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

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Did Taylor Swift single-handedly rescue our pandemic summer by surprise-dropping 'folklore?' Nathan and Nora think so. They talk about the influence of the National, Justin Vernon, and Jack Antonoff on this album; whether or not this an "indie" record; what makes Taylor so good at trying on new sounds; and their favorite songs off of this album. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ring or Dish is the place for all things celebrity, for major celebrity moments like the Met Gala and the Oscars, to the weird habits of the stars you love, to refreshers on the biggest tabloid stories from the last 20 years, Ring or Dish has all the vital details. On Tuesdays, catch jam session with Juliet Lippman and Amanda Dobbins for Royal Family Rumors, Celebrity Real Estate, and Industry Analysis. And on Fridays, listen to Tea Time with me, Kate, and Amelia for lightning fast coverage on pressing celebrity news and gossip. Check out Ringer Dish on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to every single album, Taylor Swift. I'm Nora Pryanti. I'm a staff writer at the Ringer. I am here with Nathan Hubbard. And we are here today to talk about folklore, which means that this is getting really real, Nathan.

We are in July of 2020. And what a July of 2020 it was. We were in lockdown. It was summer. We were waiting to see what was going to happen. And bang, she dropped the album of the year. Overnight. Good, I'm on some new shit.

Been saying yes instead of no. It was summer. It was allegedly summer. But we got like an oasis, basically. And as you just alluded to, what turned out to be Taylor's third album of the year winning album, which was folklore, which came out July 24th and just made what was a pretty crappy summer

for a lot of people, briefly better and brighter and more fun for a little bit or a long time if this record stuck with you as much as it did, I think, with both of us, right? It did. You know, when we think about Fearless, it beat Beyonce to win album of the year. We think about 1989, you know, there was a little bit of competition with Kendrick. I really feel like this album far and away was the uncontested no contest winner of album of the year. It was the album of quarantine

and it worked. Well, it's a spectacular album that was absolutely deserving on the sort of musical merits of it. But it was also a real... You know, this is a quarantine album. And we've had a few more of those since July 2020, right?

But at this point, a record that not only was released in quarantine was sort of a gift that was given to us during that time when just content and stuff to enjoy and put on and talk to your friends about was really, really, really needed and really valuable,

but it was also created in lockdown on separate ends in the country. And I don't think, I mean, I think probably when we get years into the future, I'll just think of folklore as folklore as this collection of songs that I really love to listen to.

But for this particular year, like, it was really of the moment. And I think that's important because in the creation of it, it wasn't just that they figured out. And when I say they, that's Taylor, that's Aaron Dessner, that's Jack Antonoff, that's some sound engineers and mixers, like Laura Sis, we'll talk about later. They were able not only to just like create this in quarantine and figure out how to get over the obstacles that that presented. I think for Taylor, a lot of it was really liberating, right? Because she got to use this sound that she loves that maybe she wouldn't have gotten to put if she'd had to think about touring and singles and an album rollout in the traditional sense.

Is that right? Do you think? Yes, she's sitting around her house thinking about probably listening to albums from the national and Boni Vair and the Big Red Machine stuff, which will talk about the influence going forward. And on a whim, she reaches out, because she doesn't have anything to do, she's in lockdown. she reaches out to Aaron Dessner and says, hey, would you be interested in collaborating? And he sends her a hard drive full of files that he's been creating, not sure for what,

maybe for the national, maybe for Big Red Machine. And within hours, she starts sending back vocals and lyrics over these songs that they've created. And boom, we're off. We got an album. And Taylor's been basically,

like, Taylor's basically a national fan girl, right? Like, she comes by this pretty honestly. She went to a show in Brooklyn, she met him at S&L. I mean, this is the kind of music that she listens to. And I think it's part of the energy around the album,

which she sort of put herself into the band and into these songs. But at the end of Lover, we could tell she was sort of reaching the edge of phase two of her sound through her career. Like, it's not unlike,

this is her eighth album. Like, U2's eighth album. album was Zeropa. That was a format shift. Madonna's eighth album was music. That was also a genre shift. It's kind of been the bane of the great ones' creative output.

