it for a minute longer. Specifically, can we talk about the words? Like “coney island,” who thinks to open a song with lines like “How’s one to know / I’d meet you where the spirit meets the bones / In a faith forgotten land?”??? I’m a little flabbergasted—like, that’s poetry, pure and simple! I could (and kind of want to) write essays on it. Another reason that “ivy” should be considered modern poetry is the plant symbolism, and we know how poets love plants! Ivy is symbolic of fidelity—oh, the irony!—and eternity. She also talks about “putting roots in my dreamland,” which could be a reference to this lover grounding her or anchoring her dreams and making them real. But it’s also worth pointing out that ivy can be a pain. English ivy, in particular, will choke out other plants and is actually poisonous. Pretty rough stuff, and not exactly romantic—but again, kind of fitting for an affair song, because you could definitely argue that the lover “choked out” the narrator’s other relationship, which is emphasized by the repeated lines “My house of stone, your ivy grows / And now I’m covered in you.” Ivy is also fast-growing, much like the relationship in the song that starts when he came “in from the snow” and comes to a head in the spring.

Then, she references “Clover blooms in the fields / Spring breaks loose, so does fear.” Spring, in literature, has always been symbolic of newness and rebirths, so this could represent her new love. The clover, though, is where my interest lies. When we think about clover, most people’s brains go straight to the four-leaf variety emblazoned on everything from socks to sunglasses to beads to t-shirts every March—and there’s a sprig of truth to that connotation, according to the internet. Four-leaf clovers are considered lucky, and, in flower language, they mean, “be mine,” so that’s a sweet meaning when applied to this song. (And maybe we should start giving out clover on Valentine’s Day, too?) But clover is also distinctly Irish, so there’s some history to unpack there, too. In Victorian England, Irish regiments were forbidden from displaying the shamrock because it was viewed as an act of rebellion—and this double meaning could also be applied to “ivy,” since having an affair is definitely not socially acceptable, especially for a woman.

(And, not to go on another tangent, but why is ivy so romanticized and regal when it grows on old English mansions or expensive New England private schools, but kudzu is a dangerous invasive species primarily found in the South? Here’s a cool article that argues that kudzu just has a bad rep, much like Taylor did in 2016.)

Okay, academia aside, I love this song. It feels like a story pulled from some aristocrat’s diary. Taylor’s vocals are stunning. Her emphasis on “old,” “goes,” “stone,” and “don’t” in the lines “The old widow goes to the stone every day / But I don’t, I just sit here and wait” are so lovely, and her descending runs on “hand” and “dreamland” leave me speechless every time. I know she’s not a powerhouse vocalist, but her lower register is enviable.

Connection to other songs on folklore & evermore:

“illicit affairs”—“ivy” is another song about an affair, but these two songs evoke very different feelings; the couple in “illicit affairs” are already having a rough time, so we know they won’t last, but, for some reason, I find myself cheering for the couple in “ivy.” Maybe I’ve been reading too many fanfics, but I think they could work. There are also lines that are evocative of one another; the pairing that sticks out for me is “And that's the thing about illicit affairs / And clandestine meetings / And stolen stares” and “How’s one to know / I’d live and die for moments that we stole / On begged and borrowed time?” Stolen moments are a pretty common trope in “affair literature,” so it makes sense that it’d appear in both songs. Maybe the relationship in “ivy” crashes and burns and turns into the relationship from “illicit affairs”? Who knows? Just Taylor probably.

Other T. Swift songs it evokes:

“Dress” (reputation, 2017)—Along the line of “stolen moments,” you could also think about “Dress,” where she says, “Our secret moments in a crowded room / They got no idea about me and you.” “Dress” is also pretty sexy and scandalous, and you could apply those adjectives to affairs, too—at least fictional ones. I don’t think any real-life affair has ever been sexy. 

Well, thank you for joining me on that 5600-word journey! I apologize again for my inability to be concise, but there's just so much to say about Taylor Swift, so I hope that you were at least entertained by my "murder board conspiracy theory." If you haven't read Part 1 of this series yet (and want to for some reason), it's available here, and Part 3 (the final part!) will be up before the New Year! I'd like to say it'll be shorter, but it won't be.

