When Swift chose to give no interviews around Folklore’s release, her fans were left to fill in the gaps, with many of them digging deep to uncover the stories that might have inspired each track. It’s like a surface bubbling. I think that is symptomatic of folklore, this type of narrative song. Taylor Swift literally plays The Man in new video. I think that sometimes she would point it out entirely, but I would start to see these patterns. (Cue the plaintive harmonica.) Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. Mainly she talked about emotion and to lean into it, the nostalgia and wistfulness, and the kind of raw, meditative emotion that I often kind of inhabit that I think felt very much where her heart was. Jason Woliner, a.k.a. Some songs are more mysterious than others. Taylor Swift’s 'Folklore' wins with its subtle tunes and stories. I think it’s actually someone else, but it’s good to have some mysteries. We trade ideas all the time and he made a folder, and there was a pulse in there that I wrote these basslines to. Maybe it’s subconsciously been an influence. Our look back at the classic high school series begins with a pilot episode establishing the clique labels that will dissolve as the show progresses. Kevin Mazur—Netflix/Getty Images; Getty Images, Biden's Sign Language Interpreter Tied to Far Right. It’s kind of like coming out of “seven” where you have this image of her in the swing and she’s seven years old, and then in “august” I think it feels like fast-forwarding to now. These three songs explore a love triangle from all three people’s perspectives at different times in their lives.” Consensus has led listeners to believe the three songs in question are “Betty,” “Cardigan” and “August.” Woven together, they tell a story of betrayal, heartache and sweet teen angst. Related Stories Movies I think of mythical creatures and stories passed down for generations — which could potentially be true in some respects. All Rights Reserved. It’s kind of looking back at childhood and those childhood feelings, recounting memories and memorializing them. Its heart is folk storytelling. Folklore is an album of stories, of (as Swift's liner notes explain) "fantasy, history and memory," crafted with some of her finest lyrics to date. Natalie Morin. Still, as she announced in advance, she buried plenty of Easter eggs in her words for her fans to unpack at will. This is a big departure. I think they both put so much raw emotion into it. Write to Raisa Bruner at raisa.bruner@time.com. But Dessner was game to speak to his specific contributions, influences, and own interpretations of each song on folklore, a record you can sum up by two words that came up often during our conversation: nostalgic and wry. The singer, 30, only released her seventh studio album Lover last year on August 23, 2019. It was a surprise album, released through Republic Records on July 24, 2020, eleven months after its predecessor, Lover (2019). On social media, she was neither cryptically silent nor strategically active: she seemed, for the first time in a long time, like she was just living her life and drinking wine on her couch like many of us, big plans on hold. Dessner is the one to thank for all these little details. It has this shimmering summer haze to it. I interpreted that and built the song, played the piano, and built around that template. But the truth is that the music, that way of playing with harmonized basslines, is something that probably comes a little bit from me being inspired by how Justin does that sometimes. The “who” of it all, of course, remains murky. I would send songs to Bryce for him to add orchestration, and then he would send them back. He would compose to them and then I would have people record them over here remotely.”, Dessner explains of the one unknown name who pops up in the. It felt like one of the songs that pulls you along. And the rest of us? All rights reserved. It has a darkness that I think is cathartic, sort of witch-hunting and gaslighting and maybe bullying. You can’t talk about it. “The Last Great American Dynasty,” in contrast, is specific and historical: the story of socialite Rebekah Harkness, the prior inhabitant of Swift’s own expansive Rhode Island estate. It’s a beautiful kind of garden, or like you’re lost in a beautiful garden. There’s an emotional wryness and rawness, while also to this kind of wink in her eyes. On Taylor Swift's surprise eighth album Folklore, ... “Mad Woman,” for instance, is the story of a “misfit widow getting gleeful revenge,” according to her note on social media. It’s lodged in my brain. Taylor Swift's folklore is her surprise eighth album that she released at midnight on July 24, 2020.The latest album completely