the air was cold

catherine | 25 | seattle ♡ my dream is to one day say hello to taylor swift ♡ swiftie since 09 ♡ reputation london 2018 ♡ 1989 melbourne 2015 ♡ speak now auckland 2012 ♡ read my folklore essay

[iknowthatitsdelicate]

taylor swift’s folklore: stepping into the lyrics

taylor swift’s folklore: stepping into the lyrics

I wrote an essay (started before evermore ever existed) that I have finished in time for the one year anniversary of folklore! It's 9k words long and explores the different themes and imagery that appear in folklore.

There are different interpretations of the songs as the essay goes on, relating to different themes such as The Teenage Love Triangle (of course), the mad woman, summer love, and Taylor's recordings. There is an emphasis on how, as Taylor put it, "the lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible". So you will find more than one interpretation of a particular song.

I really, really hope you all enjoy as it was written by a fan for fans to read. It's that "in this essay i will" but the essay actually exists. You can find it here in a google doc. It's 9k words long!! But hopefully some of you would want to read some of it :) I'm quite nervous to post it!!

[bloodmoonlich]

Choose one of my favorite short folklore lyrics

I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs

And I can go anywhere I want, anywhere I want, just not home

I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try

And though I can't recall your face, I still got love for you

Wanting was enough, for me it was enough, to live for the hope of it all

It's hard to be at a party when I feel like an open wound

Time, mystical time, cutting me open then healing me fine

Our coming-of-age has come and gone

All these people think love's for show, but I would die for you in secret

My best laid plan, your sleight of hand, my barren land, I am ash from your fire

Remaining time: 4 days 15 hours

[cages-boxes-hunters-foxes]

today while listening to ttpd i had the epiphany that clara bow is there because the way the industry lies and tells you you're the shiny, special next big thing to exploit you is not that different than the way men lie and say they love you to get you into bed, and i just had to put it here because aslkdfjsdhgg

wow this is an extremely big brained thought (also the way they lie and promise you a future they can’t or won’t deliver on). really mirrors the manuscript in this way and showcases the whole cycle that is at the heart of TTPD and in some ways is part of how she’s thought about some of the arcs of her life - she gets at this in the NYT songwriter interview

[blankspace-sydney]

listening to showgirl top to bottom and a huge theme is actually learning to be loved by someone who actually just fucking likes you. daisy’s bare naked i was distraught he loves me not

[darkbluetennessee]

"your past and mine are parallel lines/they intertwined" -> "some stars never align" pipeline makes me sad

the degradation from writing about the relationship as fate and cosmic intervention to writing about it as something she had to shoehorn into existence says sooooo much

[xnutsa]

HQ video of Taylor performing "I knew it, I knew you" at Toy Story 5 premiere in LA (9.06.2026) via @/disney on Instagram

[maryoliveoil]

TAYLOR SWIFT "I Knew It, I Knew You"

[cages-boxes-hunters-foxes]

“World tours and ego wars” is such a bar

that whole bit just shows such extreme mastery of the english language. mama can really write a speech! and you can tell that she writes these things herself (even though i’m sure she has her people look and edit)

“….the ups and downs, the industry battles, the trials and tribulations, the tears and the cheers and the dogpiling of doubt, the criticisms, both fair and unfair, the complete loss of privacy, the world tours, and the ego wars, and the twists of fate, the absolute magical chaos of this path that I chose when I was too young to remember it ever being a choice at all”

[maryoliveoil]

TAYLOR SWIFT & RANDY NEWMAN "You've Got a Friend in Me" at the Toy Story 5 premiere

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

“Love has a way of bringing things back to life” is spiritually the same foundation as “his love was the key that opened my thighs skies” in this essay I will—

[darkbluetennessee]

"i knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired and you'd be standing in my front porch light and i knew you'd come back to me" in the context of "i saw you standing there in the light of the window wearing that same smile man, it's been a while but i knew it, i knew you"

[sayspeaknow]

can’t turn back now i’m haunted / wondered how many girls he had loved and left haunted / now i’m searching for signs in a haunted club / i think your house is haunted / haunted by the look in my eyes / some kind of haunted / they don’t know how you’ve haunted me so stunningly / yes i’m haunted but i’m feeling just fine / i thought my house was haunted

[kallumdesign]

Taylor albums as the life of a showgirl

[stephsxcorner]

I have this very strong opinion that when you're young you feel things on such a intense and detailed level...

[darkbluetennessee]

the interview and its use of love-bombing to describe the entertainment industry has made my third eye open. because why am i listening to MBOBHFT and thinking about taylor in interview talking about how people like to play with celebrities like sims. ttpd for all its accusations of being sprawling is a very tightly bound revolving around its themes. clara bow/the manuscript how could it have ended any differently!

i really do think people ie culture at large will have a moment (when they have some distance) when they realise that this first arc of albums leading up to tloas is the grandest of novels and should be experienced that way. like love-bombing made me think of how it reinforced her choices in FF. the suggestion of intimacy and sexual undertones in the lyrics, the languorous music. hoax makes even more sense, it has made red even darker and so on and so on. not that it didn’t all make sense before but it unlocked the sketch behind the masterpiece for me iykwim

the joe/scott mixed muse songs says a lot re: the effects of love bombing in her personal and professional life tbh. the two really coincided and kind of fueled each other

[great-gatsby]

what strikes me about “all of this to say, i hope you’re okay” is that it foretells the album’s later events in that, in one reading anyway, she loved someone so much that she died for them to be okay. so long london, fresh out the slammer, and chloe et al are three examples off the top of my head that describe a lover struggling emotionally, and her struggling to help them not struggle. she sacrificed herself to try to make them love her, and it didn’t work. so she tried harder. “i hope you’re okay,” she said again and again and again. and then, eventually, so quietly that no one bothered to hear: “but you’re the reason.”

i think the album is about, on some level, reckoning with wanting someone to be okay and also knowing they’re the reason you’re not.

[darkbluetennessee]

Meanwhile today's revelation for me is the line from my tears ricochet to Father Figure. Like it's about her business/music situation, but it also applies to her relationship. They both blend the two stories together (in my opinion anyway) and can be read both ways so seamlessly.

my tears ricochet is one of those songs that was fully written with scott in mind, but in hindsight does apply to joe as well in some ways. but again, those betrayals were eerily similar in the end

i can go anywhere i want just not home -> little did you know your home's really only a town you're just a guest in -> i'm just mad as hell 'cause i loved this place for so long, london

you wear the same jewels that i gave you as you bury me -> didn't notice you walking all over my peace of mind in the shoes i gave you as a present -> mistake my kindness for weakness and find your card cancelled