Neither one of those albums is exactly those guys at their best. Those things were not going to win album of the year. They were not great. But this one, she went with the music that she loved and it clearly unlocked her creatively in ways we hadn't seen ever before. So what I love about folklore the most is that, right, to your point, like she loves these sounds.

I mean, I remember seeing when they did the You Need to Calm Down video. I remember seeing an Instagram post from Antony from Queer Eye where it was like a photo of him and Taylor and they were sort of like looking at each other with excited, surprised faces. And the caption was like,

you love the national? I love the national. So it's like, this goes way. I mean, it goes back way beyond that for her. I think she had some of their stuff on a playlist that was like Songs Taylor Loves in 2017, right? To understand this album, you have to listen to The National. And in particular, you've got to hear the album I Am Easy to Find, which sonically she was obsessed with. She was also obsessed with the short film by the same name that the National did the soundtrack for.

That's a Mike Mills film about a woman's life from birth to death. I'll come to where you are alone in the quiet. It's just a deeply moving and thinking about your own and you're always there. If you haven't heard that album and seen that film, I don't think you can really understand this album. Also, you've got to hear the big Red Machine album.

Two petting, too close. Too flat or two road. Now look at you go. When we hear a lot of sounds that get pulled from that, things that Justin Vernon of BoniVair and Aaron Destiner are the National do together. That's the precursor. It's like the required reading to take folklore 101.

But the cool thing about it is that it's still a Taylor Swift record, right? Like, there's some, now there are some differences. she's not so purely autobiographical. And she's proving herself super adept at doing this thing where she can take snippets from books and movies and other things that were creatively inspiring to her. And then also little snippets from her own life or friends' lives or whatever and like mash them together and just still have a feeling and a story as the through line that makes a song work. That said, there's still a lot of her life in here. And there's still a lot of just the quintessential Taylor turns of phrases. Right.

Some of the just knack for melody. I think, and I don't want to criticate here, there was some reaction to folklore where it was like, okay, well, she's just, she's, she's purely adopting this sound that she likes. And that never sat perfectly right with me because I hear so much Taylor in this music. It is undeniably her. And I think that's what's so successful about it. And it's kind of cool to talk to you about it because I know how much you love

the National, love Bonnie Vera. Like, that's been less my wheelhouse. And I think I've gotten to appreciate them more through the work with Taylor, whereas I think for a lot of people, it went the other way. So it's just, it was just a great, I love this album.

I love the moment that it sort of gave us when it came out. I love that it's the product of people basically coming together because they loved the music that the other person made. Yeah, I mean, you said it. Some people say this is Taylor grafting herself onto another genre and playing a new part. I mean, she's always been playing a little bit of a character in the pop songs. She also was always struggling with the, am I country, am I pop at the beginning, right? There was so much conversation around what genre do we put this woman into.

What's amazing about her as a songwriter is she's sort of genreless. and while she was getting pushback from country when she was there, she got some pushback from the pop world. The funniest part of this is the genre is thrilled to have Taylor Swift on Dad Indy Rock Island. Plenty of space. Every guy who loves the national and like BoniVare freakouts are like, yes, finally some recognition for me. It's just been a validating experience for everybody on Dad Indy Rock Island.

Okay, is that true? Sometimes I feel like Dad Indy Rock Island likes to turn its nose up at the rest of. the world, but I'll take your word for it. No, they're thrilled to have a spotlight. Like, see, I told you this stuff was awesome. I've been going to these. I know they don't play arenas, but man, now they're going to. It's because of Taylor, so they're happy about that.

