I am a Swiftie.
When you are a girl transitioning from your teenage years to the scary twenties, you need an artist that you can relate to through all the ups and downs, someone who understands how hard it can be to grow up. I’ve found that Swift’s lyrics speak to me when I feel down and the beautiful flow of her lyrics calm me down, and I proudly screamed them with my sister during the Eras Tour, and I thought, maybe growing up isn’t that bad?
I understand she is not everyone’s cup of tea. Every time I play Taylor Swift in the car, my best friend says to me, “Oh, not this again, all her songs sound exactly the same!”, and my boyfriend too will beg me not to play her songs for the thirtieth time a day. Yet both individuals will still tell me how they think her lyrics are clever; the way they manage to sound poetic and relatable to different audiences and tell stories through beautiful imagery can still capture even the biggest Taylor Swift haters.
folklore was Taylor’s eighth studio album, released on July 24th 2020 as a surprise. This was during lockdown, and she captivated her audience in a time of need and uncertainty. The name of the album connotes classical folklore stories, but instead of being directly related to that, it is thematically and stylistically told through different narratives of heartbreak and passion, power and perspectives, with a cottage-core aesthetic. Swift crafted a world where the lines between real life and fiction are blurred to give her listeners the opportunity to relate their lives into the songs so they can further connect to her lyrics.
The main narrative that Swift fabricates is a love triangle between three characters, James, Betty and Augustine. The links are mainly created in three of the songs of the album: ‘betty’, ‘cardigan’, and ‘august’. However there are hints in many of the tracks. The first song that involves them is ‘cardigan’, which is told through Betty’s perspective as she starts to assume her boyfriend James is becoming disloyal with a girl called Augustine. Then comes the song ‘betty’, which is James’ response to Betty’s worries and trying to get her back by attending her party. Finally, we listen to ‘august’, where Augustine gets the chance to tell her side of the story, where she is painted as a girl who just fell in love with James and didn’t intend to cause anyone harm. There are other songs on the album that point towards this love triangle without directly referencing them, which includes “illicit affairs”, “mad woman” and “invisible string”.
Imagery is Swift’s strong point, and in folklore she has formulated it perfectly. You feel like you have been whisked away to another world, full of magic and prose, with nature-inspired visuals and a strong theme of nostalgia and romance. A song that I particularly associate this with is ‘the lakes’, where arguably her lyrics are the most raw and thought-provoking. The main message I get from the song is escaping from all of life’s problems to The Lake District, where time slows down and everything is peaceful. There are references to poets as well, including the line “take me to the lakes, where all the poets went to die,” which is interesting due to Taylor being regarded as a lyrical poet and building these romantic fantasies.
The Lake District has many Cumbrian folklore tales that Swift may have taken inspiration from to write her whimsical piece, as the landscape is rich with tales of fairies, ghosts and even lake monsters. The lyric “Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry,” which could be loosely related to the story of the Claife Crier, who is a heartbroken monk who wails on the mountains just next to Windermere, or it could be a bittersweet nod to the fairy stories. Most peaks are rumoured to have fairies living at the top, which hold gateways to other worlds or grant wishes to hikers.
My favourite song from folklore is ‘this is me trying’, due to the figurative language in the lyrics that portray how sometimes you never feel good enough even when you try your hardest. It is emotional, deep, and personal. Some lyrics that really make sense in the song are “I just wanted you to know that this is me trying,” making the theme that every part of being human is wrong to someone and is also a valid fear of Swift’s even though she is famous and rich. Although the song is melancholic, it is very clever in making us not feel alone.
Overall, folklore is a beautifully crafted piece, with links to stories and real-life matters, such as the COVID-19 pandemic in the song ‘epiphany’. The album draws inspiration from past folklore stories by crafting fictional narratives and using storytelling techniques that are frequent in traditional folktales. folklore is a collection of stories, characters and prose that explores themes of love, loss, memory, identity, escapism and nostalgia and consumes the listener, all the while using a fictional, magical structure.
Rosy Hale
This blog post is in collaboration with the 2025 Folklore Anthology. Don’t miss the launch event of the Folklore Anthology, the 22nd of May 5-7 pm at the Students’ Union! Find more information on their Instagram page: @ysjufolklore