stylized in lowercase letters. Swift also would start some songs by sending voice memos to Dessner, who would then flesh them out or write music to it. This is maybe the closest thing to a pop song. I sent it before I went on a run, and when I got back from the run, that song was there [laughs]. Taylor Swift's latest album Folklore has returned to number one in America, becoming the first record to sell more than a million copies in 2020. And I think Jack, if he was working with orchestrations, there’s an emotional quality to his songs that’s clearly in the same world as mine. I think she just heard it, and instantly, this song came to her, which is really an important one. She doesn’t often get to work with music that is so raw and emotional, or melodic and emotional, at the same time. ... Taylor Swift is a writer’s writer. She knew that there was something coming because she said, “You know, I love this and I’m hearing something already.” And then she said, “This will change the story,” this beautiful and direct kind of recounting of a relationship in its origin. You can unsubscribe at any time. Holy Floop, Robert Rodriguez Is Making Another. I have my own ideas. It was very much in this sound world that I’ve been playing around with, and she immediately clicked with that. Taylor Swift’s ‘betty’ Is Queer Canon. 1 on the Billboard 200 album charts. It has this very sharp tone to it, but sort of in gothic folklore. (Here’s a cheat sheet: Jack’s songs soar, Aaron’s glide.) Please try again later. Either way, the web of perspectives and emotions outlined in the track trio presents Swift fans with plenty of material to parse through as they unravel the mystery of Swift’s feelings and her new album’s connotations. There’s probably a connection there. It’s an artist who’s extended her ambitions to looking back and getting a little lost in the memory haze, digging up an old favorite cardigan for comfort. To this day, its lyrics still cause debate. Swift isn’t quite following in Harris’ footsteps, but she made a number of winning artistic choices while creating a pair of laudable albums, “Folklore” and “Evermore,” in 2020. But even in her downtime, curtains drawn on her celebrity, Swift was creating. Taylor Swift is the master story-teller and queen of breakup songs. She told me the story behind it, which sort of recounts the narrative of Rebekah Harkness, whom people actually called Betty. Its production is every kind of thing fans have heard and loved on breakup albums in the last decade. Quarantine has us all dragging up old memories and wondering what’s still real. We actually didn’t have a moodboard for the album at all. Taylor Swift’s folklore Isn’t a Return to Her Roots, But Somewhere She’s Never Been. Are you more "cardigan" or "exile"? They come in and sort of pull you along, kind of reminiscent of Big Red Machine. But “Betty” can also be read as vaguely autobiographical, which some fans are keen to do. She also loves to weave in references to her old music, a trail of breadcrumbs for fans to follow from era to era. I think she said to me, “Don’t try to give it any other space other than what feels natural to you.” If you leave me in a room with a piano, I might play something like this. It created this giant stack of harmony, which is so giant that it was kind of hard to manage, sonically, but it was very beautiful to get lost in. Eventually, Taylor bought that house. The narrative is essential, and kind of what it’s all about. It would be fruitless to break down every Swift lyric; the songwriting can be poetically obtuse, and she’s telling many stories, from many character points of view, with many aching regrets. Bob Dylan’s second LP, released in 1963, features some of his most stripped-down acoustic folk songs, with plenty of harmonica. It was only after writing six or seven songs, basically when I thought my writing was done, when we got on the phone and said, “OK, I think we’re making an album. “Chris,” goes inside, Weinstein Sexual Misconduct Settlement Approved for $17 Million by Judge. But there’s something else incredibly soothing and comforting about this song. There’s a reality, the gravity or an understanding of the human condition. She would always talk about it. Everyone's Personality Matches A Song From Taylor Swift's "Folklore" — Which One Is Yours? Maybe I’m reading into it too much from my own perspective, but [I think of] the whole album as an exercise and working through these stories, whether personal or old through someone else’s perspective. I think it’s this sort of nostalgia and wistfulness that is in a lot of the songs. With her 2020 release Folklore, Swift tells the story of a teen love triangle.She sprinkles in personal songs about her relationship with Jow Alwyn as well.. I don’t think Jack … well, Jack might, but when I say the Cardigans or Mazzy Star, those aren’t Jack’s words about “mirrorball,” it’s just what calls to mind for me. “Mad Woman,” for instance, is the story of a “misfit widow getting gleeful revenge,” according to her note on social media. I think it’s just a breezy, sort of intoxicating feeling. It’s this record’s goth song. But then we kept going, and more and more songs happened. I don’t know. I can’t speak to what it’s about. We didn’t talk too much about it [laughs]. And when she sings “You drew stars around my scars” on the same song, close followers might flash back to the “guitar string scars” of “Lover.”