Here's to being in it for the long haul,

Katie

Captain's Log, Day 22: The Very Long folklore Post Your Heart Needs

Date: July 28, 2020

Time of post: 4:55 PM

Quarantine Day: 125

Last Song I Listened To: “hoax” by Taylor Swift

Last Person I Communicated With: group text with Mikayla & Jacque

Last Thing I Ate: guacamole chips

Last Thing I Read: one of the articles I linked in this post lol

Current Mood: proud that I finally finished this blog

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: got some cards to mail out!

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today:crafts with Mom

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: not stressed, but disappointed that it rained and I couldn't do my planned "cardigan" photoshoot

One Reason I’m Happy Today: idk I've been thinking about Taylor Swift a lot, and that always brings me joy

Dear Apocalypsers,

I’m trying to do more of what I want to do without worrying about what people think, so here’s my personal review of folklore. The “initial thoughts” come straight from a notebook where I jotted down my feelings during the first listen-through. Feel free to disagree or to reach out to talk more. I could talk about this album (and all of Taylor's work) every hour of the day for the rest of my life and never get bored.

Song: “the 1”

Rating: 8/10

Favorite line: “Rosé flowing with your chosen family / And it would have been sweet / If it could have been me”

Initial observations:

• “She sounds so STRONG!”
• “OMG she said ‘shit’!”
• “WOW”  
• “‘It would’ve been fun if you would have been the one’ just hits wow”

Other thoughts: This is still such a solid song, and it might be my favorite opening track of hers (though I’ll always have a sweet spot for “Tim McGraw”). The lyrics are a little melancholy thinking about what could have been, but when she opens with, “I’m doing good / I’m on some new shit,” you can’t really be too sad for her. And I think this song sets up the album really well in terms of style and structure, because you can definitely see her playing with song format; it’s so different from what she’s done in the past, but it’s still got a little bit of bounce that ushers you nicely into this “indie Taylor” era. It didn’t make me cry or my mouth drop or anything, but it’s definitely one I’ll be bopping along to for the rest of my life.

Song: “cardigan”

Rating: 9/10

Favorite line: “I knew you / Your heartbeat on the High Line / Once in twenty lifetimes” or “I knew you / Leaving like a father / Running like water”

Initial observations:

• Of the video: “like Alice in Wonderland meets ‘Falling’”
• “I thought it’d be a love song, but IT’S NOT WHAT OMG!!”
• “It’s so beautiful and mature and sultry and WOW! What a vibe!”
• “So warm and yet chilly! Feels like fog!”

Other thoughts: I was hesitant when she announced “cardigan” as the lead single, because I haven’t been a huge fan of her pop singles—“ME!” was not a good representation of Lover (2019); “Look What You Made Me Do” had an incredible video, but the song is far from the best on reputation (2016) (I’m also bitter that “GetawayCar” wasn’t a single); and “Shake It Off” is hella catchy, but doesn’t hold a candle to some of the pop masterpieces on 1989 (2014)—BUT, I’m here to say that “cardigan” is still one of my faves from folklore. The song makes me want to curl up in from of a fire and cast spells on those who have hurt me. Like, there’s heartbreak in this song. She saw this other person drunk and dancing in these intimate moments (very reminiscent of moments from Lover) and she called it a “once in twenty lifetimes” kind of love and that they made her feel wanted—and then they left. And the fact that she basically says, “I knew you would” is heartbreaking in and of itself because you just get the feeling that a lot of people have left her. So, yes, big “cardigan” fan.

Song: “the last great american dynasty”

Rating: 7.5/10

Favorite line: “There goes the most shameless woman this town has ever seen” or “I had a marvelous time ruining everything”

Initial observations: 

• “Kennedys?”
• “Rebekah??? Bill?? Standard Oil??”
• “gauche”—love it!
• “Holiday House???”
• “Not a cute ‘Mary’s Song’”
• “‘She had a marvelous time ruining everything’—MOOD”
• “Dali?? Salvador, maybe?”
• “Is this like ‘Starlight?’
• “IS THIS ABOUT TAYLOR’S RHODE ISLAND HOUSE?”
• “This is a story! T is so in her element. Let’s GO! She’s really embraced herself.”

