Every Single Album - 'evermore' | Every Single Album: Taylor Swift

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

Before we even had time to process 'folklore,' Taylor Swift surprise-released 'evermore' on December 11, 2020. Nora and Nathan talk about their initial reactions to the album and Taylor's most important collaborators on this album; give some love to songs like 'no body, no crime,' 'marjorie,' and 'ivy'; and talk about some of the Easter eggs they found throughout the album. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chef David Chang and the members of the recipe club sift through millions of search results to find the very best way to make the food you want to eat. Each week, they cook three recipes for the same dish, debate them, and ultimately declare the winning recipe. Check out Recipe Club on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And welcome to every single album, Taylor Swift. I'm Nora Princiotti. I'm a staff writer at the ringer. I'm here with Nathan Hubbard for kind of a bittersweet episode because we're here to talk about Evermore, which to date, is Taylor's. last album that she's put out. But the sweet part about it. Who knows? There's going to be another one in a month probably. So far. There's going to be another one tomorrow knowing our luck. But the sweet part is that this is the first big Taylor release that has come out during the time when you

and I have known each other. Nathan? Yeah. We actually got to do a real time one on this. I remember waking up and I'm on East Coast time, you're on West Coast time. So I had to wait for like your half of the country to get up and realize that at eight o'clock in the morning on December 10th, Taylor had announced that Eremor was dropping in like 16 hours that night at midnight. And I'm just going, I can't like, Nathan, get up. Get up and text me about this. And then we were just living in our excitement and stress all day talking to each other. But then we got to listen to this album and share our thoughts in real time, which is kind of the genesis of this entire podcast. Yeah, the entire transcript of those 48 hours should have been one of the

booklets on the deluxe edition of this album, but maybe the re-release will include that there. I think we're giving ourselves a little bit too much credit, and I'm also not sure that I want all of those texts publicly available in case I ever get in trouble with the law. It just feels like If someone needed to speak to my mental state, it wouldn't reflect well on me some of the things that I had to process during that time span. What are you comfortable sharing? All right. We can read the thread of what we talked about, especially as we started hearing the album, because I think it's going to be funny as we get into this episode to kind of compare and contrast. But it's important because we had been shocked by folklore when it was dropped and we'd had, what, four months to process it.

And then all of a sudden, bang, there's another one coming three days before her birthday. And the way that you processed hearing this music was really interesting. And I think different than the way you receive folklore, different than the way we receive some other albums. So it's an interesting window into how we received this at the time. It's crazy because I think it got, I mean, this is the sister record to folklore. but, and I'll put a pin in this because we're going to talk about it a ton later, it's a really different record. There's a lot of the same, like, we're still in sepia, gray scale kind of woodsy world and we're

working with the same people largely. But there are some real differences from folklore to Evermore. And I think part of the sort of nervous paranoia that we went through was that we were both still really living in folklore, right? Like, it still felt new. It still felt like this defining album of quarantine. I was still hearing fresh things whenever I went back and listened to it

and I was still listening to it a ton like it was this new album and then all of a sudden here comes another one and so what I want you to read me the text you sent me at 11.11 p.m. like a little less than an hour before this thing comes out.

Okay and for the record this is the first time that I've seen this since we did it. So I'm going to read these through. So it's 1111 and my text to you is are we drinking before? During, just after? I don't know.

This is a legacy defining moment. What if this is her man of the woods? Jesus. And I was totally happy to like have someone who was as nervous as I was because I responded to you. I've never disliked an album of hers. I don't understand how it's still so nerve-wracking. I'm having wine. Yeah.

And I was too. I was like, okay, me too. We might need to publish this thread just FYI, but don't think about that. Tell me the fucking truth. The truth, Nora. And in this moment, I'm really gearing up for, oh boy, folklore is this precious gem. There's more. I still don't know.

Is this going to be a double album? What if this dilutes the world? I really was anxious that this was going to sort of detract from the legacy of the album that had literally just wrapped up a Grammy nomination for album of the year and you knew it was going to win. So there was a part of it that was like, oh, God, is this going to change the legacy of this album? This was a different part of the thread, but at one point you texted me, if this dilutes folklore, I'm going to need to be institutionalized. And that was, we went back and forth like that a little bit. We were just like all nervous energy, a lot of wellness checks, being good friends. But then we started, you know, midnight hit and we started listening to the record. And I had promised you the truth

and nothing but the truth. And two songs in when I'd heard Willow and champagne problems. Life was a little and it bent right to your wind. I texted on you brought it. No crowd of friends applauded. Your hometown skeptics called it champagne problems. I texted you and said, Okay, we said honest. Some of this feels half-baked to me.

Well, and I was already like, fucking William Bowery, do not ruin this record for me. Like, I was just, like, Like if this is Yoko, oh no, I'm going to burn it all down. But my response was, I was feeling you on that. Like, there aren't a lot of melodies. I like tis the season. And this is where I said, if this dilutes folklore, I'm going to need to be institutionalized.

Oh, yeah, that's where it is. I remember that line. But then we kept going. And I hit Gold Rush was the first one that really struck me. And I was like, okay, I can get behind this. Yeah. I'm there. But then Coney Island

Will you forgive my soul You'll two eyes to trust me And too old to care Things started to get a little cool And I was like, whoa, okay, I like this song Yeah And I said this album may be like reputation Where it absolutely downshifts

Into a furious and ass kicking back half question mark, which tells you that I was hopeful I wasn't making a statement Back half Because I like Ivy And I liked Comey Boney Island. And we have not heard Boney Vair yet. That's interesting. We hadn't actually heard Boney Vair yet. They were hiding him towards the back. We thought that after exile on folklore,

that you'd just put the god of Dad Indy Rock Island up front. But no, they were bearing him in the back. That's the downshift question mark. But then a couple songs later. And so at this point, I've heard the Hym song. I've heard nobody, no crime. I've heard Ivy. And I just texted you and said, Oh, God. Stockholm syndrome. It's clicking in. Yeah, I remember that your initial reaction to no body, no crime was super positive. You loved that song when you first heard it. I love that song. Yeah, you got it before I did because I was kind of like, all right, I get it.

It's fun. I'm happy Himes here. But I don't know. I wasn't totally sure. But then I said, so you're like Stockholm syndrome's clicking. And I'm like, what, talk to me? I said, I'm starting to feel like if I just skipped track two, which is champagne problems. don't worry. I get it. Hit me with your booze. Like, we'll get to that later. Everything would be fairly peachy. I'm on long story short and I love it. And I've only heard 42 seconds. Yeah. And I said, me too. Exactly. Why does she do this to us? And then Marjorie is good. God damn it.

This is where you were just like firing off texts every 10 seconds. Yeah. I'm like, God damn it, she ropa doped us. Because in this moment, I'm like, oh boy, she started it slow, but here we go. So I'm like, Marjorie is good. God damn it. She roper. Robidoped us. And then I go, is this album good? And I said it might be good. This album is good. And by the next day, spoiler alert, I'm getting text from you being like, make sure you're listening with good headphones. Listen carefully. There's so much cool stuff here. This is incredible. I can't believe I didn't hear it immediately. And we're both just like realizing. And again, more spoilers. I guess I'm just laying it all out here. I'm going to make the argument in this podcast

that Evermore is better than folklore. And that is one of my favorite Taylor albums of all time and that it is incredibly special and beautiful and creative and weird and wonderful. Here we go. So that's our journey. I mean, look, my response to that was I had to flip out over Tis the damn season this morning.

This album is really good. We had to get emotional and auditory space from folklore. But you said it. This, to me, is... a much richer and more complex piece of work than it appeared on the surface. You do have to put headphones on to listen to this album fully

because of all of the complexity that's underneath the surface rhythmically. There's some instrumentation. There's a whole lot of crazy computer-generated sounds happening that you will miss if you just put it on speakers in your house and you're sort of going around doing your quarantine stuff. this is a much more sophisticated and complex thing than you ever would have thought on first pass.

