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.
folklore as a whole is infused with a nostalgic Six of Cups energy. Nobody does bittersweet ruminations on what has been and what might have been like Taylor Swift. From cardigan to seven to august, memory is a recurring theme. This is an album reflected through the rear view mirror. There are a few songs that partially live in the present tense, or even the future, but even those reflect on the past. This is a sepia-tinted album, blurred at the edges.
the 1: the lovers reversed
I don’t believe in “the one” as a concept, and I think it can do more harm than good. We’re not living in a soulmate AU. If soulmate relationships exist, I think they are chosen, built — not predestined (that said, I am a romantic, and if we’re talking fiction, then baby, soulmates are REAL). There’s something of this in the song. There’s no real bitterness over the lost relationship, only a kind of lingering fondness, a recognition of unrealized potential: “if my wishes came true/it would have been you.” It’s a missed opportunity, not a great tragedy. Still, “it would have been fun/if you would have been the one.”
cardigan: page of cups
The Six of Cups vibe runs through the whole album, but it’s particularly potent here. The singer looks back on a relationship from her youth, but despite the repeated line “I knew you,” the song feels less about the lost lover and more about the singer at that time — how she felt, how the relationship made her feel. We’re different selves with different people, at different times in our lives. The singer’s past self shows a youthful vulnerability that feels very Page of Cups. “And when I felt like I was an old cardigan/under someone’s bed/you put me on and said I was your favorite.” It’s a kind of insecurity that glows with warmth when shown the smallest tenderness. It’s a feeling I’ve known all too well.
the last great american dynasty: queen of wands
Another minor theme running through several songs on the album is the condemnation of women who are “too much.” The song is a loose account of the life of wealthy widow Rebekah West Harkness, former resident of Holiday House, which Swift now owns. The song characterizes Harkness as an eccentric woman living life as she pleases. She disregards propriety, much to the consternation of those around her, who grumble “there goes the most shameless woman this town has ever seen.” It’s an aspect of the charismatic Queen of Wands we don’t often think about — not those who are attracted to her vitality, but those who disapprove, those who disguise their envy with disdain. But the subject of the song lived her best life as she “blew through the money on the boys and the ballet.” Swift’s singer regards her as an inspiration for a life lived on one’s own terms: “She had a marvelous time/ruining everything.”
exile (feat. Bon Iver): three of swords, eight of cups
Here we have another song reflecting on a lost relationship, but this time from two perspectives. One experienced the breakup as a sudden betrayal, a Three of Swords right through the heart. The other experienced it as the Eight of Cups, turning away from something that hadn’t worked in a long time. “I couldn’t turn things around/cause you never gave a warning sign,” complains Bon Iver. “You never turned things around/I gave so many signs” counters Swift. This is why we talk about our feelings and listen!
my tears ricochet: death crossed by the devil
This might be my favorite song on the album, and was an instant addition to two of my personal fandom playlists (Hannibal and Gideon the Ninth, but especially Gideon, I MEAN). A song this epic must be represented by not one, but two cards from the Major Arcana. The funereal theme makes Death an obvious choice, but in the song as in the card, Death works as a metaphor for unavoidable change. This was a contentious relationship, mired in conflict and marked by obsession, “You can aim for my heart, go for blood/but you would still miss me in your bones.” The bond is so strong that the finality of the ending is inconceivable: “If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake/cursing my name/wishing I’d stayed?” The intensity of the relationship resonates beyond death, even refusing it: “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace.” Part of Death is accepting it, and the Devilish bonds here are so powerful that they interfere with the process of Death itself. Thematically, if not musically, it puts me in mind of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights, another song I’ve been playing on repeat recently.
mirrorball: seven of cups
The Seven of Cups often appears when we are lost in a kaleidoscopic world of daydreams. Here, the singer herself actively, purposefully embodies the Seven of Cups, shapeshifting to please and enchant others. What do you want me to be? I can be whatever you want. “I’m a mirrorball/I can change everything about me to fit in.” There’s a desperation to this protean performance, a plea for love and attention: “I’m still on that trapeze/I’m still trying everything/to keep you looking at me.”
seven: six of cups, two of cups
Okay, this one is just straight up Six of Cups, with a side of Two of Cups as the singer remembers not only childhood but a beloved childhood friend. The singer reflects on the freedom she felt as a child, “I was high in the sky/with Pennsylvania under me.” But even more so, she reflects on a long lost friend who had a troubled home life, “I think you should come live with me/and we can be pirates/then you won’t have to cry/or hide in the closet.” Not every childhood is happy, and no childhood is simple. Still, there is something beautiful about this childhood love. The feelings persist even as the details fade: “And though I can’t recall your face/I still got love for you.” There is a golden glimmer around the edges of my own memories of Pennsylvania summers, playing in cornfields with my childhood best friend. We haven’t seen one another in many years, but I still got love for her, and for the kids we were together.
august: the star reversed
The second part of the “teenage love triangle” trilogy on the album, this is the song of “the other woman.” The singer reflects on a summer love affair that cooled with the advent of autumn: “August sipped away/like a bottle of wine/cause you were never mine.” The memory of hope shines through the song like the Star: “wanting was enough/for me, it was enough/to live for the hope of it all/cancel plans just in case you’d call.” But the light of the Star was only an illusion, a trick of the light cast by the Moon, as the hope was all in vain: “So much for summer love, and saying ‘us,’/cause you weren’t mine to lose.” Still, the song is more sweet than bitter, as the singer repeats over and over, “I was living for the hope of it all/for the hope of it all,” lost in the rapture of her own desire.