Other thoughts: We know Taylor can write a “based on a true story” song. She did it with “Starlight” and “The Lucky One” on Red (2012), but “the last great american dynasty” has an edge and an injection of female empowerment that those two didn’t have—not hating on Red at all, though; it’s honestly my favorite album most of the time. She’s just so tongue-in-cheek sometimes. Like the line “It must have been her fault his heart gave out”—I can just hear the eye roll. Pair that with, “She had a marvelous time ruining everything,” and it’s just RebekahHarkness giving a big middle finger to all the mid-century New England socialites. And then Taylor buys her house! I love how in this song and “The Lucky One” Taylor breaks the fourth wall and aligns herself with something “negative.” Here, she sees herself in the outcast, gold-digging widow who upset her neighbors’ fragile sensibilities. In “The Lucky One,” she compares herself to a superstar who got hounded by the media and gave it all up for a quiet life. And I think that speaks volumes about what Taylor’s experienced in her career, but the big difference between the two songs—and something I just absolutely love—is that on Red, she comes to the conclusion that giving it all up and running away wouldn’t be so bad—“And it took some time, but I understand it now”—but in “last great american dynasty,” she basically says, “Haters gonna hate” and doesn’t let what anyone says dictate how she lives her life. (I also saw a tweet joking that this song was written to appease the ghost of Rebekah Harkness who still haunts the property, and I low-key love that idea, too.)

Anyone still playing 2020 bingo check off "Taylor Swift writes a song to appease the ghost of an oil tycoon's widow who lives in her mansion"

— Jenny Nicholson (@JennyENicholson) July 24, 2020

Song: “exile (ft. bon iver)”

Rating: 6.75/10

Favorite line: “All this time, we always walked a very thin line / You didn’t even hear me out (You didn’t even hear me out) / You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)”

Initial observations:

• “he’s got a little bit of a country twang”
• “her voice sounds so good all stripped back”
• “this piano is <3 <3”
• “DAMN IS IT GOOD!”
• “kinda some ‘The Last Time’ vibes”

Other thoughts: I know based on my extensive time on Twitter that my “exile” opinions won’t be well-received by some, so let me start by saying that the song is beautiful. They both sound so good on it, and I love their voices together. Lyrically, I find it a little repetitive, and I feel like it could be about 30 seconds to a minute shorter. I know I said it gave me some “The Last Time” vibes, but I think “exile” is better, and I especially love the tension in the lyrics where Bon Iver says, “You never gave a warning sign” at the same time Taylor sings, “I gave so many signs.” Like, that moment is brilliant, and I feel like it really encompasses the crumbling of a relationship where two people weren’t communicating with each other. So, yes, I think this is haunting and beautiful and genius at times, but it’s not my fave on the album. (Also, full disclosure, I always want him to say, “we always walked a very fine line,” but I think that’s because I’ve listened to the Harry Styles album too much.)

Song: “my tears ricochet”

Rating: 7.25/10

Favorite line: “Cursing my name, wishing I stayed / You turned into your worst fears / And you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain / Crossing out the good years”

Initial observations:

• “haunting opening, like a ghost choir”
• “when she drops down on ‘ricochet,’ that HIT ME”
• “THE BRIDGE!”
• “stolen lullabies = sobbing”

Other thoughts: Okay, I had really high expectations going into this one. It’s a track 5 song, so it’s joining the ranks of “Cold As You,” “White Horse,” “Dear John,” “All Too Well,” “All You Had To Do Was Stay,” “Delicate,” and “The Archer”, and Jack Antanoff tweeted that this song and “august” are two of his favorite things he and Taylor have ever worked on. …and I was a little disappointed on the first listen-through. It just didn’t grab me the way the first few songs did. I don’t know if the metaphor didn’t click or what. I talked with a lot of friends about the actual metaphor “look at how my tears ricochet,” and my initial thought was, “What else ricochets? Bullets.” So I was reading it as, “Look at how my tears/pain will bounce around and affect other people. Look at how my pain will hurt you.” And that interpretation can still be applied to this really cool theory I found on Instagram about how the song is all about Taylor’s relationship with Scott Borchetta, Scooter Braun, and Big Machine Records. It’s a super good theory, and you should definitely look at it. Seeing those connections made me appreciate “my tears ricochet” more, because I loathe what Scott and Scooter did, and I’m glad they're suffering the consequences.

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A post shared by Madiha ♡ (@madihalovestaylor) on Jul 25, 2020 at 4:53am PDT

Song: “mirrorball”

Rating: 8/10

Favorite line: “And I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why / I’ve never been a natural / I just try, try, try”

Initial observations:

• “Prom slow dance at the end of an 80s movie vibes”
• “Is this the first love song we get???”
• “tightrope!! trapeze!!” (honestly not sure where I was going with that note; maybe I liked the precariousness of those metaphors, the fragility of them)
• “still kinda sad with that last line (The last line is “I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight”); like, are those good versions? Are we about so see all the bad, too?”