. I don’t really know if she does either. There are a few other little bits, but basically that was one of the very last things we did. folklore: the long pond studio sessions will feature Swift performing each song from folklore, in order, while revealing the stories and secrets behind all 17 tracks for the first time. Initially I was imagining these dreamlike distant electric guitars and electronics but with an element of folk. Obviously, he’s a dear friend of mine and collaborator. Good comparison. Sometimes you become the person people try to pin you into a corner to be, which is not really fair. This feels like one of the real folk songs on the record, a sharp-witted narrative folk song. If there’s one thing we know about Taylor Swift, it’s that she works hard. Folklore is a little more, well, folkloric: “The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible,” she shared in an advance statement about the lyrical content. She said that she’s a fan of the emotion that’s conveyed in our music. Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription, Taylor Swift and Bon Iver Find Perfect Harmony on ‘exile’. “this is me trying,” to me, relates to the entire album. You believe that they’re having this intense dialogue. It’s memorializing love, childhood, and memories. In the past year, Taylor Swift’s public dispute with music manager Scooter Braun over her music catalog made headlines and raised questions about the ownership artists have over the music they create. The song [began from] the voice memo she sent me, and then I worked on the music some and we tracked her vocals, and then my brother added orchestration. By Brady Gerber. Published 24 July 2020. It is mostly described as an indie folk, alternative rock, and electro-folkalbum while a few classify it as pop. Taylor Swift's eighth album, Folklore, was surprise-released Friday.The record features production by The National's Aaron Dessner and a new set of songwriting tools. There’s sadness, but it’s a kind of hopeful sadness. It’s more about the narrative aspect of it. With so few events to attend, live music still mostly canceled and many artists postponing their work, fresh projects are bound to find rapt audiences whether or not they are coming from Taylor Swift. The album’s famous cover, shot in New York on Jones St., is one block away from Cornelia Street. To me, it’s this Icelandic kind of feel, almost classical. You just bear witness to them. Find out what … I think it’s a brilliant composition, and Taylor’s words, the way her voice sounds and how this song feels, are, to me, one of the critical pieces. When I think of folklore, I think of mythology, fantasy and fairytales. That’s the first song we wrote [in early May]. You\'ll receive the next newsletter in your inbox. Folklore (stylized in all lowercase) is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. But over the years, the songstress has transformed herself in many ways. When I woke up in the morning, I wrote her before she woke up in LA and said, “These have to be on the record.” She woke up and said, “I agree” [laughs]. For “epiphany,” she did have this idea of a beautiful drone, or a very cinematic sort of widescreen song, where it’s not a lot of accents but more like a sea to bathe in. It gets loud. With other people I had to be secretive, but with Justin, because he was going to sing, I actually did send him a version of the song with her vocals and told him what I was up to. *Sorry, there was a problem signing you up. Every song has these kinds of lyrical winks, reinforcing the universe that Swift has crafted even as she expands it with her newfound layers of fantasy and character. Aaron Dessner confirms: folklore is Taylor Swift’s goth record. Now they’re also medical professionals. The core of it sounds like a folk song. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. It has this lazy swagger. The opening song, “The 1,” is an ode to what could have been. Folklore is what a lot of fans have been waiting for all along: a lengthy, emotionally-wrought indie album. Folklore is the 8 th studio album from Taylor Swift. There’s a little bit of her sense of humor in there, in addition to this kind of sadness that exists both underneath and on the surface. We recorded Taylor’s vocals with her singing her parts but also the male parts. This is one of my absolute favorite songs on the record. Unlike her previous album Lover, which exuded bright pastels of pop, the monochromatic Folklore demonstrates the musical roots of Swift’s country past by delving into a more ethereal alternate style. We’re close, but she won’t tell me that. Tragic poetry, I guess. “Exile”: According to the theory, the Swift–Bon Iver duet is Betty and James singing to each other as they break up. I wrote this, and Justin provided the pulse. There’s a kind of Greek poetry to it. It’s this epic narrative folk song where it tells us a long story and connects back to “cardigan.” It starts to connect dots and I think it’s a beautifully written folk song. On “Epiphany,” Swift dives into the experience of another historical character: her grandfather, Dean, when he landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in 1942. “cardigan” was one of those sketches; it was originally called “Maple.” It was basically exactly what it is on the record, except we added orchestration later that my brother wrote. She is a fan of the band, and she’s a fan of Big Red Machine. mysteriously-named collaborator called William Bowery, To kiss in cars and downtown bars was all we needed, Let's Break Down Taylor Swift's Tender New Album. Published 27 February 2020. Taylor Swift's folklore Sweeps 2021 Grammys Nominations Taylor Swift just added to her already impressive number of Grammy nominations. That was clear to her. She wanted it to have an early Bob Dylan, sort of a Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan feel. She just dialed directly into the heart of the music and wrote an incredible song and fully conceived of it and then kept going.It harkens back to lessons learned, or experiences in your youth, in a really beautiful way and this sense of longing and sadness, but ultimately, it’s cathartic. The album clearly shows a venture into new sonic realms for the cross-genre star. Why Holocaust Remembrance Day Matters More Than Ever. It’s a recognition that you take on the burden of your partners, your loved ones, and their ups and downs. He was like, “Whoa! But those ballads have often been her most poignant work. The album was sort of finished before that. It has one of the most important lines on the record: “And just like a folk song, our love will be passed on.” That’s what this album is doing. That’s also very important to Taylor and Jack. This is the one where Taylor wanted a reference. I think we have different styles, and we weren’t making them together or in the same room. Each song from folklore has a distinct meaning that resonates with Taylor Swift's life.Here is what every song on Taylor Swift's folklore actually means. It’s believable, you know? To me, that’s the underlying mission of the song. “And some things,” she sings after describing a harrowing moment of war, “you just can’t speak about.”. Okay, but is it A24-core?[Laughs.] I said, “Well, if he’s inspired by the song, he’ll do it, and if not, he won’t.” I sent it to him and said, “No pressure at all, literally no pressure, but how do you feel about this?” He said, “Wow.” He wrote some parts into it also, and we went back and forth a little bit, but it felt like an incredibly natural and safe collaboration between friends. But again, don’t quote me on that [laughs], I just have my own interpretation. I thought it was a perfect match for the music, and how her voice feels. Even all her songs are titled in lowercase. Her songs are not only a glimpse of her personal journey but also explain her whims, dreams, and aspirations. I enjoy that about her writing. They released their official self-titled debut LP in 2018, and this year released “No Time For Love Like Now” with Michael Stipe. It’s like an archipelago, and each song is an island, but it’s all related. She was married to the heir of Standard Oil fortune, married into the Harkness family, and they bought this house in Rhode Island up on a cliff. “Hoax,” a quiet piano ballad, details a relationship flawed but lasting. We both could probably come closer together in a sense that weirdly works. In the other parts of the composition, I did it to Justin’s pulse. Taylor heard this sketch and she wrote the song. Taylor Swift’s eighth studio album, folklore, was recorded “in isolation” during the COVID-19 pandemic. But I love the feeling in it and the production that Jack did. In quarantine, any album release finds new resonance. For Taylor Swift, it means