And what it shares with folklore and with all of her work is that she maintains her power of personality through the whole thing. We talked about that on folklore a bunch, but that's the beauty of it, right? Is that as much as she expands and tries all those new things and all of a sudden there's like weird programmed drums and whatnot, it's still Taylor. And I think that's what's brought me

the most joy from Evermore and just makes me feel like it's so incredibly special is that we talked about that on folklore, but this is really pushing boundaries in a lot of ways and to have that and have that still maintain her core skill for melody

and storytelling and her sense of self that comes through in all of her greatest songs is what I love most about this album. This did feel a little bit more like she was playing other characters. It felt there is a lot of her in this, but this felt more like the hype that we got around folklore, which ended up being, I think, less true,

which was, oh, she's writing about other people, it's less autobiographical. She's sort of, right, but really when we dissected folklore, we figured out, ooh, there's a lot of Taylor in that. There's some really interesting, rich characters in Evermore that just sort of stand on their own. Did you have that experience? Yeah. Well, to a degree. I always hear, like, no matter what it is, no matter how, like, I don't think that Taylor committed murder with the Haim sisters, but, like, I just hear her in little pockets of

everything. Yeah. So that's only ever going to be true to a degree. And that's what's so wonderful. But, yes, I think that's right. And there's a little bit more subtlety in some of those things, like Dorothea and Tis the damn season. are a pair in the same way that there was the trilogy in folklore.

I think that became less of a big deal. Yeah. Kind of. And there was a little bit less Easter egging that went on with that stuff. But maybe there were just so many Easter eggs from folklore that people were kind of like, hold on. I know. We're still sleuthing the first one. Like, we're just going to listen to the second one, which I'm totally happy for people to do.

Yeah. I mean, almost every song starts to build with these textured sounds and beats on this album. The bones of these songs are fairly simple. But I think this album above everything is just a crowning achievement for her voice. So many of her early melodies are so simple like we talked about in earlier pods. They're all within a perfect fifth. These are soaring melodies. She uses the low part of her register.

She goes down to a low E on a few songs, which is like it's something we have not heard from Taylor before, you know? And rarely in the choruses and bridges is she not layered vocally. It's like a Justin Vernon move. And we know he had his hands all over this album. but the way they do it is uniquely tailored. They're these counter melodies that run against the dominant melody. You can just hear different songs within each playback. Like each song, depending on which melody you grab onto, is different depending on where your ear focuses. And I

love that about Evermore. That's to your point about snuggle in with this one with a good pair of headphones, because you will just get lost in all of its nooks and crannies. Is this a holiday album? Oh my God. I knew you were going to do this. You're going to do this with like 19 different songs. It's not a holiday album. There are holiday songs. But is it? No. You won't always associate it with the holidays. It's a winter album. Taylor has described this one as fall winter, whereas she thinks of folklore as spring, summer. Yeah. I get fall from folklore and winter from Evermore. I do too. And... Okay. I still think this is a holiday album,

but maybe we should get into the questions to dive in further. Yeah. So let's start with Biggest song. And I give this to Willow, which was the number one, first song we heard, first song on the album,

gets the music video, helps Taylor become the first act to debut simultaneously on top of the Billboard 200 and the Hot 100. A lot of wood fairy shit in this one. Extreme Renaissance Fair, energy to the video. Yeah. Totally. It's only missing a falconer.

That's the hawk on the new song. Oh, Lord. I love that hawk. It has the line I come back stronger than a 90s trend, which I feel like has become like a real, real thing that people have held on to. Yeah. It's a little bit of a cardigan situation with me where it's not among my favorite songs on the album, but it was first. So everybody heard it. Yeah. Well, and, and If you look at the stream counts, this one is extreme. Most of her albums, like the biggest song is like 20 to 22% of the overall streams. Like, shake it off is 22% from reputation. Look what you made me do.

It has 22% of the overall streams. On this album, Willow has 32% of the streams. Whoa. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. That's like a massively skewed stream count towards a single song relative to not just her albums, but most albums overall. I don't know what happened on this one. If people just freaked out over it and loved it or they listened to it and didn't get to some of the rest of the album, that's what I wonder here. I hope it's not that because I like Willow, but it's,

it's like I said, it's not in my top half of the songs on Evermore. And I don't know that anybody would say that this is like their favorite, right? That's what's sort of weird. My friend Courtney really loves this song, thinks that it's like one of her favorite Taylor songs. I can't think of anybody else who's said that to me. And Willow does have a cool sort of creation story where it was one of those tracks that Aaron Dessner had sketched out and he's like, you know, finger-picking the guitar or whatever. And he sends it to Taylor. He calls it Westerly, which is the town where her place in Rhode Island is. And it was just sort of a gift. Like it was just, here I did this thing, naming it after the place where you have a house. Here you go. But then she went. And

full Taylor and wrote a song and all of a sudden, oh boy, we're doing another album. So that's kind of cool. And everything on this album, except for Goldbrush, is produced by Aaron Destner. So this album, more so than folklore, is defined by that spark of creative connection between Taylor and Aaron. And you're right, it started with Willow. And then before they knew it, they had just sort of, bleh, like vomited out all these songs. And there was an album on the way. Well, it sort of started when they got drunk after filming the long-upon sessions. Oh, we're going to talk about that for sure. That moment, that moment on film, it turns out, was a very, very important moment in the Taylor Swift canon of moments.

Thank God for Charming. That's all I have to say. I know. Right. Like, when I get too drunk off wine with my friends, I don't create an incredible album. I, like, go have a snack and sleep for 12 hours. You tweet too much. That's targeted.

That was mean-spirited. No, I'm just saying. All right. Well, I'm going to take the emotional pain of that comment and spin it into something deep and meaningful, which is what Taylor does on track five's. Track five on this album is tolerated. And woof is it a track five. Nathan, what do you think of this song? I think this is one of my most favorite track fives. And I don't want to have to rank them. right now because... Even though you made me do that?

Because I'm going to be unbelievably hypocritical. But this song is bad ass. It is in 10-8 time signature, first of all. We know that Dessner was afraid to send this to Taylor because he thought it was maybe too intense and a little weird because of the time signature.

But what she sent back made him cry. And it does the same thing for me. There are real shades of Tori Amos's 1,000 oceans on this track. I absolutely love that song But this is like a heavy duty This is one of those where I'm sure there's some of her in this song But this is a sketch about a relationship that's just not working

About a woman who's just being neglected And it's just heavy I love this song Well it was inspired by Daphne D'amari's not Rebecca, which is a novel from the 30s about a lopsided relationship where there's a, you know, much younger person who's sort of lamenting the neglect and the lack of attention and everything. How does she have time to read this shit? She's just a sponge.

Like, she's just a really empathetic consumer of material. Reading novels from the 30s. Like, who sent that to her? It's crazy. I know. I actually would love to. to know, like, whose recommendations does Taylor trust? I mean, that's not on Oprah's book list.

How do you discover that anyway? Thank God she did, because it made this song. Which is incredible. And I agree with you on that. Can you loop back just to the time signature piece and illuminate for me and for everyone a little bit more, like, why is that so funky? Why is that something that Aaron Dessner would be like,

ah, can I send this to Taylor? Is this weird? I think it's because she had never, written in strange time signatures before. And so much of her gift, and this is why this song is awesome and why it probably unlocked some of the other cool stuff that happens on this album, so much of Taylor's writing is rhythmic. Her alignment of lyrics to beats is like one of her superpowers. And so there's a part of me that wonders if this was just going to confuse her. what we know is that she gets this and she nails it.

