music – Maenad Tarot

Tarot Jukebox: folklore by Taylor Swift

These days, new art feels even more like a blessing than usual, and Taylor Swift’s surprise album folklore was a gift when we needed it most. A couple days after it came out, my partner and I went for a Sunday afternoon drive through the local regional park. We drove slowly on the winding roads through the forest, windows down, listening to folklore for the first time, falling in love with it.

Tarot Jukebox: Surfacing by Sarah McLachlan

When I was about 12, my family subscribed to a CD catalog, and I got to choose three CDs for our first shipment. Any three I wanted! My first three CDs were, inexplicably, the following: Aquarium by Aqua, The Globe Sessions by Sheryl Crow, and Surfacing by Sarah McLachlan.

These CDs were my treasures. I played them over and over again on the boombox in my room, sitting on the floor, just listening. For some reason, I never got much into McLachlan’s earlier or later albums, but Surfacing hit me at just the right time. I remember thinking “Angel” was too cheesy, and worrying about whether “Adia” was kind of gay, if Sarah McLachlan was kind of gay, if it was gay to like her, or if people would think it was gay to like her (verdict: maybe!). But I loved that album. I recently thought of Surfacing and gave it a listen, to find that I still love it. I remembered every line, every note. And 20-odd years makes a difference – there are parts of this album that hit me harder at 33 than they did at 12. Below, I’ve matched up each song on Surfacing with tarot cards. Give it a listen. It holds up.

Let the Right One (Slip) In: The Turning Point of the Cups

I often match up individual tarot cards with music, but rarely do I find a song that encompasses a journey across multiple cards as elegantly as Morrissey’s “Let the Right One Slip In.” This simple, joyful song rests on the turning point of the Eight of Cups, pointing back to the Seven of Cups and forward to the Nine of Cups. The first three lines alone map out the path:

Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go

Hayley Kiyoko Songs Ranked by Knight of Cups Energy

Hayley Kiyoko, Lesbian Jesus, blesses us all with beautifully crafted pop gems about queer desire. Nobody pines like Hayley Kiyoko pines. The Knight of Cups is all about feeling your feelings SUPER HARD, which is of course very gay. How better to express her feelings than through art? The following songs are ranked by intensity of Knight of Cups energy, by which I mean how hard you think “SAME” when the song comes on and you’re daydreaming about your crush. Range of 1-10 Feels.