Other thoughts: There are some technical things about this song that I just adore. Her soft little high notes on “tallest,” “tiptoes,” “highest,” and “heels” to mirror the words are especially sweet. And I love how fragile this song is. This is the first song that doesn’t seem to be about a relationship that’s over, but it’s also a song about trying to get someone’s attention. Now, on one hand, that’s lovely. Like the lines, “Hush, when no one is around, my dear / You'll find me on my tallest tiptoes / Spinning in my highest heels, love / Shining just for you” are very endearing, because she’s saying, “It’s not all for show. It’s not an act. I want you.” But there’s also this little bit of desperation, like she needs this person to love her back, and that’s kind of sad. But I love the tightrope and trapeze imagery, because I think it really encapsulates how delicate the situation is. It reminds me of when she explained the concept behind “Out of the Woods”: “It was a relationship where you never feel like you're standing on solid ground. That kind of a feeling brings on excitement but also extreme anxiety and a frantic feeling of wondering, endless questions.” And I think she evokes those same feelings here, but in a softer way. “Out of the Woods” is her screaming those feelings after the relationship is over; “mirrorball” is her whispering those feelings into her pillow at night when no one else can hear. (full quote and article here, and here's Taylor talking about the song before her performance at the Grammy Museum.)

Song: “seven”

Rating: 9.5/10

Favorite line: "And just like a folk song / Our love will be passed on"

Initial observations:

• “Pennsylvania—childhood reflection, maybe?”
• “HER VOICE!!!”
• “Passed down like folk songs / the love lasts so long <3 <3”
• “darker side of ‘Mary’s Song’—no rose-colored glasses, but not said, either, just grown up”
• “Is it about a girl? Braids and ‘pack your dolls’”

Other thoughts: I loved “seven” the moment I heard it. It’s not one that I’ll just pop on to listen to for fun, but I definitely think it showcases the growth she’s had since her first album and that's worth talking about. I immediately thought of “Mary’s Song” (maybe my favorite song on her debut album), because both songs trace an innocent young love. If “Mary’s Song” is the small town fairytale that we’re brought up idolizing, “seven” is the less-than-perfect reality that’s probably more common: the two are close in childhood but grow apart, leading the narrator to say, “I can’t recall your face.” The other child, it’s revealed, potentially has a bad home life, though it seems that the narrator is young and too naïve to realize it. The lines “And I’ve been meaning to tell you / I think your house is haunted / Your dad is always mad and that must be why” show that. It’s unclear whether the father’s anger is what causes the narrator to think the house is haunted or if the narrator assumes the father is mad because the house is haunted, but we can definitely read it as the former, and that certainly makes “seven” a little less saccharine than “Mary’s Song,” where the only tension comes from the lines, “take me back to the time we had our very first fight / the slamming of doors ‘stead of kissin’ goodnight.” Another key difference is that no one gets married in “seven,” which maybe shows that marriage is no longer the baseline for a successful or meaningful relationship in Taylor’s mind. And, like, we stan that growth.

Song: “august”

Rating: 10/10

Favorite line: “And I can see us twisted in bedsheets /August sipped away like a bottle of wine” or “So much for summer love / Or saying ‘us’ / ‘Cause you weren’t mine to lose”

Initial observations:

• “‘August sipped away like a bottle of wine’ left me BREATHLESS”
• “This album is like the wistful side of so many of her older songs” (I was thinking of “Mine” when I wrote this, because the “you weren’t mine to lose” line gave me actual chills)
• “‘Remember when I pulled up and said, ‘Get in the car’? NEED TO REVISIT THIS BRIDGE; THERE’S A SHIFT I WANT TO THINK ABOUT” (I’m writing a paper on driving in Taylor Swift songs, so whenever she mentions a car or driving, I get real excited. And, in this case, her driving and giving that declarative statement is the only time she has any explicit control in this situation; otherwise, she’s just waiting for her lover to call or watching as time and their love slip away…and that fits perfectly into the pattern I’ve noticed across her songs.)