writing and recording an entire album in just a few months and executing an out-of-nowhere record release, complete with cardigans. A new date and a record number of submissions. It’s passing down. More on this story. To date, the album has reached over 1.2 million in album-equivalent sales. It’s like a beacon for this record. Just playing it on one guitar, it has this emotional locomotion in it, a meditative finger-picking pattern that I really gravitate to. I also was interested in this almost In Rainbows-style latticework of electric guitars. Books Stars we lost TV shows 100 movies to stream A lot of them have this kind of longing for looking back on things that have happened in your life, in your friend’s life, or another loved one’s life, and the kind of storytelling around that. We didn’t shy away from that. But we were something, don’t you think so? “Exile,” with Bon Iver, reeks with the pain of parting. She evolved into rock-pop by 1989, stretched herself into hip-hop on the spiky Reputation, went full-throated pop on Lover. Please attempt to sign up again. Just send anything, literally anything, it could be the weirdest thing you’ve ever done,” so I sent a folder of stuff I had done that I was really excited about recently. She had a vision, and it was connecting back in some way to the folk tradition, but obviously not entirely sonically. The Story Behind Every Song on Taylor Swift’s, Kellyanne Conway Accused of Posting Nude Photo of Teen Daughter Claudia, Travis Barker Is Reportedly Kourtney Kardashian’s Punk Rock Prince, UCLA Gymnast Nia Dennis Is Back With More Beyoncé in a New Floor Routine, ‘We’ll Never Make That Kind of Movie Again’, Adaptation on the Floor: Sarah Snook Will Lead Jane Austen’s. We talked a lot about who she thought would be perfect to sing, and we kept coming back to Justin [Vernon]. I wrote that after we’d been working for a while. With folklore’s teen heartbreak trilogy, Swift circles the same affair from each party’s differing view. “To kiss in cars and downtown bars was all we needed,” she sings on “Cardigan,” and it sounds a lot like an echo of her lyrics on Lover’s “Cornelia Street” (“We were in the backseat, drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar”). It almost reminds me of ‘90s-era Cardigans, or something like Mazzy Star. There’s a lot going on in that sense. I sent [the file] at 9 p.m., and around 2 a.m. or something, there was “cardigan,” fully written. I have these six other ideas that I love with Jack [Antonoff] that we’ve already done, and I think what we’ve done fits really well with them.” It’s sort of these narratives, these folkloric songs, with characters that interweave and are written from different perspectives. I Don’t Make the Rules. She’s well aware of the sentiment of it and what I do, but she didn’t ask for a certain kind of thing. It’s partially the story of her grandfather, who was a soldier, and partially then a story about a nurse in modern times. Courtesy of the artist It just shows her versatility and her power as a songwriter, the sharpness of her writing. The Story Behind Every Song on Taylor Swift’s folklore. And then I played the piano to it, and it almost felt classical or something, those suspended chords. But then the coronavirus pandemic swept in and, presumably, cleared her pop star slate. Many of Dessner’s songs started from him sending files of sketches from a folder of ideas to Swift, who then replied with updated files of her ideas and additions. Why Has GameStop's Stock Gone Up So High Recently? I know that the film [I Am Easy To Find] has really affected her, and she’s very much in love with that film and the record. Aaron Dessner confirms: folklore is Taylor Swift’s goth record. And she has never sounded better. It’s played on this rubber bridge that my friend put on [the guitar] and it deadens the strings so that it sounds old. “the 1” and “hoax,” the first song and the last song, were the last songs we did. (“A pretty wild ride,” he admits, sounding tired yet happy.) My brother did really beautiful orchestration of it. ... like stories, legends, songs, sayings, dances, and popular beliefs. The July 23 release of Folklore, her 16-track eighth album, came as a surprise even to devout followers: only 11 months after Lover, it was the first time she’d put out a project on less than a two-year schedule. A stillness, in a sense. This one Taylor and William wrote, and then both Jack and I worked on it. Folklore isn’t the pop star album that will drive worries away and replace them with sparkle. How do you just have that?” [laughs] I was humbled and honored because she just said, “It’s a gift, and I want to write to all of this.” She didn’t write to all of it, but a lot of it, and relatively