She nails all of the strange changes and she nails bridges that have weird time signatures. And this is one of the things that totally endeared her with Aaron Desmond. Like this, I think he fell in love with her songwriting by her ability to pivot in this way. She surprised him that she could handle these kinds of things that really, like, if you're a drummer, if you're an amateur drummer, it's hard to play 10-8.

and as a musician, just to keep that beat in your head. But she has an innate sense of rhythm, and she was able to write to it. Well, you were outbuildin other worlds where was art? Where's that man who throw blankets over my barbed wire? What I love about her ability to write to it and the discovery of not being constrained by, you know, more traditional sort of easy on the year's time signatures that she'd worked in before, is you think back to her work with Max Martin. and that kind of like pop, pop genius apprenticeship, basically, that she had.

Max's big thing that we talked about is fitting everything tightly into that, like, musical math. And the lyrics come second after you have the cadence and the melody and just that, you know, shake it off, shake it off thing. She'd kind of mastered that craft. And then it's like she already knows all the rules so she can break them. and gets so inspired by Desner and by their creative process together and starts experimenting with this stuff and is still able to have just phrasing that does not sound awkward or choppy unless it's intentionally so on the songs on this album that do that. And I just love that storyline. I think it's such a cool thing to see her start to do. I hope she continues to do it and does more of it because.

I do too. It's a bit analysis. here to what she did with the bridge on peace that shocked him. He felt the silence that only comes on two people understand each other, family that I chose now that I see your brother as my brother. He thought that the bridge on peace on folklore was going to be too much for her and maybe too much for anybody. He wasn't even sure that that piece was supposed to be written with vocals, but she came back with a vocal pattern and a melody and rhythm that that worked. She has a sense for this

that even Aaron Dessner himself didn't have. And this is one of those things where, you know, I know some people who the lyrics to this song, I think, resonate with most people that I've talked to about it. It's a tricky song for some, I know. And whenever I hear that from someone, I always say, just give it another shot. Give it another six or seven. shots. Because to a degree your ear needs to adjust to this stuff, it's not like something that's in 4-4, it's always going to sound kind of, quote-unquote, right. On first listen, sometimes this is going to sound, quote-unquote, wrong to your ear. Yep. Let it get in there. Let it get used to it. Like, I promise the water is fine. And put headphones on because there are beats that build in the

background through the course of this song that are just, the way they mix this is it's really deep in the fabric of the song. So you have to get up inside it to hear it. There's a line on here that slayed me, and I don't know whether you think it's related, but gain the weight of you and lose it. Believe me, I could do it. It just killed me on this one, especially understanding her history. That one is so intense, just thinking about the ways in which we do things in relationships and reaction to the attention that we're getting or not. It's just, this. This This one just is a dagger. I really think it's probably her most underrated track five at this point in time.

And I don't want to rank them, but it definitely is in the top four for me. I love this song. I'm going to be nice to not make you rank them right now. I will be making you rank them eventually because you made me do it. Okay. The line on Tolerated that just slays me is I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life. And I don't know if it's just because I'm used to looking at footnotes a lot. But there's something about how a footnote is like underneath the content.

Like I see it very visually of like someone sort of underneath this like bigger, larger, more powerful component figure. And it's like so heartbreaking. Yeah. You listen to this song and you're like, please don't let me ever get to this point in a relationship because it's just hell. It's worse than heartbreak. It's just it's irrelevance.

and she captures it so well in this song. I want to ask you, there are a lot of songs on Evermore that could have been a track five. Ooh, yeah, that's true. Just the emotional depth of these sketches, that's what's so cool about this album. I mean, the color,

the synesthesia in me sees green through this whole album. But in part, it's because so many of these could have lived here. I don't know that this one is about Taylor and that's a little bit of a departure for a track five. There's certainly some experiences that she's had. But to that end, you could see happiness in there, right?

You could have seen tis the damn season in there potentially. You could have seen champagne problems. Yep. And champagne problems is all too well again, all over again, same chord structure. I mean, she keeps doing that. I thought maybe we'd get yet another all too well in a track five position. but there's a lot that could have slotted in here. And that's different than a lot of other records

where I think the fan base could listen to them and go, oh, out of order and say, okay, that one's definitely the track five. Right, right. But I think, I mean, just that story of her writing to this, bringing Aaron Desner to tears, I think it's like the story is not about her. But although you could,

you can read parts of it as her works. situation with the masters, right? Like all of the times when she'd had these ideas that she thought were really special and exciting about where she wanted to go and kind of getting that pushback of like, I don't know, we're not so sure about this. We don't know if we like this. Like I hear a little bit of that in it if you want to find something. There's also she had used the word tolerate when she was explaining, she was giving an interview where she was talking about her support for the Equality Act. And she said tolerate a lot saying things like, I don't want my LGBTQ fans to feel like I tolerate them.

I want them to feel like I celebrate them. And no matter who you love, the idea that that's just going to be tolerated or sort of baseline accepted is ridiculous. Like it should be celebrated and a source of joy. So a lot of people who found that interview read this song as actually not like the dissolution of a romantic relationship or an apathetic romantic relationship, but as somebody's coming out story with their family, which I think is a really fascinating alternate reading of it,

because you can kind of hear that, and there's references to being like a child, so some of that works. But it's cool to have a track five that has that emotional depth, but actually isn't so autobiographical, I think. Yeah, I agree. Who do we think on this album is her most important collaborator? I'm going to make you go first. Okay. It's Justin Vernon. And normally I would have said Aaron Dessner because he did so much of this. But when you read and listen to what Aaron Dessner has communicated about this process, he did a lot of work with Justin Vernon on this album.

And Justin Vernon is in a bunch of places. He's singing on a number of songs. He's playing drums on a number of songs. He's playing the banjo on Ivy. He uses to know the fatal flaw that makes you long to be magnificently cursed. He uses the Messina that is a vocal modifier that Justin Verney uses with Boni Vera a bunch. He uses that on her voice in Closure. I'm fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.

On top of that, it sounds like Desner was sending a lot of the work to Justin Vernon for feedback during this. And they actually got together physically in person. So this one to me feels like his hands are in a bunch of tracks. Some places he's credited, some places he's not. That's not to say he wrote all this stuff. But I think he had a big influence on sonically where this album ended up. Who do you think? Well, so just to your point about Justin Vernon,

And he does the Bonnevere falsetto, like more traditional vocal style on Evermore, which is different from what we got on Exile. So there's a real, yeah, there's fingerprints all over the place. I do have to tell you, all wonderful points. You are wrong, though. Okay. The most important collaborator on this album is... Don't do it.

It is obviously Daniel Heim. Don't. Oh, okay. Okay. Daniel gives the alibi. Good thing Esty sister's gonna swear she was with me. She was with me, dude. She was with me, dude.

And helps Taylor get away with murder. Okay. So there's no discussion. Case closed. Case closed. Most important co-conspirator. She was with me, dude. Yeah, that's true.

They committed a murder, so fair enough. And Danielle is the one who helps her get away with it, pivotally. Okay. That's open and check case. I really lost that one. That's frustrating. I just wanted to talk about nobody, no crime so badly. Well, let's talk about it because it is fun. And she actually wrote this song on her own on that rubber bridge guitar that she got from Desner.

And so she really was the sort of driving force behind this. You know she just wanted to write something with Haim, which is awesome. I really think the reason I like this song is because the song's okay, but it's because it gave us gasoline. It's because it gave us gasoline. You know that Haim was like, fine. We'll do nobody, no crime, but you are coming on and doing gasoline.

And gasoline with Taylor Swift is the shit. It's absolutely incredible. It's like, I've listened to that for hours at a time on repeat over the winter. Like, it just, the way that she layers and uses her voice as an instrument is just so stunning there. And I can't hear the original song. without the way that she just adds those little layers and those touches anymore. Like, it sounds like a naked song somehow.

And I think Taylor just knew immediately like, oh, I need to go there and do this there. And all of a sudden, this thing is going to have just like a totally new life to it. That's true. You are not getting us away from nobody, no crime right now. Okay. Okay. Come on. Sell it.