Other thoughts: This song is perfection. The music, the lyrics, the imagery, they way she sings “you weren’t mine to lose.” I know this song is called “august,” but it gives me chills. I might name my firstborn son after this song; that’s how much I love it. This is the first song I think about when people ask about my favorite song on the album. It stuck out the first time I listened and every time since. It’s one of the songs I get excited about hearing. It’s a little more up-tempo than songs like “exile” and “epiphany,” and I am, traditionally, a happy, bubbly pop music girl (so, Lover is my jam, and “Paper Rings,” in particular is the pinnacle of my taste in music), so the beat of “august” is appealing to me. But I think her imagery is what makes this song so good. It’s so relatable in the sense that who hasn’t felt August (or some other month) “slip away into a moment in time”? Who hasn’t come to realize that, at one point or another, they were living on borrowed time that wasn’t’ really theirs to begin with? And, wow, this song just brings back memories of high school. Now, I didn’t date in high school, so I never cancelled plans for a boy, but I remember being invested in relationships that were, in retrospect, one-sided, with me caring more for them than they did for me and not seeing that until years later, and you can feel that same kind of reflection in “august.” I’m sorry, it’s just brilliant. Please go love it.

Song: “this is me trying”

Rating: 9.5/10

Favorite line: “They told me all my cages were mental / So I got wasted like all my potential”

Initial observations:

• About the title: “WOW PAINFUL”
• “pulled the car off the road” (again, for my driving paper lol)
• “fear of coming back—a note to the fans? Between 89 and rep?”
• “big follow-up to ‘Afterglow,’ same energy”
• “‘So I got wasted like all my potential’--DAMN”
• “that violin is … wow”

Other thoughts: The only reason this song doesn’t get a perfect 10 is probably because it hits too close to home. In the same way that middle-school me latched on to “TiedTogether with a Smile” in her darkest moments, mid-twenties me is going to come back to “this is me trying” when I need a good cry. And can we talk about the lines, “Pulled the car off the road to the lookout / Could have followed my fears all the way down”? That’s the same energy as “the water’s high / you’re jumping into it,” and it’s not a happy energy, that’s for sure—it’s despondent. And I think this song resonates so strongly with people—especially the “former gifted kids who are now burnt out” demographic—is because, like “Afterglow,” it acknowledges her own faults and flaws and emphasizes the process of trying/healing instead just the end result. I know, for me, I’m always focused on the product—the finished paper, getting the job, settling down—and I don’t always take the time to appreciate the journey and all the work it took to get there. So “this is me trying” is that song I’ll sob along to when I feel like I’m not being as successful as I think people expect me to be, and Taylor can just tell me “at least [you’re] trying.” It really is a beautiful song that I’ll come back to for years.

Song: “illicit affairs”

Rating: 7/10

Favorite line: “And you know damn well / For you I would ruin myself / A million little times”

Initial observations:

• “in love with the ‘twinkling’ guitar”
• “the high note on ‘down’? ICONIC” (I think I read somewhere once that going up on a word like “down” is the equivalent of seeing the word “red” written in “blue,” but someone who knows music theory please confirm/explain)
• “Wow, someone write a TV show around this song”
• “this one’s kinda mad…but soft. I LIKE”
• “‘For you I would ruin myself a million little times’…I’m speechless”

Other thoughts: I think I actually love the music on this track more than the lyrics, which is a rarity for a Taylor Swift song. The guitar sounds like rain on the pavement at night and really creates the ambiance of an affair shrouded in secrets, and had she done this song on piano, it wouldn’t be nearly as good. So, kudos to you, Taylor, you musical genius. The first time I listened to this song, I immediately wanted a TV show about these characters, and I can literally picture this film noir setting with foggy streets and rain glistening in lamplight and a cabin off the beaten path where the lovers rendezvous. And how can you not love phrases like “dwindling mercurial high” and “look at this godforsaken mess that you made me”? But, that being said, I think this song, for me, is the most obviously a fictionalized story, and I’m not as emotionally invested in it—which is weird, because other songs are more clearly not about Taylor, but they still feel more relatable, so I’m sure that it’s just my own personal barriers that keep me from rating this song higher­. Still, lines like “they lie and they lie and they lie / a million little times” tug at my heartstrings, and that’s just a testament to Taylor’s songwriting.