All right. Well, you're like the vice roy of dad in Iraq Island, so I will believe to be saying. I'm the Secretary of State. Thusly appointed. All right. Well, now that we know that we're dealing with a thoroughly credentialed person here, let's get to the categories. And we're going to start with the biggest song, as we always do,

which I think is Cardigan here, which is a little bit complicated, right? Because part of the rollout of this in the moment that it came to be in, the benefit to Taylor was not having to worry so much about lead singles and music videos and first week sales and all of that stuff. But Cardigan still got a music video, there's merch, it kind of got the runway more than anything else. And I think it was effective enough to make it the biggest song. Do you agree with that?

Yeah. I mean, this album was basically put together from start to finish to release in three months or something. So they started this in April and it came out July, like you said. So there was not a lot of time to even think about those things. But that's also why the data on this album is really interesting. It made me go back and look at the stream counts and run the numbers. So on a traditional Taylor Swift album, like on lover or on reputation, let's take reputation, look what you made me do.

We know it was the biggest song. It was the first single. It got 22% of the overall streams so far in its history. So that's a lot as a percentage of the whole album. Cardigan has the most streams on folklore, but it's only at 14%. And so what that means is that the rest of the album gets more streams than a traditional Taylor Swift album or anybody else's traditional album. What that really means is

people are listening to this and have listened to this from front to back as an album instead of going in and picking individual songs. I 100% can attest to that because, look, like I've mostly grown up in a sort of mixed CD to playlist era of music consumption. But this year was a year,

like the last, you know, year plus, I listened to albums. more than I have since probably like I was a little kid. Right. And you wanted an experience. Like an album when it's really good and effective can be an experience. Right. And so I would put on the Dual Leapur record and that's some little version of like even if I were dancing in my bedroom, that's kind of like going out with your friends or at least

the closest thing that we had to it. This was something where you could just like whether it transports you to the woods or just feels like you're wrapping yourself in. the warm blanket of folklore, I would put it on and just listen to it and live in it. And that was really, you know, again, like we're talking about sort of little silver linings in an admittedly very crappy year in a lot of ways. Right. And that was, I think one of them was just sort of experiencing these pieces of art as a

whole and as they were really intended to be. So that makes a lot of sense to me that that's how people consumed that. Yeah, but I think you're right that we'd have to say Cardigan. is the quote-unquote biggest, I think there's a lot of fun arguments around whose favorite song is on this album. But Cardigan is important because there's a couple things to talk about with it.

First of all, it's the anchor song of the trilogy of songs along with August and Betty that are about a love triangle that I'm going to let you explain. But music is a song, this song for me, the piano is what's most jarring

when I heard it. That piano, on Cardigan that starts it is almost identical in sound and substance to the piano that starts the song Light Years from the Nationals I Am Easy to Find album. Okay. When I listen to it, I hear a lot of Lana Del Rey in the vocal.

Your poetry is bad and you blame change your move. Absolutely. It's got Norman fucking Rockwell all over the vocal. But this was the first track that they worked on together. He sent her the song that, you know, at 9 o'clock and by 2 a.m., she sent back the full track. By the way, the video, also, it's a hell of a lot like Harry Stiles falling video. Also an amazing record. But there's piano, there's water, there's a lot of

parallels here. We're very cottage core. Take me through the trilogy, because I still, I've spent a lot of time with this album, but that's one of those things where, like, you've got to really invest yourself to understand the perceptions and the perspectives that are going on in this trilogy. All right. Well, so the teenage love triangle, Taylor calls it, is Cardigan, August, Betty. And Taylor talked about in the YouTube comments when the Cardigan video was premiering that some of the Easter eggs for this album were not just in videos and like visual hints on Instagram or whatever. There were lyrics that referenced each other and hinted at other things, other songs, other songs from the past, other songs in the

album. And the most striking example of that is those three songs, Betty being, there's a guy who has had a dalliance, a summer romance with a woman who's not the, or girl, these people are in high school, allegedly, who is not like the one that he's destined to be with. And so Betty is his. eventual apology for that, that foolishness. August is the Summer Flings perspective where she's really hurt by him moving on and not choosing her. And she felt like, you know, she wasn't trying to be shady or steal someone's man.