quickly. We thought it was complete, but Taylor then went back into the folder of ideas that I had shared. Swift has historically been one of our most confessional pop stars in her music, often mining her personal archives for material. This is one of my favorites, for sure. “mirrorball” is, to me, a hazy sort of beautiful. Still adjusting to pandemic life, still engaged in important conversations about our country’s racist history, we might also want something at just this unhurried tempo. With production from Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, Folklore eschews the upbeat pop of Swift's previous albums for mellow ballads driven by piano and guitar. I also know where Taylor’s heart is, and I think that’s great anytime a song takes on greater meaning for anyone. Or, at least, it’s her most gothic record. An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. It’s clear that “the 1” is not written from her perspective. After Taylor asked if I would be interested in writing with her remotely and working on songs, I said, “Are you interested in a certain kind of sound?” She said, “I’m just interested in what you do and what you’re up to. She wrote “the 1,” and then she wrote “hoax” a couple of hours later and sent them in the middle of the night. I think in a way, she didn’t realize she was writing for this album or a future something. It’s cool when you see someone’s mind working. These are the bookends, you know? We all kind of passed it around. It’s a folkloric way of processing. Folklore meets her exactly where she’s strongest, right now. It’s lots of different instruments played and then slowed down and reversed. But again, she is operating at many levels where there are connections between all of these songs, or many of them are interrelated in the characters that reappear. In the past, heroes were just soldiers. It’s kind of the story of this woman and the outrageous parties she threw. It was kind of a guide. On her latest album “folklore,” Taylor Swift has captured these associations I … Swift didn’t bother with the extensive teasing release of past albums; she announced her work on Thursday, rolled it out on Friday and then will sit back over the weekend and enjoy the warm response. We didn’t do very much to that either. © 2021 Vox Media, LLC. She was infamous for not fitting in, entirely, in society; that story, at the end, becomes personal. After writing all these songs, this one felt the most emotional and, in a way, the rawest. It’s connecting a lot of things. By signing up you are agreeing to our, The True Story Behind the New Netflix Film 'Penguin Bloom', Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know now on politics, health and more, © 2021 TIME USA, LLC. In releasing Folklore, Swift was clear and direct about her intent and her work. When I sent her the folder, that was one of the main feelings. This is the second song we wrote. Taylor obviously binds it all together. That Folklore is foggy, that it relies more on smart songwriting and less on speculation about her personal life and complicated visual cues, suggests it’s bound for a long shelf life. Swift was left with her privacy, as lockdowns shuttered us all into our homes. Despite her start as a Nashville darling in the country scene, Swift has always been a musical chameleon. Taylor and William Bowery, the singer-songwriter, wrote that song initially together and sent it to me as a sort of a rough demo where Taylor was singing both the male and female parts. It was a very organic process where [meaning] wasn’t something that we really discussed. He was clear that he can’t speak on behalf of Swift’s lyrics, much like he can’t for The National frontman Matt Berninger’s either, or the thinking behind Jack Antonoff’s songs. Unlike her previous album rollouts, it wasn’t preceded by any press or That’s when I realized something crazy was happening. I first made this crazy drone which starts the song, and it’s there the whole time. Its vision is a grey-blue soundscape: an autumnal album dropped on us in the heat of summer, the first full project of this kind from Swift, inhabiting a truly melancholy space she’s mainly hinted at in past ballads. by Angelica Martinez. Awesome!” But he’s been involved in so many big collaborative things that he wasn’t interested in it from that point of view. But lines like “And women like hunting witches too” harken back to her Reputation era (“They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one,” she sings on “I Did Something Bad”). She said, “What the fuck? Her response has often been to write it all out: address past relationships, excavate heartbreak and frustration, insist on resilience. 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