Song: “invisible string”

Rating: 10/10

Favorite line: “Time, mystical time / Cutting me open, then healing me fine”or “The string that pulled me out of all the wrong arms / Right into that dive bar”

Initial observations:

• “The ‘Time, curious time / Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs’ line made my jaw drop” 
• “HER VOICE ON THE ‘me-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee’!!!”
• “lots of colors in this one!” (I’d also like to write a paper some day on color symbolism in Taylor’s music, and I have a running Google doc with all the instances of color use)
• “‘Now I send their babies presents’??? JOE JONAS??” (I hope with all my heart that Lil Baby Turner-Jonas got a baby-sized cardigan!)

Other thoughts: Like I said earlier, I love her poppy love songs, and “invisible string” has BIG Lover vibes; it could be the prequel to the love story in “Paper Rings.” But, I cannot tell a lie: I had to listen to this one a few times before I loved it. Once I really listened to the lyrics, though, my own idealistic romanticism basically forced me to become obsessed. I love how she talks about time in this song. It starts out with “time, curious time” and then “time, mystical time” and then “time, wondrous time,” and just those three phrases alone shape the arc of the song; she goes from not understanding why time is doing these things to her—“cutting me open, then healing me fine”—but then coming to appreciate all she’s been through—“gave me the blues and then purple-pink skies.” And I think it’s one of her beautifully self-aware songs. When she says, “cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke me heart / now I send their babies presents” shows that she recognizes the chips she’s had on her shoulder all these years, but now she’s growing up and letting go—stepping into the daylight, some might say. And whereas so many of the songs on folklore are full of regret and fear, “invisible string” takes those fears and reframes them with “okay, what if all these bad things happened but they were all leading me to something better?” I mean, who hasn’t met someone and thought “this was meant to be”? There are so many friends I’ve met that I statistically shouldn’t have—there were too many little coincidences and stars that had to align that it’s dizzying to think about. So, maybe there are invisible strings that connect us to certain people, some kind of predestination and higher power at work. Maybe it’s my Pisces showing, but that’s something I like to believe in.

Song: “mad woman”

Rating: 7.75/10

Favorite line: “Now I breathe flames each time I talk”

Initial observations:

• “apparently there’s something big here [a friend warned me about this song]”
• “‘I Did Something Bad’ vibes!”
• “MOUTHFUCK YOU FOREVER/MOUTH ‘FUCK YOU FOREVER’”
• “ ‘Mad’ like ‘Wonderland’—'And in the end in wonderland we both went mad’—but also ‘mad’ as in ‘angry’”
• “I just want to unpack so much; like, she tackles so many themes that she tried to hit on in earlier songs [like ‘The Man’] but without the pop beat; this is INTENSE.”

Other thoughts: Now, in terms of “Taylor Swift feminist anthems,” I still think—perhaps somewhat controversially—that I like “The Man” better, but I’ll admit that “mad woman” is scary. When I was in high school, our band director yelled a lot, but we knew he was truly angry when he got quiet, and “mad women” has that same quiet rage that gives me chills. And, not to read too deeply into one four-letter word, but I think it’s significant that she chose to put “mad woman” before “betty,” because, while both songs include the word “fuck,” it happens first in a song about women being criticized for their emotions. It really is a milestone in Taylor’s music, because, for so long, she was painted as “America’s Sweetheart” who would most certainly never use such “foul” language, and then she gives us “mad women,” which just feels like a massive eye roll at stereotypes and her own past. It’s also very tongue-in-cheek when she says, “No one likes a mad woman,” because it’s clear to most women listening that she’s parroting back a line she’s been told before—one we’ve all heard, especially us good Southern ladies. And I would love to break down how she uses “mad” in her songs. Here, it clearly has a dual meaning, sometimes meaning “insane” and sometimes meaning “angry,” and she’s used both meanings in previous songs. For example, in “Wonderland” (a 1989 bonus track), she plays off of Alice in Wonderland with the line “And in the end in Wonderland, we both went mad,” and in “The Man” (on Lover), she says, “If I was out flashing my dollars, I’d be a bitch not a baller / They’d paint me out to be bad / So it’s okay that I’m mad.” In both “The Man” and now “mad woman,” Taylor has clearly had it up to her big blue eyes with people telling her how she’s supposed to behave, and she is over it; “mad woman” isn’t a windows-down, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs anthem, but it’s definitely one to play while planning your next coup d'état.