She thought they really had someone. And then Cardigan is the girl that he does end up with perspective from many years later thinking about like, well, you kind of put me through it, but we're good now and this all worked out. Okay, so we have the name James. We have the name Betty. There's also Eninez. Those happen to be the names of Blake lively and Ryan Reynolds' kids. But what does this all mean? Right. Okay. So there's a couple different readings of this. And I'll say right off the bat for everybody, internet's going to internet and the internet has

interneted pretty hard with this trilogy in particular. One of the reasons because being that James traditionally a man's name but also

sort of part of Taylor's name because she's in part named after James Taylor also because James Reynolds is a girl. Blake lively and Ryan Reynolds' daughter is a girl. There's an opening for this

trilogy to include same-sex calls. couples, which is cool. Taylor is opening the window so that this could be read in a number of different ways. Now, one of those ways is that it's been read as an allusion to something about her personal life that we're just not getting into. Because we don't know, and that's not, again, like, internet's going to internet, but it's just not a part of our project, but it is something that's taken on a life of its own with these songs. The thing that I, think is actually more interesting about it, a lot more interesting, is one, yes, the opening up of

the storyline to include different types of relationships. But also, you get a different version of that with August, right? Because this is the song that's from the quote unquote other woman's perspective, or if she is a woman or we don't know. But she doesn't get named, which I think is really clever. Taylor in the Long Pond Session says she calls her like Augusta or Augustine in her head, but she doesn't get a name in the song, which is kind of an interesting play on that like,

you know, second fiddle in the relationship and not being the one that ends up off with James. But I think that works so well because it's really sympathetic to the quote unquote other woman, which like let's think back to better than

revenge, right? Like, you didn't do that. You don't steal someone's man. Taylor's grown up so much and she has such a more like sympathetic understanding of no, the protagonist in August wanted this type of happiness for herself and was trying to get it and wasn't doing anything wrong and actually probably got hurt as a result of part of this. And her ability to capture that and to have so much empathy for that character is really cool, I think. So she shows a lot of, like, there's just a lot of possibilities to lay over these three songs. Obviously, again, some of them are probably more appropriate for corners of Reddit than they are for this podcast.

But there's other ones that I think are really right for discussion. There's a lot going on here. I feel like we need a slideshow to explain it. But here we are. I think we're going to move on from there. I will say, I have to acknowledge this. I like the song cardigan of the trilogy. it's my least favorite.

I love Betty and I love August. So the placement of Cardigan is a little... I'm with you. And accordingly, when she played this on the Grammys and you thought she did Cardigan, she went into August and we were gearing up. Heim was right there in the room

so they could have been the backing band on Betty, but she went to Willow from Evermore instead. I don't understand. If you're going to create the trilogy and you're going to do the first two, why not just finish it with the third? Because, like you said, Cardigan otherwise isn't necessarily my favorite song from this album.

I would have loved to have heard or play a lot of the other amazing songs on this album. Whatever. Well, there's a couple other songs that did do really well from this. The one in Exile also were top tens. To your point about people sort of experiencing this thing as a whole and also people who love different genres being able to access this from different points, whether it was interest in Taylor, interest in the National and Big Red Machine and Bonnie Fair, exile was promoted to adult alternative radio.

Betty went to country radio. There was like, is this an indie record? Is it still pop? Is it alternative? Is it whatever? Like, I don't really care. I just think that the magic of it is that so many people could get on board here. Yeah.

I mean, listen, indie rock dads care. They want to have the genre for them. But yeah, I don't care either. Indy Rock Dads Care. It's such a dumb conversation about the genre, because the whole point of this artist is that she creates for any genre. She is a songwriter at the core. And what's fun about album number eight, and we're going to talk about album number nine. And what I'm sure is going to be fun about album number 10 is that she can take

these songs and port them into all different formats. And as she has continued to get better as a writer, and in particular as a vocalist, she picks these formats that can accommodate what she's really good at. And because she is a talented enough lyricist and songwriter and also just personality. Yeah. They remain Taylor Swift songs. Like that is what is so important to me. And that's a good segue into talking about track five, which is my tears ricochet. You know, I didn't want to have to haunt you, but would a ghostly scene?