It is so much fun. Do you still scream this in the car like you threatened you were going to do for the rest of your life when you first I mean, I'm not in the, I'm not in the car that much right now, but yes. Okay. And like, I scream it in my mirror. This is a real use the hairbrush as a microphone song for me because it's like, it's like Broadway. It's a show tune. It's just a blast.

It tells you a story. And it is derivative. It's like, you know, goodbye Earl or before he cheats. It's that murder your cheat and bastard husband genre of country. He held one. Had to die. But it's derivative in all the right ways where it's just supposed to be fun

and you're supposed to hear those songs. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we talked about this on you all over me. Like having Aaron Destner produce a country song feels a little bit like asking an impressionist painter to do a perfect portrait of you. It feels like you're going to get something that's a little blurry and you're not exactly sure what it is.

But it turns out he listens to a lot of Roots music. Like he's a fan of The Grateful Dead. This is right in his wheelhouse for something to create. And sonically, it came out really awesome. I mean, he didn't send it back to the, you know, 1970s country sound. He makes it feel current, even like you say, with a song that's a little derivative. So this got better, the more that I listened to it. Well, and Taylor clearly had a very strong sense of where this needed to go.

To the Olive Garden. She knew they were going to the Olive Garden. She knew that it was going to be like turned up to 11. Can't be funny, silly. But her vocal is so, like, I just, oh, God, I love this song. The very end where it switches to she thinks I did it. Yeah. Instead of I think he did it.

She thinks I did it, but she just can't prove it. Her voice has the second. Classic Taylor Turn of Moment. Yep. Right. Her voice has the second of almost like, vocal fry or something. It's like she goes Valley Girl for a split second.

Just on the she thinks that, like, I don't, it's almost plasticy sounding, but it's just so extra. I absolutely love it. Maybe she was working on the twang that she's going to bring back on the fearless re-release. It was a stage of the reinvention of twang. This is, it's like meta-country, right? So of course the twang is sort of there.

Yeah. It's interesting that she was able to pull this off. I mean, one of the things that comes out of the conversation around this album is she's like part of the national Big Red Machine universe now. She's like part of the Avengers. You know, and I can't tell you how insane it is to think about Taylor Swift singing, you need to calm down or ready for it. And then suddenly hear her as like the princess of the indie rock gods. Like she's contributing now to Big Red Machine albums. They are receiving her writing input.

Like she's part of the team. It feels, this is like Britney Spears working on the new Outcast record. That's how shocking it is if you didn't know any better, right? You'd be like, what? I would like, what do you mean she's working on it, right? But in hindsight, now knowing what we know, it is, you know, obviously the perfect sort of forum for her as a songwriter. I just think it's so cool that she is now a musical content.

tribute to their work and bringing outside influences into their work as opposed to what this started as, which is her taking files from Aaron Dessner and writing, you know, melodies and lyrics over them. It sort of harkens back to like when Joni Mitchell was on all the CSN albums and, you know, all the sort of interplay between folk and rock stars in the 60s. And there's just this like, again, it's like the, the Avengers, they're all of the Knights of the Round Table of Music. I love it. we got the obligatory Joni Mitchell reference out of the way. Drink! I think Taylor and those guys did plenty of that for us.

They did plenty of that. Can we talk about Gold Rush for a second just because we're in the collaborator section, and this is the only song produced by Jack Antonoff. He helped write Ivy, but this is his only production credit. I feel like this song saved the album for you. Willow and Champagne Promes did not land well with you out of the gate, but it's Gold Rush that brought you back in, isn't it? Yeah, and it's actually only grown for me.

Me too. This song is so good. Yes. Agreed. And it is that phrasing and the knack for saying words, singing words, both rhythmically and ways that really land in a more traditional jack poppy packaging. And I love having it here. And by the way, I do.

do think that this album is, like, this is less of a folk indie record to me than folk. And more of a what? How would you define it? I don't know that, see, I think it's almost not, I don't mean to dodge the question, but it kind of doesn't have a definition. It's like this own thing, but it is, but what I'm saying here is that there are songs on here that are closer to popier versions of Taylor that we've heard. Like, for instance, could death by a thousand cuts have been on this album. Yeah, and it may be slightly different production, but yeah, and Gold Rush makes you think of that a little bit. I hear you on that. I mean, one of the things you didn't love about some songs on folklore, you told us you weren't as comfortable with the lack of structure of some of the songs.

These songs don't have a ton of structure, I think Gold Rush being the exception, but they got you. Explain that dichotomy. I don't know that I totally agree with your premise. I think you have to listen to some of them a lot to understand the structure, especially when you're playing with an unusual time signature, like tolerate it, like closure. You have to let your ear adjust or something like Evermore where it's going to get faster. Like the tempo is going to shift and pick up and then slow back down. Like you have to get to a place with these songs where that's been internalized so that you're not just distracted by like,

like, what's going on? What am I hearing? The structure is there once you get comfortable with it. Like, these songs have real shape to me. Yeah. Let's not leave Gold Rush without acknowledging the folklore reference in the lyrics. Yes. You don't seem at all excited about that. That's fine. I don't know, man. Like, turns your life into folklore. I can't dare to dream about it anymore. That's, I, there are so many lyrical moments on the song that I'm obsessed with, that I guess that one's like kind of lower down. But the parts where she, where it's like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Like, I don't like anticipating my face in a red flush. Like, that is so good to me. Yeah. I agree.

She is singing with great confidence and in a position of power in this song that I really appreciate. And the way, like, her vocal sort of. it glides as a whole, but there's places where she's saying, like, rush, and you get so much, like, breeze in the way that she delivers it. Yeah.

Like flush. It just, it, it has its own windstream to it. It's so cool. Now you've turned this into an ASMR podcast. Great job, Nora. We're going to move on to most purposeful Easter egg. And I want to hear your thoughts on this, but I don't think we can have this conversation

without talking about the timeline. that got us here. Okay. Because I feel like this whole thing was like the movie Tenet or something. Like not even the actors involved know what the hell is going on. So I just want to walk us through the timeline because November 22nd, we get another not a lot going on at the moment tweet. And the braid is in if you look closely enough. But that is the signal that, oh boy, here we go.

That's all of a sudden you've been sitting on the ocean and here comes a huge wave and you know it's going to break. You don't know exactly how hard it's going to kick your ass. Two days later, 1124, she announces that the Long Pond sessions are coming at midnight. And I think it's the same day she gets a Grammy nomination for folklore. So at that point in time, I thought, oh, wow, okay, here we go. We're going to get the Disney Plus thing. It's going to be over Thanksgiving. What a fun thing that you can watch with your family.

And this sounds wholesome and great. But then December 2nd, she tweets about the Ryan Reynolds commercial. for Match.com, really, by the way? But it has the love story re-record. I just don't want this year to end. Who would? Right? And that's like, oh my God, okay, she's recording fearless.

Wow, all right. So now I go, all right, there was a lot going on at the moment. But then she starts retweeting a lot, a lot of reviews for folklore with comments. It almost felt like the surprised face from the shows. You know, it was like, wait, she just not really surprised that these reviews are good. Why is she retweeting all this stuff? And of course, if you look at some of the comments, like she tweets on the 4th of December, she tweets a review with the words, throws self to the base of a willow tree by a reflection pool at midnight, which we now know, God damn it, was an Easter egg.

On the 9th of December, I know, on the 9th of December, she retweets an LA Times year-end picks that had fuller in it. And she puts nine Christmas tree emojis in the thing. And the next day, bam, she announces Evermore. So there just was this like unstoppable, relentless, toying with us because she can, Nora. It's not fair. Taylor, I'm begging you. Like, re-deliver unto me my life. Like, who could have unpacked all this?