Song: “epiphany”

Rating: 9/10

Favorite line: “Crawling up the beaches now / Sir, I think he’s bleeding out” paralleled to “Hold your hand through plastic now / Doc, I think she’s crashing out”

Initial observations:

• “ETHEREAL”
• “ ‘RIFLE,’ ‘MOTHER’—that note!”
• “a war song—allusion? Metaphor? For what?”
• “Civil War and WWII”

Other thoughts: Aaaaah! The moment I heard this song, I knew it was special. The way she sings “rifle” and then “mother” just feels so folksy, it’s magical (and my dad has a thing for Civil War folk songs, so I’ve heard quite a few, actually). The morning after the album dropped, a friend of mine said, “On a second listen, ‘epiphany’ is definitely about NHS workers,” and then the next time I listened to it, I noticed the beeping that permeates the song, like a heartrate monitor in a hospital, and, needless to say, it left me speechless. I think the parallel between the war and hospital settings is brilliant, and the “hold your hand through plastic now” imagery is so evocative of scenes from inside COVID units. Comparing doctors and nurses to soldiers is so poignant, and the “with you I serve, with you I fall down” line will haunt me forever thinking about all the medical professionals who have died and will die trying to save their patients’ lives. This song makes my heart heavy, because I think we will think about the COVID-19 pandemic as a generational trauma the way that other generations have been traumatized by war; both tragedies touch everyone, directly or indirectly, and the way Taylor marries the past and present with traditional strings, piano, and artificial beeping deserves some kind of award. Honestly, “epiphany” needs to be recognized as the work of art that it is.

Song: “betty”

Rating: 8.5/10

Favorite line: “But if I just showed up at your party / Would you have me? / Would you want me? / Would you tell me to go fuck myself / Or lead me to the garden?” or “She pulled up like a figment of my worst intentions”

Initial observations:

• “YAS HARMONICA”
• “Betty? Inez? (Blake and Ryan’s daughter)”
• “Boy’s POV? Or friend betrayal? Or GAY?”
• “Wow she said ‘fuck.’ What an era!!!”
• “Narrator is ‘James’—is it a boy or Blake and Ryan’s daughter?”
• “Coming out as bi?”
• “MUST REPLAY”

Other thoughts: Oh, “betty,” “betty,” “betty.” An instant fave on Twitter. And it’s fascinating. Listening to this the first time was a ride, as you can probably tell by the progression of my initial comments. The aggressive “MUST REPLAY” line still holds true, by the way. Now, Taylor has stated that there are 3 songs on the album that she calls the “Teenage Love Triangle,” and those songs are “betty,” “cardigan,” and “august.” (I won’t go into explaining all the connections that prove this, but just know that “betty” is from James’ POV who cheated on Betty; “august” is from the POV of the girl he cheated with, and “cardigan” is Betty’s POV.) Taylor says in her letter to fans that folklore was inspired by images and stories, but there’s no way that “betty” won’t go down in history as an iconic queer anthem. I mean, sure, she can name drop the masculine name “James," but it’s still a woman singing a song “to” another woman, and, for that, Taylor gets all the finger snaps. Besides the story—which still has me shook, btw—I love the harmonica on this song. It’s a huge selling point, honestly. After the whole “the old Taylor is dead” moment from reputation, it’s beautiful to see her embracing that “old Taylor” again. Musically, “betty” has big debut album vibes, and that’s not a bad thing at all, especially for long-term fans, because the sometimes cheesy country music production that marked her first album is tempered here by her even-better lyrics, matured vocals, and delightful and repeated use of “fuck.” “betty” gets a high score, because even though it’s not my personal favorite, I love what it does. Also, Betty, if you’re reading this, don’t take James back. They’re a tool.

“Betty” confirmed what we’ve all suspected for a long time about Taylor Swift.... she writes Riverdale fan fic

— Ira Madison III (@ira) July 24, 2020

Song: “peace”

Rating: 10/10

Favorite line: “I’d give you my sunshine, give you my best / But the rain is always gonna’ come if you’re standing with me” and specifically that one time she goes “Would it be enough if I could never give you pee-eeace?” (second to last line of the song)

Initial observations:

• “That opening guitar!”
• “THOSE OPENING LINES—"Our coming-of-age has come and gone / Suddenly this summer, it's clear” (They speak so directly to us as a nation and all that we’ve been through this summer; these lines really hit; I felt them!)
• “‘Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?’ Wow”
• “‘swing for the fences’ in ‘peace’ vs ‘if you strike out and you’re crawling home’ in ‘New Year’s Day’—they seem to go together”
• “THIS IS FOR JOE, I SWEAR, and, like, all her biggest fears for their relationship.”