this is me trying: eight of swords, nine of wands
The singer has been fighting a battle within her own mind, “They told me all of my cages were mental/so I got wasted like all my potential.” But she keeps going, trying to reckon with herself and her mistakes. “I just wanted you to know/that this is me trying,” she sings, showing the dogged persistence of the Nine of Wands in the face of exhaustion. Working on ourselves is a never-ending process, and it can get tiring, especially when we try and try and then find ourselves repeating destructive patterns all over again. But the singer refuses to give up. She’s “been having a hard time adjusting,” but she’ll get there.
illicit affairs: seven of swords, the devil
Ah, the Seven of Swords, the classic card of deception. This song reflects on how those swords can turn inward, how we can hurt ourselves with our own lies. “Leave the perfume on the shelf/that you picked out just for him/so you leave no trace behind/like you don’t even exist.” The secrecy could be thrilling, but over time it begins to suck the joy out of desire. But if it hurts, why not stop? The Devil shows its face again here, as the affair produces “a dwindling, mercurial high/a drug that only worked the first few hundred times.” That “high” isn’t just the excitement of the secret rendezvous, but comes out of moments of real connection, startling in their beauty and intimacy: “You showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else… you taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else.” And so the singer fails to break away, admitting, “For you I would ruin myself/a million little times.”
invisible string: wheel of fortune
My partner and I don’t actually remember meeting one another. We went to college together, we had mutual friends, we were part of the same co-op, but neither of us knows when we first met. There’s something romantic about the idea of people just outside one another’s orbits, paths crisscrossing until they collide. Fate or no fate, it’s a “pretty” idea: “Isn’t it just so pretty to think/all along there was some invisible string/tying you to me?” And fate or no fate, everything in the singer’s past has led her to the love she has in the present: “Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven.” I still don’t believe in preordained Soulmates™. I don’t know that my partner and I were destined to meet. But isn’t it wonderful and a little bit incredible that we did?
mad woman: five of swords
Another song about the vilification of women who refuse to be docile. The singer refuses to back down from a fight: “What did you think I’d say to that?/Does a scorpion sting when fighting back?” The Five of Swords can indicate the kind of fight that you might lose even if you win. Couple that dynamic with misogyny, and you have the Mad Woman, “Every time you call me crazy/I get more crazy/what about that?/And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry.” Nothing deflects from the righteousness of a woman’s anger like calling her “crazy.” The fear of that kind of dismissal can keep women from speaking out, “She should be mad/should be scathing like me/but no one likes a mad woman.” But the singer is fresh out of fucks to give. “They say ‘move on’/but you know I won’t.”
epiphany: the hanged man
The song makes parallels between soldiers and healthcare workers, fighting, struggling, staring death in the face and trying to understand it. The Hanged Man appears in a brief window of respite, “Only twenty minutes to sleep/but you dream of some epiphany/just one single glimpse of relief/to make some sense of what you’ve seen.” Suspended between one fight and the next, between life and death, the subjects of the song hope for some kind of enlightenment, some kind of wisdom to come out of all the suffering.
betty: knight of cups, five of cups
The singer here has that emo “in love with love” quality associated with the Knight of Cups, to a truly irritating degree. We’re all so busy obsessing over whether this song is gay or not (I mean, if you want it to be, sure!), but have you considered that the narrator is kind of a jag? “I was walking home on broken cobblestones/just thinking of you when she pulled up/like a figment of my worst intentions.” She’s not a figment! She’s a human person in a real motor vehicle that you did not have to get into! This is the Five of Cups if the Knight kicked over his own Cups and then got bummed about it: “slept next to her but/I dreamt of you all summer long.” Okay, man. Sounds super fun for everybody. In classic Knight of Cups fashion, he is so wrapped up in his own romantic fantasy of reconciliation that it’s only in the last minute of the song that he realizes he’s about to face Betty, the human person, not Betty, the dream girl: “I planned it out for weeks now but/it’s finally sinking in/Betty, right now is the last time/I can dream about what happens when you see my face again.” Bro, don’t just show up at her party! Give a girl some space. Geez. “I’m only seventeen, I don’t know anything.” You can say that again. Anyway, I have acted exactly like this. This is a great song.
peace: the lovers
Placing peace directly after betty really demonstrates the difference between a teenage love song and an adult love song. This is a song that acknowledges that love is hard work, that a long-term relationship is never going to be easy: “I’d give you my sunshine/give you my best/but the rain is always gonna come/if you’re standing with me.” There will be joy, and comfort, and support, and moments of quiet loveliness, “the silence that only comes when two people understand each other.” Even so, life with another person will never be simple. Can they accept that? “Would it be enough/if I could never give you peace?” This is a mature iteration of The Lovers, not destined to be together, but choosing to be together, even when it’s hard.
hoax: three of swords, six of swords reversed
This one was a slow burn for me. The more I listen to it, the more I love it. The singer’s lover has hurt her deeply, “darling this was just as hard/as when they pulled me apart.” The Three of Swords marks the moment of heartbreak. But what do we do next? What do we do when our heart is broken, when someone breaks it again and again? The singer still wants to believe in their love in spite of the evidence, “Stood on the cliff side/screaming ‘give me a reason’/your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in.” Her lover has hurt her, betrayed her, broken her trust. She should probably move on, get in the boat we see in the Six of Swords, taking these hard-earned lessons with her. And yet. “Don’t want no other shade of blue but you/no other sadness in the world would do.” Not everyone we want is good for us. Not everyone we entrust our heart to will take care of it. And yet. And yet.