Which is one of those examples where it's like, yes, Taylor had done a lot of drawing from, movies she was watching in books and all this other stuff. But this one is about Scott Borchetta, and it is personal, and to me, it is spectacular. Do you like this song, Nathan? I do. I love it. She sandwiches this Jack Antonoff produced this one in between some of the work with Aaron Dessner. And so there's sort of a purpose to it. Look, it is a remake of Delicate from Reputation. It is the same key. It is the same chords. But it is it is. a gorgeous song. I'm happy to see it again. It's an embittered tormentor showing up at the funeral of his fallen object of possession. I'm looking at you, Scott Borchetta. Yeah, it's really, I mean,

one of the things that I think is so cool about this song and then Mad Woman, which is the song for Scooter, is that she's writing openly about this thing that is ultimately a business situation. I think that's very, it's very cool to hear people express that stuff. Not that, like, you know, I love relationship drama just as much as the next girl. But it's really cool to hear that stuff processed through incredible songs. And what I love about those two songs is that Taylor knows she has an incredible piece of leverage and power in these fights in that she is the creator of the art. Right.

And that's not to say that people who, you know, are in Scott Borchetta's position or in a scooter like position. And like, that's, when it's going well, like, that's really important work. But she has a card in her hand that is, I create the things that move people and that they care about and that they'll fight for. And so that line. You love that. And where it gets just spooky in the, like, the vocal, if you're listening to it in headphones, all of a sudden the vocals is coming from your other headphone. Right.

And it's just, it is haunting. and it is in some ways vicious because it's the ultimate like I can do this and you can't whoever wins this tussle like I can do this I think we were tricked a little bit in the way this album was set up

I mean there was no time to prepare the PR I don't think the label knew about this until just the days leading up to the release but we were tricked a little bit on folklore that these were songs from a perspective of a third person and she was, you know, sort of pouring herself into somebody else's stories and that it was less sort of personal writing.

There's a lot, as you say, of Taylor Swift in these songs and none more present than Mad Woman and My Tears Rickshay. Right. Mad Woman, let's just talk about that for a little bit too because I absolutely love that song. And I love the song The Man, but... It's a more sophisticated man. Well, I love The Man more now that Mad Woman exists, right?

Because... Tell me why. Because the man is an imagined situation, right? If I was a man, then I'd be the man. This is real. Like, Mad Woman is the real expression of, as Taylor says, female rage. What did you think I'd say to that? Does a scorpion sting when fighting back?

Which when lover came out, they leaked or not leaked. They gave a few lines from the man to, I think, Vanity Fair. It was for some magazine piece. And I remember reading them. And it doesn't really give you a hint of what the tone of the song is going to be or whatever. And I was just so excited to hear that song because I wanted to hear her do that. And I will be honest, initially when I heard the man, I was a little disappointed because it wasn't that. It really grew on me.

The man is now one where, like, I have to be very careful if it comes on in the car. because one time it was playing and I looked down at my spedometer and I was driving like 95 miles an hour and I was like, I'm normally a very safe driver, but I was like, whoa, we need okay. I guess we have some feelings to work out here. We have a lot of Taylor Swift car issues with Nora. We have to be very careful about putting this stuff on in the cars for you. You've had to pull over before.

Remember a cruel summer you made you pull over. Like, what are we doing? We might have to ban Taylor Swift while you're driving. It could be a hazard. I just get really into it. And sometimes I'm like, what's going to happen? And I've never been pulled over. And I'm always kind of like, what's going to happen if I have to be like, look,

now you jinxed it. Like, look, I don't know what to tell you, but I was listening to this song and I got really into it and I'm really sorry and I won't do it again. Like, that's going to have to be my message to the cop. But anyway, good luck with that. The man has grown on me a lot. I just had to adjust to, it was different from what I was expecting. What I was expecting was mad woman.