Other thoughts: Another perfect song that took me a couple listens to recognize the full perfection of it. In a lot of ways, this song is this antithesis to “invisible string.” Instead of, “What if we were always meant to be together?” this song asks, “What if I was always going to mess this up?” There’s also the connection between the line “I’d swing for the fences” vs “if you strike out and you’re crawling home” in “NewYear’s Day” (from reputation). Like, “peace” is so much about her anxieties of all the ways her relationship could go wrong, and “New Year’s Day” is about being confident enough in her relationship to want the good and the bad, and I love that there are paralleling lyrics that kind of mesh the two together, because, of course, Taylor would have anxieties about her relationship given how she’s always been berated for her dating life. Also, who doesn’t worry about their relationship sometimes? We all have insecurities, and no one wants to be hurt or to hurt someone they love. Despite all her fears, though, it’s clear that there’s a lot of love here: “All these people say love's for show [like the so-called “PR stunt” relationships with Harry Styles and Tom Hiddleston] / But I would die for you in secret.” You cannot convince me that this song isn’t her message to Joe. She knows that dating “Taylor Swift” comes with its own unique problems, and she’s even saying that he might not ever know peace while he’s with her because of how famous she is, but she wants him to know that she really is in love with him, cameras or no cameras. And, like, wow. That’s just beautiful. I’m obsessed with song and with their love. She deserves happiness.

Song: “hoax”

Rating: 7/10

Favorite line: “My barren land / I am ash from your fire”

Initial observations:

• “PIANO <3 <3 <3”
• “‘Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in’—that hurts”
• “‘your sleight of hand’ vs ‘all eyes on you, my magician’ in ‘…So it Goes’—they seem to go together, but not sure how yet”

Other thoughts: Usually, Taylor’s albums end with an uplifting song: "Change" (Fearless), "Long Live" (Speak Now), “Begin Again” (Red), “Clean”(1989), “New Year’s Day” (reputation), “Daylight” (Lover), but “hoax” is so deeply, deeply sad. I stopped breathing the first time I heard, “Stood on the cliffside screaming ‘Give me a reason’.” I was like, “‘Give me a reason’ to jump?!?! Taylor, what?! No! Ah!!” This song is despondent, and I’ve used that word to describe more than one song on this album. And this is the literal note that the standard album ends on. It’ll be interesting to see if “the lakes” changes the tone of the ending at all, but, as far as last tracks go, “hoax” takes listeners to a completely different place, which I think works for folklore. There’s something mystical and magical about a “hoax,” just like there’s something mystical and magical about this whole album. Taylor even says that, in stories that become folklore, “The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible.” (See her full letter on Twitter for more!) So, ending on a song called “hoax” just feels poetic. And maybe the connections between hoaxes and magic and blurring lines helps me connect the themes of “hoax” and “…SoIt Goes” (from reputation). In "hoax," Taylor sings, “My best laid plans / Your sleight of hand / My barren land / I am ash from your fire.” The “best laid plans” line evokes the Robert Burns poem, “To A Mouse”: “The best laid plans of Mice and Men / often go awry” (this is also where John Steinbeck famously got his title for his novel Of Mice and Men (1937)), so we’re conditioned to assume the worst about Taylor’s own “best laid plans.” Next comes the line “your sleight of hand,” which immediately made me think of “All eyes on you, my magician” from “…So It Goes,” which describes a hot and cold relationship where both parties have done their fair share of hurting the other but keep falling back in bed together. So, what I’m learning from TayTay is don’t date a magician.

In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. Now it’s up to you to pass them down. folklore is out now: https://t.co/xdcEDfithq

📷: Beth Garrabrant pic.twitter.com/vSDo9Se0fp

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 24, 2020

All in all, there is no bad song on folklore, only songs that resonate in the very core of my heart and soul and songs that don't quite leave me speechless but are still beautiful. This is a no skip album, because it's a story, and to skip a song would be to skip a chapter of this stunning book Taylor Swift has gifted us with. So, go put on a cardigan and grab a mug of tea (or maybe a bottle of wine). We've got feelings to feel.

May the rosé  always flow with your chosen family and may you, too, have a marvelous time ruining everything,

Katie