By the time July 2020 had rolled around, the world was in dire need of new material from Taylor Swift. While she had shared the rose-colored Lover just a year prior, with the rate she shares music now, it’s a wonder the Swifites ever survived those few Swift-starved months.
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She ended their fast with an album no one could’ve expected to come from her: folklore. The foggy, brooding record was a far cry from the hit-laden albums she was making a habit of releasing. Despite the whiplash, it ended up being exactly the kind of record the world needed at that time.
[RELATED: Every Song on Taylor Swift’s ‘folklore’ Ranked]
Swift, who was in lockdown herself, decided to expand the bounds of her songwriting. She looked far beyond herself, orchestrating rich, complex narratives that were only limited by the breadths of her imagination. It transported us to new worlds and, when opportunities to leave our house were few and far between, we couldn’t have asked for more.
While some of the songs could ostensibly be written from Swift’s POV, she mostly tells the tales of other characters: a teenage love triangle, an adulterous relationship, breakups of mortal consequences, and a misunderstood woman marrying beyond her means. Despite being off-the-wall ideas from Swift, they still manage to be deeply relatable. Her talent for connecting with her listeners is truly dumbfounding. Many artists couldn’t strike the same chord while being brutally honest about their own stories, let alone some fictitious drama.
Moreover, the sound of the record was completely different from what we had come to know and love from Swift. While her fans know that she has always kept her songwriting prowess at the front of even her most radio-friendly hits, some may have been misdirected by the splashy production of her previous records. She stripped away the 808s and anthemic choruses and instead took up the mantle of a singer-songwriter. It was an evolution that felt as natural as rain. This new direction was calming, powerful, at times heartbreaking, and at all times an assuage amid a world that was facing unprecedented times.
Swift couldn’t just stop there. A few months later, toward the end of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, she shared yet another album: evermore. Some people were starting to feel the first glimmers of normality after months of lockdowns and health scares. With that in mind (either consciously or unconsciously) Swift made this record a touch lighter. It kept the same narrative songwriting in place while easing up on the more depressing tones.
evermore is like the first warmer day after a bleak winter. There is a tinge of hope in the air, new beginnings are on the horizon, and we can see Spring slowly breaking through the hard ground.
It seems as though Swift brings a little more of herself to this record, but doesn’t let it bog her down. There are still fabricated moments (in the best way possible). We doubt Swift was trying to come clean on “no body, no crime” and given that she has never been married, we can’t hold too much stock in “ivy.” However, there are songs like “marjorie” that feel broadcast straight from Swift’s soul. Elsewhere she mulls over past relationships in “gold rush” and “right where you left me.” She makes sure to reference her folkloric vocabulary but takes a large step back to her musical roots.
While not everyone may have had folklore and evermore on repeat while trying to weather the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a welcomed distraction for many of her fans. And that is what Swift has always been to her fans: a reminder that, in whatever we are going through, we are not alone.
Moreover, it changed Swift’s career forever. She has long been a respected musician and her songwriting has always been a topic of discussion, but she won over even the cynics with these two albums. Perhaps that’s more of a commentary on the misconceived belief that pop music isn’t as “important” as other, more prosaic forms of music. But, whatever the cause, we venture to say that Swift’s career would not be where it is today without folklore and evermore.
Ironically, her two least hit-ready albums were the ones to push her into a whole new stratosphere of fame.
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