What is going on with her? I thought she's reading, how is she reading novels from the- 30s. But also being like, I'm going to put nine fucking Christmas trees in there because tomorrow, you're going to know. How do you have time for Daphne de Morier and for nine Christmas trees? Like, this is out of control. To a certain extent, this is like, in all seriousness, though, she is making a change in the way that she communicates and the way even that she puts out content. Like there's this TikTokization of content from Taylor. She's always had her finger on the pulse of the social internet. but you get the sense that she's noticing

that the cycle of creators is moving to shorter content but released with more frequency. She's just been flooding the zone. You know, she hasn't always gotten it right. Like we talked about the Netflix tweet, but it does seem like she's experimenting with more constant presence, doesn't it?

So, yes. But she's not exactly getting shorter. She's just putting a lot of stuff out there. Like individual songs instead of albums, maybe. I don't know. But remember, like, she was concerned... at the end of reputation on the Kanye tape about over exposure.

But in those days, maybe that was a thing. But now it's about constant exposure in a way that isn't overbearing. And the Easter egg thing is exhausting for the core fan base, but of course they love it. I feel like she's trying to stay

on the radar without, you know, doing these long, drawn-out interviews or she's picking her spots, but she's picking them more frequently. Yeah, I think that's fair. I also think she's just, I mean, this is still, this is another quarantine record. Like, she's just got a lot of energy and she needs stuff to do

because apparently reading novels from 1938 isn't enough to fill the day. Yeah. When we get into talking about what's going to be next, and we won't do that on this pod, but I have to just say this feels like big time nesting energy. She is as prolific as she has ever been right in this moment. She's making multiple albums. She's making video.

She's re-recording old stuff, but she's repainting. her house probably and knitting stuff. Who knows what she's doing? Does she sleep? Maybe not. Maybe she just stays up all night with the cats and schemes things up. I mean, there are so many song origin stories, including on this album where it's like, I wrote this in the middle of the night. Maybe what Taylor's not saying is that she just doesn't require sleep to function. Well, that could be it. But have I missed an Easter egg that was the most purposeful? I think that's, I mean, that whole field of Easter eggs is a really good one. the other one that I will give you is that track 13 is Marjorie.

Yes. And track 13 on folklore was Epiphany. Marjorie is about her grandmother, Marjorie Finley, and it uses her singing on the backup vocals. So the pairing of those two songs, I think, is really wonderful. And Marjorie is one of my absolute favorite songs on Evermore. I think it is just absolutely stunning. And if I remember correctly, in our, you know, cathartic listening experience, texting each other, you at one point were like Marjorie has me absolutely over a barrel,

like, wow, this song. Do you still feel that way? I do. I love it. For the Easter egg connections for sure, but I think the song is gorgeous. I mean, it has the same drone as peace on the bridge, and you know how much I love peace. The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me. It also has a guy's playing.

And literally, it's literally the same drone. Like, they were going to use it. for peace and then ended up using it for this. Yeah. And there's a guy who's playing chord sticks on this, which are the same chord sticks that you hear on the national song Quiet Light, which, you know, I love. The Boni-Vare vocals are amazing. There's some crazy software stuff that they're using in the background.

This is another one of those songs that you have to listen to in headphones, because as it builds, and she's singing that if I didn't know better, underneath it, there are just all of these electronic sounds that are textures that matter for this song. And I think it's so cool to have a tribute to a grandmother, like an older relative, someone from a past generation, that you're using such modern sonic devices on, like the undercurrent of it is so fresh and so alive and so vibrant. and I just think it does such a cool thing and the rhythmic elements of it.

Yeah, juxtaposing those new sounds with literally her singing where, you know, in her time, she was an opera singer and she never would have been able to sing over those sounds. And so putting those two things together is really timeless.

I mean, there's literally, there's like this weird software device where Aaron Dessner knows this producer in Minnesota who like creates all these, weird sound samples and randomizes them and then loops them and it becomes a backing rhythm. And that's how they created that for that song. But then the other piece of the creation of it is Taylor going like through her family archives, finding the recordings of her grandmother

and just piecing it all together. And it's just so cool to me. It's a good one. And it sounds like it's not the one that you would cut if we forced you to. So this is the last. This is the last time through a journey that we're going to make you do this. But you do need to choose a song that you're going to cut from Evermore. Okay, so I don't want to cut anything. I really don't want to cut anything. Yeah, but you have to. That's the game. This might be controversial. Oh, shit. I would cut, I would cut happiness. No, that's not controversial with me. Okay, okay. I just think it plods. It's five minutes long. And so we were talking about structure, right? And there is some structure to this song because there is a bridge that I actually really like on this song. It takes like three and a half minutes to friggin get there. And this song is also sandwiched between Nobody, No Crime, and Dorothea, which is another one of my favorites. So I just can't take a long plotter in between those. This has a lot of the same characteristics as hoax in terms of she wrote it right at the last second.

This song was written a week before the album was put out. Right. And it feels like, hoax was written towards the very, very end of folklore, too. It feels like one of those where they did it. I think it was maybe intended to be a big red machine song and she grabbed it. She was like, nope, we're going to use this and put it together. And it wasn't enough song as we talk about. It does have one of the cool.

lines of the album, which is you haven't met the new me yet. And the fact that it was the last song written, it leaves us going, who is the new Taylor? Right. So it's, I like its positioning in that way. And I actually liked it a lot more as I listened back to get ready for this pod than I did just listening to it casually. But if we're going to kill one to me, it's happiness. It's a sad song. Yeah. And it's just, again, I think that, like, it is a plotter. And I like your point about the haven't met the new me yet. It's funny because I don't think that we can totally describe why this song doesn't work as well for us as a lot of the rest of this album to she did it right at the very end because she also did one of the bonus tracks right where you left me right at the very end.

Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen time on for everybody else? She won't know it. I really love that song. I wish that song were on the album. I mean, I would take it over happiness, for sure. Yeah, I would take its time to go, which is another bonus track over happiness as well. I gave it my all.

He gave me nothing at all than wondered why I left. These two bonus tracks were solid. Really solid. And I really loved it. I think the lakes is solid, too. The bonus tracks from the folklore Evermore era, good work, Tay.

Yeah. Well done. These weren't songs that didn't deserve to make the album. These were songs that got withheld to create some interesting packages at retail and online. And I'm okay with that. But I do think it's important on both folklore and Evermore to look at the bonus tracks, in quotes, as actually a real part of the album, as opposed to say, girl at home, which was not a real part of that.

But yeah, I also, the only other thing I'll say on happiness is I just, I just, just, and I get it. Like, Taylor didn't have a normal, like, full high school college experience, which is when a lot of us exercise the need to make everything about the Great Gatsby from our minds. We got to be done with the Gatsby references. Because she has the hope she'll be a beautiful fool. And it's like, I get it. I get it. There was a time when I was taking high school English, when it was very cool to make everything about fancy New Yorkers. But like, we got to be done. Well, but that's why she's reading these novels. from the 30s. She's going for new info so that she can. Is there anything else on this album that you

think like rivals happiness in terms of, eh, I like it, but I could live without it? Well, so I would say no, but let's duke it out on champagne problems because this was a troubling, troubling song for both of us right off the bat. And I will tell you why it was that way for me exactly. First of all, The piano sounds like ragtime. Like that like umpah thing that it's doing, it just sounds like rag time to me. And I couldn't handle it.

Ompa thing. Like listen back. I don't know how to describe it. We'll drop it in. But when Aaron makes this stuff, he calls a lot of these pieces of instrumentation sketches. And I think that's an instructive word. Yeah.

Because what's a sketch? It's just, it's something that you do. You create it. It's maybe not finished. It's just outlines. And these are people, Taylor Swift, Aaron Desner, Bonnie Vair, these people have an incredibly high floor when they're working. Like, they're smart, they know what they're doing, they're incredibly creative. They're not going to put stuff out that's just like terrible. That basically does not happen. Right.

