Celebrating 2 Years of ‘folklore’: Revisiting Taylor Swift’s Magnum Opus
How an unexpected quarantine project turned into the pop star’s career-redefining record.
Following the release of her pastel-packed seventh studio album Lover in 2019, Taylor Swift was set to spend summer of 2020 playing festival shows around the globe, including a headlining gig at the famed Glastonbury Festival. “The Lover album is open fields, sunsets, + SUMMER,” Swift said in the announcement of Lover Fest.
Of course, the pandemic struck and live shows were brought to a halt. The world went into lockdown, and so did Swift. She found herself “completely listless and purposeless,” but eventually sought comfort in her forte — songwriting. In April 2020, Swift set forth to build a professional home studio to record music remotely. Reaching out to Aaron Dessner, whose band The National, is a favorite of hers, as well as longtime producing partner Jack Antonoff, Swift quickly embarked on a new musical project.
By July, Swift had an entire body of work in her hands. Owing to the imaginative nature of the album as opposed to Swift’s trademark autobiographical songwriting, she settled on folklore as the album title.
On July 23, 2020, Swift shocked the world with the introduction of her eighth studio album, leaving fans around the world in disbelief. Indeed, it was an unprecedented release strategy for Swift, whose previous album cycles were meticulously planned years in advance.
The tender piano notes of “the 1” is the first sound a listener would hear on folklore. Never has an opening line pulled people in like “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit”. Swift sings it so nonchalantly, it feels refreshing for someone whose music is typically polished and elaborate. The song is pensive and intimate, immediately setting the tone of the album like most opening tracks of Swift’s albums do. Likewise, the vivid imagery of “the 1”, from bus stops to Sunday matinées, promises an album of wild imagination.
Besides “the 1”, Dessner produced ten other songs on the album, including the album’s lead single “cardigan”. Swift attempts something new here — the timeless piano ballad is one of three songs on the album which are interlinked in narrative. Besides the aforementioned “cardigan”, “august” and “betty” each present the perspective of three characters caught in a fictional love triangle story.
“betty” probably serves as Swift’s furthest retreat back into her country roots since Red. Driven by a twangy harpsichord and melodic harmonica, the song addresses themes of longing by its narrator James, one of the main characters of the love triangle.
The breezy “august” starts off rather unsuspectingly, but quickly builds in tension and transforms into a full-blown gust of sonic wind. The summer anthem eventually culminates in an adrenaline-laced bridge, cementing its position in the Swift–Antonoff canon alongside fan favorites like “Out of the Woods”, “Getaway Car”, and “Cruel Summer”.
For a songwriter known to write so vividly about her personal life, folklore is almost completely removed from direct references to her individual experiences. A great example of Swift’s new songwriting approach is “the last great american dynasty”, which chronicles the outrageous life story of socialite Rebekah Harkness and her Holiday House. Of course, in a classic Swiftian turn of events, she flips the song’s narrative around during the last line of the song’s bridge, revealing that she is now the owner of said Holiday House. What began as a peek into the history of a random woman, became a striking comparison between Harkness and Swift herself, and with this parallel reveals a tongue-in-cheek critique of society’s misogyny and sexist treatment by media.
Besides Dessner and Antonoff, Swift also worked with Justin Vernon of indie folk band Bon Iver, whose vocals are featured on “exile”. Vernon and Swift trade melodies in the soaring piano duet, particularly in the bridge where their lines respond to each other like an unspoken conversation.
On sole virtue of being the fifth track of the album, “my tears ricochet” immediately received special attention from Swift’s fans, owing to the long-standing theory where track five is the most vulnerable song on each of her albums. Indeed, the mellow ballad swells with plenty of layered vocals, evoking an icy and haunting vibe. The lyrics may be interpreted as the words of a ghost who sings to the person who betrayed and killed her. It didn’t take long for fans to theorize that the song is an ambiguous reference to Swift’s masters dispute and her public fallout with Scott Borchetta, her ex-label’s founder.
Another understated highlight of folklore is the self-aware anthem “mirrorball”. Beneath Antonoff’s dreamy production lies one of Swift’s most brutally relatable metaphors — likening herself to a reflective disco ball that is always shining on others. Swift’s role as an entertainer plays into her people-pleasing tendency, but it comes with its set of vulnerabilities and endless potential for self-doubt and isolation. “I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try,” Swift sings in the bridge one of the album’s most relatable lyrics.
Songs like “this is me trying”, and “epiphany” further explore lyrical themes like human existence and lingering trauma, thus adding fresh perspectives of introspection and melancholy to the album.
Some of folklore’s most delicate moments come towards the end of the tracklist. In “peace”, Swift delivers some of her most strikingly emotional lyrics yet. “Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?” Swift’s voice aches as she asks a question of layered complexity, especially when taking into consideration Swift’s celebrity and the media’s obsession with her dating life. Dessner’s production is stripped almost bare by the end of the album, but it is in its simplicity coupled with Swift’s bare vocals that truly bring out the magic in “peace”, as well as the equally raw album closer “hoax”.
Alternatively, deluxe track “the lakes” offers an extended ending to the album. “Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die,” Swift begs in the escapist ballad. Swirling with orchestra strings, the song is an ode to Romantic poets who found solace in England’s Lake District and serves as a formal farewell for Swift in her folklore journey.
The strength of folklore lies in its vivid storytelling. Even through imaginary characters, Swift is able to insert authenticity into their stories and allow emotions to simmer in the music. The 17 songs on folklore contain their own unique fragment of the human condition, and while each distinctive, still work cohesively as part of Swift’s overarching vision to tell human stories.
Fans of Swift might argue that folklore was not quite the spontaneous project it seemed. Instead, it was an album over a decade in the making, taking its time to materialize as Swift diligently honed her craft over the years. Swift’s songwriting talent has always shined in scattered light in gems like “All Too Well” and “Blank Space”, but arguably, never fully comes through in a realized body of work. As Swift navigated through new genres and sonic territories, she had the tendency to limit her creativity with self-imposed parameters. With folklore, she has let go of these expectations and truly let the music speak for itself.
While there were initial doubts whether the Recording Academy would award Swift with Album of the Year once again (Swift previously won with Fearless and 1989), fears were quelled when folklore bagged the prized award at the 63rd Grammy Awards, making her the only woman to have won Album of the Year three times.
Two years on, fans and critics alike mostly agree that folklore is Swift’s magnum opus. The record has also been constantly cited as an influence by fellow peers of Swift. From Hayley Williams to Rina Sawayama, artists have been drawn to the intimate and imaginative nature of folklore. Indeed, folklore has went on to inspire many artists, but perhaps none quite as poetic as Swift herself with her follow-up album evermore. Even after folklore’s release, Swift never stopped making music with Dessner and Antonoff. In less than five months after folklore’s release, its sister album evermore was released.
folklore will be remembered as the album which offered us a moment of respite amidst the chaos and a glimmer of hope when anxieties were at an all time high. But most importantly, it reminded us of the power of music — to empower, to unite, and to prescribe meaning to the complex human condition.
Go ahead, enjoy folklore like it’s the first time, and don’t forget to pass Swift’s stories down like folk songs.