So then when that hit, I was like, oh, let's go. And that's absolutely one of my favorite songs in the album. Yeah. There is a ghost-like quality to her in both of these songs. One of the things about Mad Woman that I love is a fun fact is that I think her house in L.A. is very close to Scooter's House in L.A. And so that part about her seeing the face on the neighbor's lawn, I think, is a very real reference to the fact that one or the other passes the other's house on the way home. What do you sing on your drive home?

Do you see my face? Well, and that lyric comes right after, what do you sing on your drive home? Which, again, is such a knife. Like, that's such a good line because it is the ultimate Trump card of I write songs and you don't. I can sing my own stuff on my drive home.

What do you do? She's a killer. All right. But she did not have to be a killer all by herself on folklore. So we're getting to most important collaborator, which is probably, I think we should talk about a bunch

people here, we should probably just say as a banner up top. Like, it's, it's Aaron Dessner. It's Aaron Dessner is the answer to this, right? Yes. You've spoken as the Secretary of State of Indy Dad Rock Island? There's no doubt that the president of Indy Dad Rock Island is the most important collaborator here. But I think you and I both would say that there were a couple of people behind the scenes who also deserve a shout out because, for example, Jonathan Lowe mixed this record. And even on Lover, where she didn't work with Max Martin, Serban Ginea is the guy who mixed that album. So he's been doing a lot of the work on her pop stuff. This record sounds different and there's more space and there is more space

for her vocal, which is important because I think you're going to tell me who else was a really important collaborator. Yeah. So Laura Sisk did the setup of Taylor's studio in home studio, literally in her bedroom. Kitty committee. The Kitty Committee Studio. And she did the engineering of Taylor's vocals, not only setting up the place where she recorded them, but then engineering them in the aftermath. I'm just turning into a giant Laura Sisk stand. Like she was at the Grammys.

She looked great. She had this, like, awesome pink, silky mask that I was obsessed with. She just seems really awesome. And she seems like someone who's really become part of the inner circle. And I love how the vocals sound on this album. In particular, she just keeps all the breath. Right? Like, you can hear her intake oxygen. My twisted night.

My sleepless night. And it's so close to you. Like, you feel like she's sort of breathing and singing in your ear almost when you're hearing a lot of these songs. And I give Laura Sisk a lot of credit for that. Again, it seems like, I mean, for goodness sake, like Taylor trusted her to come into her home in the middle of lockdown and do all the stuff in her bedroom and set up. it up. So, shout out. She's done a lot of work with Jack Antsnoff on some other projects.

But recording vocals is a really intense process. It's usually the last thing that you do on an album. And for the artist who's singing, like, you're sort of, it's the most vulnerable moment because the vocal makes or breaks a track like that. And a lot of times, you're by yourself in a sound studio, the producer is in a control room on the other side of some glass. You're surrounded by all of this acoustic paneling, and it's almost claustrophobic. You feel like you're in this cave. Sure. And when you can't lay down the right vocal, it can go wrong. It can be really frustrating and hard. You're going over and over and over again. You can sort of lose the plot. What we know about Jack and, in particular, Laura, is they bring the artist into the control room. So they're literally there with them.

It makes it less of a lonely experience. And in this case, she's sitting there inside of Taylor Swift's bedroom, probably with her cats. And that's part of that intensely intimate sound that we get all across folklore. And intimate is such an instructive word there, right? Because they did that, even though it was the opposite of intimate, right? Everyone was like thousands of miles away from each other. Including, I think we should use this as an opportunity to talk about exile a little bit. because another collaborator here,

Justin Vernon, A.K. Bonnie Bear. Wait, hold on. Let's get this straight. Dessner is the president of Indie Dad Rock Island. Yeah, Justin Vernon is the god of the universe. This is a non-secular island. Yeah. This song is spectacular.