But it is worth making sure that we are holding them accountable to hit the freaking roof because they can do that too. Yeah. And that's why this song put me off originally. Because remember, when I heard it, the only other. song that I'd heard was Willow, which is in the bottom third of how I would rank this album for me. Sure. And when I was texting you, I was like, some of this feels half baked to me.

Because champagne problems, I have grown to, I don't know if I love it, but the way that it builds to the end and the story of it has come to resonate with me. And I think that it's a beautiful song in a lot of ways. It felt like unfinished all too well. Right, because she could, like, she could. like she could write this song on the back of a cocktail napkin. Right. That's what you said at the time. You're like,

this is something that she did in 30 seconds. And that's fine. Like, that's not necessarily bad. But when you haven't heard the rest of the album, and this is what I was, you know, falling into the trap of doing was like not waiting to hear it and just being like,

ah, what are we going to do? Right. But when you haven't heard that, I'm going, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, I want Taylor firing on all. cylinders, let's not just

leave it here. Right. We now know that she did that, so I'm a lot more comfortable with it now. Is it a Christmas song? Oh my God. It says deck the halls. It says deck the halls in it.

Yeah, but isn't that like, there are scenes where it's, these people are like wandering around a school campus and revisiting their old dorms, which is cool. Like, I can see brick buildings in it. But more importantly, it has the line, what is shame she's fucked in the head? And that is,

That is what won me over. I don't think musically this is an interesting song. The story is really cool. The story of sort of two people showing up on a night, one thinking that he was going to get engaged and the other thinking she was going to break it off and sort of the fallout that comes from that and the way that people go back to their own corners

and sort of the presumptions and assumptions they make to take care of themselves in a moment like that. she nails lyrically. Well, and the perspective of the person who couldn't do it. Because usually you're hearing that story from the perspective of the person who, you know, heard no. I'm with you. In hindsight, I'm really glad it's here.

I just think we have to respect what it is, which is a story, as you say, against a sketch of music more so than some really sophisticated, crafted, honed song. This is a sequencing, a show. one. Like if this song were on the back half of the album, I would have gotten to it and I would have been like, oh, this is this, this is cool. This is some people's favorite song. I mean, it's, it's got some New Year's Day vibes to it too, which is what I think attracts some people. Do we have a problem with Evermore as the album title? No, I like it. I like the permanence of it.

I do too. What do you think about Evermore, the song? Evermore, the song I am okay with. I enjoy the accelerated tempo, as you talked about. I enjoy the Bonnevere Bridge. I enjoy Joe's piano playing. I replay my footsteps on each step in stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong. I really do. And I think without the bridge, it would be less interesting,

but the outro for me is the most special part of the song. the sort of Boni Vair sort of paints of Evermore. And yeah, I just, I love it. Yeah, I think that's cool. Would you have done two albums? Versus what? One mega album or one paired down album. I mean, people create, you know, folk more playlists all the time.

In fact, I think she actually did start bundling some things and sending to streaming services, those playlists. At first, I was like, okay, this is a double album. I don't think so. I think this is more experimental. The production is different. We can get into these songs more easily after listening to folklore, not concurrently. I think folklore, to the point, has a little bit more structure. The instrumentation is, again, less experimental. This album has a lot going on underneath the surface that is fun to dive into because we have been able to digest the basics of folklore. So I'm glad that they kept it two separate albums.

They definitely are sisters, but I don't see them as the same experiment or experience. I mean, folklore was out. This is more Aaron and Taylor than there's a lot of Jack on folklore in a bunch of great ways. So I like the way that they did this. And I just am wondering if there's a third one hiding out there. Woodville.

I'm with you. One, I'm just, I'm perfect. happy to have as many albums and songs as Taylor would like to give us. Yeah. But I do think that folklore set the stage appropriately for people to be ready to receive this stuff. But folklore, it's really different because, and it's funny because Jack's on, like Jack is a pop producer and he's on so much more of folklore than Evermore.

But folklore is really more stripped down than this is. Yeah. there's a lot of, you know, electronic stuff going on here, which I think, like, there's real ways in which it's distinct. Yeah, and a lot of ways, there's a big part of this album that was supposed to be the second Big Red Machine album. A lot of the tracks got borrowed and taken out of that. And I think that's why, again, she's just joined the Avengers and she'll probably participate in the next Big Red Machine album, for sure. but I want to know, is there anything interesting that we learned out on the internet about this album? It has not been out very long. Yeah, but there's one like really bananas thing.

Okay. So there is, just bear with me here, there is a medieval fantasy themed park in Utah called Evermore Park. This is the lawsuit. Right after this album came out, they sued Taylor and her people for Troules. trademark infringement. And they claimed, in the suit, Evermore the album, quote, has led to confused guests

and negatively affected the park's searchability on Google. Like, sure, Jan. Yeah, my brother had a baby this week. He had a baby girl this week. That's like him naming that, yeah, thanks. That's like him naming the baby Taylor Swift and then suing Taylor Swift. I think there's some confusion here.

Yeah, there's some confusion here. Nobody's coming to your park in Utah. It's also like this place in Utah seems to think that it invented like big Renaissance Fair Energy. Like, you're fine. The word ever more is a word. These things aren't yours. This is ridiculous. Also, who's going to Utah to go to a Renaissance park?

The American legal system, ladies and gentlemen. Well, speaking of which, Taylor's people countersued saying that the park was playing her music without giving her proper royalties. but last week, thankfully, everybody dropped their suits. There was no monetary settlement. I don't know if there's any sort of agreement, but hopefully forevermore, this is over and we shall never speak of it again.

Thank you. Moving on. Is there a Tom Hiddleston award to give out Forevermore? Like, was there some work that was shown? Okay, tell me what it is. Yeah, no, I know there's a real one. There are 400 remixes of Willow. on streaming services.

Oh, you're right. Oh! There is a moonlit witch, there is a dancing witch, there is a lonely witch. It's like Stevie Nix was directing all this. Stevie's like, no, you need another, you need the moonlight witch,

you need the winter moon witch, you need, oh my God. Are any of them good? No. I prefer the original to all of them, and the original is not in my lower third. Okay, answer this. What's better? The Willow Witch Remixes? Or the Love Story remix that was released that we didn't even talk about.

Well, two of them use Elvira, the same producer. I think the Willow remix is, I think at least one of the Willow remixes is better than the Love Story remix. Okay. Willow is at least sort of ripe for the treatment of getting a little bit more like electronic and funky and beep boop, beep, boop. Like, love story just does not need that. Okay. Well, that is a lot of work. What is the purpose of this, do we think? Is it just...

I was going to ask you this, because so she has all the different Willow remixes, and they were coming like one a day for a stretch of December. It was just unbelievable. And then she did, as you mentioned before, the chapters, which were the, the, you the amalgamation of songs that had a certain thematic fit from both folklore and Evermore. Amalgamation sounds like a word that could have been on Evermore, by the way. Good job. There's a, we should make a list of words that we hope Taylor uses at some point.

She's got her own list. Because I know that when we were talking about this album at one point, you used the word Tempest in a text to me. And my only reaction to it was like to completely ignore your message and just be like, How has Taylor never used Tempest? Anyway, we digress. The point is why is she doing this? Does it boost streaming in some way?

Like, there's always a new thing to push out to people, is my only thought. Well, so there's two explanations that I have, and I'm sure there are better ones than this. But going back to looking at those stream counts, it sure looks like it's driving people to stream the original version of Willow because it's dominating. on a relative basis compared to the other songs on this. And then the other is that argument that we were making earlier, which is the TikTok phenomenon and Taylor knowing that a lot of her stuff is going to get woven into these platforms anyway.

So why not create a bunch of content that could get used in those settings? Because she'd rather have some creative control over it than turn it over to somebody else. I feel like there's some merit to that because when you have, I mean, and there's a line and a half on so many different Taylor Swift songs that this would work for a lot of things. But when you have a line, like, I come back stronger than a 90s trend, it feels very designed to become a TikTok trend or just become a caption, become a reference point, like become something that people can use on social media. So maybe that's part of it. I buy that theory. Well, that was a good one. Mine was blank because I just couldn't come up with it.

