Taylor’s New Album
I charged up my AirPods (which is tricky lately as the left pod is never as cooperative at the right) and listened to Folklore from start to finish during my favorite Covid activity: floating in the pool.
THIS DRIVES ME CRAZY!
Say what you want about Taylor Swift (and a lot of us have) — I’ve been told some things for which I’ve been sworn to secrecy — things that make me want to hate her record but — I can’t hate this record.
Plus, rumors fly. Hater’s gonna hate. And…if we embrace only music from artists we perceive as perfect it would be pretty quiet out there.
Taylor Swift is an exquisite story teller, queen of the 2-syllable soft-rhyme, a word-play enthusiast, a medium. She lost the plot for a minute there (IMO) with Look What You Made Me Do 😳but she got it back pretty quickly.
That said, after listening to Folklore I had to ask myself has this girl actually experienced all the heartbreak, rejection, feelings she sings about? Have all those guys really broken up with her? No way!
But then I got set straight by a millennial mentee who pointed me to the IG post where Taylor offers a ‘disclaimer’: much of the material on Folklore is not about her life at all.
Thus “Folklore:” myths, tales, fables.
Which makes me wonder if the girl in the bleachers truly ever envied the cheerleader.
Well, good for her. (I think.) The most masterful writers are those who can paint pictures, observe other people’s lives and put themselves in their shoes. Songwriters are vessels. Our job is to connect. Taylor conjures language that beelines for (and captures) hearts and minds…language that taps into the coulda-beens, the lost summers, the unexplained good-byes, the incurable romantic, the insecurity, obsession, desperation and hope of young love.
And for those who aren’t so young any more but remember ‘it’ all too well, she speaks to us too — to our inner 20-year-old with whom we get into bed at night and still wonder about the one that got away.
She makes us feel like she’s every girl. Like she’s been there even though she hasn’t.
Ok, Cool. It’s just that I’ve always been more interested and invested in the artist who writes from personal experience. Heart-on-their-sleeve-for-real. In fact, I’m curious about what’s actually going on in Taylor’s life but would that be as provocative as what’s going on in her (fertile) imagination?
And speaking of imagination, what writer wouldn’t die for an imagination like that? No Writers’ Block Ever. We’d never run out of things to say.
But she’s not just a writer. She’s an artist — whose world we long to know.
That said, I floated. Gorgeous song after gorgeous song. On “Mirrorball” I picked up some Phoebe Bridgers’ vibes — an Inde, Rolling Stone darling who writes about stuff that really happened to her. That matters to me. It makes a difference. Stranger In The Alps (I’m pretty sure Taylor’s heard it) is a concept album about the aftermath of her emotionally abusive relationship with Ryan Adams. It’s raw, dreamy, uncomfortable.
Curious, I switched over to Phoebe’s latest album Punisher. By “Garden Song” there were “Teardrops in the Swimming Pool” (title alert!) While I’m in awe of Taylor’s insight and her pop sensibility, Phoebe makes me cry. It’s the difference between being there and imagining you were.
As for the sonics on Folklore, well, you know (or maybe you don’t)…it’s produced and co-written with Jack Antonoff (of Bleachers/Fun), Aaron Dessner (of The National), Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) and mystery man William Bowery. How can you go wrong with those cats in the room? But she was in the room too...telling those stories and decorating the scenes with that delicious furniture.
There are a ton of records out there that — when you take away the sonics you don’t have much of a song. They’re stunning records, but just Ok songs. Folklore is both
Favorite tracks/lines:
“August” - August slipped away like a bottle of wine cuz you were never mine
“The One” - The greatest loves of all time are over now
“Cardigan” - Chasing shadows in the grocery line
(Which begs the question: does Taylor Swift really do her own marketing?)
And speaking of “Cardigan,” this felt like déjà vu:
I knew you / Dancing in your Levi’s / Drunk under a streetlight …
…but then I realized it’s very similar-ish in cadence and melody to:
Say you’ll remember me / Standing in a nice dress / Staring at the sunset..from “Wildest Dreams”
Right? For a minute there I thought I was back in 1989. Same tricks.
Then there’s “Betty,” for which I have 2 questions:
What the hell did Taylor do to Betty? And…
Do I even care?
But I forgive “Betty.” Cuz the thing is, I can’t wait to hear the whole album again. Sometimes it scares me when records are that good because it makes me feel like I never want to write another song. But I’m tired of resisting.
And yeah. Even though I prefer the heart-on-the-sleeve-for-real kind of artist I’m also a junkie for the Great American Pop Song. For stellar craft and lush aesthetic. Phoebe may make me cry but Taylor fires up my senses in many other ways. She’s even got me believing she was all those people and in all those places in a past life. So, I’ll keep floating and listening to one from Column A and one from Column B.
In a year that can’t end quickly enough — one that we’ll probably want to forget forever — culturally speaking, Folklore will be something we’ll probably remember for a long time. At least I will.
Is that left pod charged yet?
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