I don't know how I missed that. I'm so glad that you brought it. Did you come up with anything for peak tag? You damn right, I did. And Peak Taylor, Peak Taylor, for me, is that fireplace chat that we see in the Long Pond Sessions. We now know that

those were not the only glasses of Chardonnay she had that night. They all got hammered and played a bunch of music late into the night. And then they woke up the next morning and she walks into Aaron Dessner's kitchen and sing.

him tis the damn season, which again, she's written completely either in her sleep or drunk on Chardonnay, I don't know, but who writes Tis the damn season hungover before everybody's up for breakfast? It's peak Taylor. It's unbelievable. Like if she had written, if she had written happiness drunk or hungover, I would be like, okay, yeah, like, that's maybe the one that we can live without. This is like one of the very best songs on this album. This is, like, one of the very best songs on this album. this song is incredible. Yes, I think about Aaron Desner with his dad bod

rolling into the kitchen. He's super hungover. He does not drink Chardonnay usually. He's just like, oh, he's operating on two hours of sleep. You know, the baby was up early. You know, he's in no position to receive this song.

And Taylor comes bounding down to the kitchen in like full energy. She out drank him by like three bottles of wine the night before. She took the favorite piece of music he's ever written and that he had sort of resigned himself was just going to be an instrumental,

and she sings this thing that puts just a needle right through his chest in the best possible way. It's unbelievable. Maybe there's like a battery pack in the braid. And that's why she changes the braid. She went from two to one.

She upgraded the battery pack. I'll buy it. She is in the Avengers. Ugh, it's incredible. That song is incredible, and I'm so glad that they made it. It's just like, can you imagine writing this gorgeous piece of

music in your most natural element, this finger-picked electric guitar over the sort of signature bass. It could have stayed in instrumental. And here she comes. Into your kitchen in the morning is like, here's how it's going to be. Well, and it's that sound of the electric guitar. It can sound so current and so nostalgic at the same time. They get that on last great American dynasty too, but there's something about that here where it doesn't, I mean, the same. This song is about a memory or returning to old things, old places, and sort of living in that. But it has such an emotional punch because it's so real. Like, it's right in front of your face somehow. I don't know if I'm describing that right, but it just really hits me. Yeah. My secret little

Easter egg on this song is, is she talks about mud on your truck tires. And that has a lot of parallels to the line about what tires do to mud on you all over me. So that felt like maybe a tiny little Easter egg to what was coming. Well, and those, that line is so great because the way the syllables fit and like kind of slightly syncopate into the phrasing of it is so good. It's just everything that she's awesome at. And it's, you know, the truck tires. That's sort of a little bit of a nod to old. old Taylor.

Very few songs have, I mean, in our text thread, I told you I like this, but I think I'm going to like it more in about 30 minutes. And the more that I come back to that song, it is now, it's going to be very hard

to do our next job, which is to pick the belatedly best song. Well, but hold on. I haven't given you my peak, Taylor. Oh, God. Which is long story short. And specifically, the line, long story short, it was the wrong guy,

which is the gall on this one. and long, oh, long story short, Taylor, nine albums. We're in our 16 of this freaking podcast. Oh, long story short. There is no long story short with Taylor. Long story short, it was a bad time. Long story short, it was the wrong guy. Like, that's, it's so funny.

I love this song so much. I think it's so good. I also think whenever I hear this song, I love the drums in it so much, because they're actually kind of, and this is, again, this is a headphones one. They're bigger than you remember them on first listen. And I always picture Jack listening to this album and getting to this song and like getting to the part where it really gets going and being like, wait, we were allowed to make the drums go boom.

No one told me. I thought we weren't supposed to do that now. Yeah. I don't know. Long story short short, there's a sneaky line in there where she says, now we live in peace. which to me feels like a reference back to the song piece on folklore. So is it your favorite song on the album? No, it's not. No, it's not.

What's the best song in the album? Belatedly. I mean, we've only had this damn thing for three months, but what is belatedly the best song? It's Ivy. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I just, I will love that song for the rest of my life. I absolutely know that I will. It's beautiful. The lyrics are beautiful. But really what it is is that we've talked about structure. And I think Ivy is a great example of how these songs, even though they are taking the work of folklore a step further with Evermore, can still be really structured and really smart in that way. Because for the first couple of verses and choruses, this song isn't doing a lot. It's just functioning. It's got that sort of droning over and over again, D, that you

here and everything is kind of worked in tightly around that and you're not hearing that much. Like the universe of the song is pretty compressed. And then it starts on the third verse with the clover blooms in the fields. It starts to expand a little bit. And then just harmonically by the time you get to the bridge, the so yeah, it's a fire. It's a goddamn blaze in the dark. It is so big. And the world of the song is so much bigger and juicier and the harmonies are different that it just, it's the same reason that I love I know places. It just hits so hard. And when I hear that, I'm like screaming.

So yeah, it's a fire. It's a goddamn blaze in the dark. And you started. You started. Because it just does so much work to just build you and keep turning the dial up and keep turning it up. And then there it just detonates. And that's one of my favorite moments on like any Taylor song ever.

and it's my favorite song in this album. Yeah, this is another one where it feels like she was at the peak of her game motivated by wanting to measure up to Justin Vernon and Boney Bairn. Not that she needs to, but she has, again, repeatedly expressed that anxiety that she won't be accepted by her idols. And Justin Vernon is one of her musical idols. And you can just feel the energy and the focus in this song. And I also like that it's a, it is a.

song that is very much not about her. And it is a story fully about somebody else. And it's just a great example of an evolution in the way that she writes songs from, you know, all the way back on debut to here we are on Evermore, where she's able to completely put herself into somebody else's body and tell their story. Also, she uses the word incandescent. Yes. That belongs on the Taylor Words list. Yeah, it does. That would not have made fearless or reputation for good reasons. Is there anything else that competes with it for you? Tis the damn season and Marjorie compete with it for me. Yeah, I love Marjorie. Tis the damn season. I absolutely adore. Tolerate it really grew on me in a big way. I'm surprised. I mean,

there's two collaborations here that we haven't touched on that we should very briefly because they're very close to some people's hearts. Coney Island, where she finally actually does a song with the National. And Matt Berniger is singing with her. She talks about the mall before the internet, which is a nice sort of shout out to the folklore, Meet Me Behind the Mall from August. There's a lot of people who love that song.

It feels to me like she wrote it so that her favorite band would sing happy birthday to her. Because she released this album three days before her birthday, and I think she just wanted the singer of her favorite band to sing happy birthday to her in perpetuity forevermore. How do you feel about Coney Island?

I like it a lot. I like it more than I did initially. I got to say, and this is unfair, and I play gender wars way too much. I don't even really mean it. Her collabs with dudes are always hard for me at first because I always want to hear Taylor more than I want to hear the guy. Yeah. Yeah. If you're not a fan of the National, I get it. The way she wrote this, is perfect for the way that Matt sings. But at least she took the first verse here. We can say that. Yes.

And you know what? It's awesome because one, it's not just about hearing her first. It's that when he comes in, like, as much as what I just said is true for me, the hair on the back of my neck stood up when I heard his voice the first time listening to this. Like, it's a real moment.

Yeah. I'm just, I think moment is a word that you used talking about some of the clab stuff on folklore. And I think it's instructive here too. where these aren't my favorite songs, but they have little moments like that that are some of my favorites on the album. Well, in collaborations with dudes,

you want more Taylor, you got that on Cowboy like me because Boni Vare is playing drums and Marcus Mumford is singing in the background, but he's not taking any of the leads. How did he feel about that song? I love that song. Maybe that's why.

What I really love about that song is that there's a lot in the vocal where it kind of clipclops, like horse hooks. Yeah. Like the strumming pattern on the guitar kind of does it. And then there's the part in the vocal

where it's like, you had some tricks up your sleeve. And it kind of syncopates. Like that to me is like... It's a me. It feels to me like it could be a second chapter of getaway car. That's another one where it's not about Taylor.

And I love the story of it. Yeah. Like, it's just so, it's just funny. But I do think Ivy wears the crown on this album. And for me, it always will. Well, normally this is where we would go to next album, Appetizer, which we're not going to do here because we're going to get to sort of where does she go from here when we do our wrap up, which is making me really sad because it's like, we're at Hevermore.

We're starting to get towards the end of our journey. But I hope that you will cheer me up. by offering a best lyric from this album. Well, I don't know if it's going to make you happy or not. I have two. The first is from Time to Go. I love the line, that old familiar body ache,

the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul. Oh, that's so good, yeah. That old familiar body ache, the snaps from the same little breaks in my soul. It's in particular the snaps in the same little breaks. That's it. Yeah. Snaps from the same little breaks is just,

oh, I love that line so much. And it's not just because that's what it sounds like when I got to get out of bed every morning. I also love from Tis the damn season, and the heart I know I'm breaking is my own to leave the warmest bed I've ever known. I think the reason I love that is the moment in the song more than the lyric, where everything just strips down and there's just the little faint ringing of the electric. but I, oh, it's awesome. And the heart I know I'm breaking is my own

to leave the warmest bet I've ever known. What's yours? From, well, hold on. From tis the damn season, is the holidays linger like bad perfume? Is that a reference to Wonderstruck? Oh, God. You would know because I think you've obtained some.

I think it's in the mail. Some wonderful listeners. kind enough to offer to send it. But I do, whenever I hear that now, now that we've done that pod and... You can't unsmell it? I just... No, it's that I picture Taylor at some point in her life, just having, like, tons of excess bottles of Wonderstruck, like, all over one of her houses. Oh, it's in a warehouse. I can't get rid of this stuff. Yeah, no, no. She's got a garage, you know, in Nashville somewhere that has a ton of that stuff. It's just sitting there. Just boxes and boxes of Wonderstruck. Yeah, someday it's just going to be a really hot,

like a really hot summer day and it's going to ferment and it's going to be a nightmare. Yeah, that's a nightmare. And then there's also, you could make the argument that motion capture put me in a bad light from Evermore. Cats reference. Oh, no. We're trying to make that go away. Why do you have to keep just, you just keep bringing back cats from the dead every time? Can I, this is the hottest take that I will drop on this entire podcast.

Oh, God. I thought Taylor was good in cats. I just, you're, you're really, really, that's a hill that you have always defended with great fury. I'm very proud of you for that. I don't think Katz is good. I just think Taylor was good in it. Okay. I will give you my best lyrics. So two candidates. And then I will give you the actual crowning one. I already mentioned now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life from Tolerated, which... As a writer, you would love that, of course. And then from Marjorie, all your closets of backlogged dreams and how you left them all to me

is really special to me because you get the image of stuff, right? Like physical objects that get passed down from older family members. But then she turns it into it's not a. physical item that she's getting from her grandmother. It's the dream of being a singer and being an artist and doing this stuff and sort of tracing that legacy. I love that line. But it's not my best lyric. My best lyric is I don't like that falling feels like flying till the bone crush. I like that line. It's a really good. I know that's a little bit of a subtle one. That's incredible. because you get in the middle of it, like falling feels like flying.

In and of itself is this crazy little pocket where you have three Fs, but then you also have the INGs that mirror each other. And then the end of the line is fitting into the rhyme scheme of the overall song. But she does that thing where the crush just has that like ASMR thing. So I will never, every time I hear that line, I'm just like, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. I can't wait to see how if and when she goes out and goes on tour, how she's going to handle these three albums.

We'll talk more about it. But, like, how do you tour all this between lover and folklore and Evermore? Like, I don't even think the economics work for the supergroup to do a tour. because, you know, the opportunity cost of Jack with everything else he's doing as a producer and Aaron now as a producer, they both have bands that can go out and tour. You would think that maybe she'd come into a market

and play a stadium followed by a Lincoln Center show or something, and the stadium she'd do lover and all the hits and the reputation stuff and the big... And then the Lincoln Center she would do with the folklorians and do a couple of those. It's going to be fascinating to see what she does with this stuff. stuff live. That said, I need to hear your grade of this album because you have been teasing this now for like three episodes. And I believe that on the folklore podcast, you left some headroom

because you were going to make the cases you have for the last, however long we've been talking today, that this album is better than folklore. Is that what you believe? Yeah, I do. And I'll do the big reveal in one second. I just want to say, I've got a next album appetizer for us. To your point about Jack's opportunity cost, I'm hoping Jack only did one song on this because he was off with Lord convincing her to release the damn album. Yes. Bring us Lord. Come on, Lord. Let's go. It's time. You're not Adele. You're not Adele. It's time for the album. All right. All right. But I won't stall. This is an A. This album is an A. And you're absolutely right. Folklore has to be, like, I would have loved to give folklore and I would love to give

them all A. but evermore to me is a crowning achievement that does not, I don't think it gets its due because I think it gets sort of wrapped into folklore. So I owed it to this album to leave that little bit of space for this record, which is spectacular and deserves an A. Is this her most underrated album? I mean, you would say Speak Now, Reputation and This are probably strongly underrated Taylor Swift albums. But does this feel like the most underrated underappreciated. I mean, well, so I think it, I think it kind of is. So reputation, I think, ends up feeling so underrated because it's so special to the fans and it's such a good album. Yeah.

And there are such incredible songs on it. But it was part of that like very dark thorny period for her. Right. And it had those jarring singles. So I think reputation got like a lot of sort of like, like reputation kind of got dragged initially. And I think that sort of reflexively makes people want to say like, oh, reputation is the one that's really underrated. But I think people like, this happens in sports, right? Like a player is you can get so underrated that people talk about how underrated you are and then you actually become properly rated. I think a little bit of that has happened with reputation. Like I think people have started to realize how great of an album that actually is.

I agree with you. I'm not sure that that many people. especially based on what you're saying to me about the piece of the pie that Willow has with the streaming, I'm not sure that people have listened to this that much. I don't think it's been fully discovered. This album will forever be shaped by the month of December for me. You come out of Thanksgiving. Hopefully you've had that time with your family to be together.

It's getting dark at 5 o'clock at night. And so you just don't have that daylight, those of us with a little bit of seasonal affectation. start to feel a little darker in the mood. But then there's those lights at night and the holiday decorations are up and there's that anticipatory energy amongst all the kids of what's coming in the end of the month

and businesses are starting to end their year and the storefront. This album is that for me, which is incredible because when it came out, almost none of that was happening. We weren't all together. We were shut down. Businesses weren't open.

People weren't out going into stores and shopping. But the imagery of it and the way that it was written and the way that they created sonically conjured up those feelings. And so I can't wait to be out in the open and live a real full December with this as the soundtrack. It's an A for me. I'm so glad you said that. I want to live it in real life. I am a loudly professed winter lover.

It's my favorite season. So maybe that's part of why this is so special to me. But it was really lovely to be able to hear this for the first time, even if we couldn't be out in the world and have a friend in Taylor to talk about it with. So I can't believe really that we've come to not the end of our journey, but this significant juncture in it. Nathan, it was fun talking about ever more again with you. Thank you, Nora.

This has been every single album, Taylor Swift. For Nathan Hubbard, I'm Nora Prince, Daddy. We will be back on Thursday. You're not getting rid of us yet. We will break down everything that we've learned on this journey. And we're going to take a bunch of your guys's questions, make it kind of a mailbag episode. And then again on Monday, after Fearless Taylor's version is out, we will be on the ring or dish feed, breaking that one down too. So there's more to come. Look for it wherever you get your podcast.