I think I've seen this film before. And I didn't like the ending. Yeah. It is, I'm not going to lie to you. When I heard that she had collaborated with Justin Vernon, like it was, this was the song that you wanted to hear. And the first- You let yourself on fire and ran around screaming.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the first pass through this, it's sort of less boni-vary than you were expecting. I mean, Justin Vernon's bass voice sounds like Eddie Vedder. Find a bigger place. When you have more than you think, you need more space. It does. If you go listen to society, like his solar record,

it sounds like Eddie Vedder. And so much of the work that Justin Vernon and Boni Verre do are his high sort of falsetto. So it's sort of shocking to hear. And for me, it took me a little while to really fully embrace the song. It's like, oh, wow, I get it. the more you listen to it. Like, that first verse, you know, this is a broken love song for sure, but I think that first verse is maybe about Nashville in the state of Tennessee

where she first injected herself politically. But it's the end where they're going back and forth. The call and response of you never gave a warning sign is the intensity of this. And I have to say, I didn't fully love this song until I heard them do it in the Longpun Studio session. Were you as moved by that as I was? Yeah, it's incredible, especially because Justin's got like the full face covering and you just, you feel the big Wisconsin energy coming through. Big Wisconsin.

You just have them going blow for blow. And what is, and I'm, okay, so if you're the secretary of state of Indie Dad Rock Island, like I am the queen of Taylor Singh First Island. Right. she doesn't do it here but this one I have to be honest does not bother me because by the end of it they are punching

clearly in the same weight class and you have that back and forth where sometimes they have the same line and they're just singing different harmonies together but then it starts to layer and it's you never gave a warning sign I gave so many signs

sometimes when they trade lines what just gets me is that sometimes like Taylor's vocal will come in a little bit sooner than you think it's going to. It's not like a neat he sings one, she sings one thing. So it's like sometimes they're a team and then sometimes they're fighting and then sometimes they're interrupting each other. And they are such equals in that.

You can like feel how devastating it would be whatever like real life situation that would pertain to just two people who are kind of tied together but are also just warring with each other that it takes away any sort of like Taylor don't play second fiddle to someone on a song because I just don't think there's any way to argue that she's doing that here. No, I mean, look, if you're going to knock the song, say it sounds a lot like the last time from Red that she did with Gary Lightbody and Snow Patrol, but it's different. But the end part of that song, which is what's great. Yes, is the back and forth. And one of the things that I appreciate here, Listen, she has said publicly, like, her biggest anxiety is that the people that she loves

musically aren't going to love her. The energy from this song is Taylor trying to impress Boni Vair because she absolutely loves him as an artist and she wants to, you can just hear the little bit of good nerves that she's got wanting to show up and kill this. And she does. I became such an Aaron Dessner fan in the Long Pond Sessions video because she's still in that place of like not really being willing to be like, I'm Taylor Swift and people are going to want to work with me because she's talking to Aaron and she's like, I just didn't even want to say it because I was so worried

that Justin was going to say no and he was going to hear the song and then he wasn't going to want to be on it. And Aaron's just like, yeah, I had a feeling he was going to be pretty inspired by it actually. And you're amazing. Yeah. So it did not really surprise me that he wanted to jump in and be part of this. And just him like course correcting her a little

bit and being like, yeah, actually, you're a songwriting badass. Yeah, right. And there's plenty of space at the dad indie rock inn, like a lot of vacancies. So, Taylor, if you want to come, we've got a nice suite for you, please. There's an inn now? There's all kinds of things. I would be remiss if I didn't say Boniever is an awesome collaborator. Like, you should hear, like, he does a lot of great work. The Bruce Hornsby stuff he's done. He covered Bonnie Wright. Like, he knows how to work with other artists. And it just, It shines here.

It is a great song. It got a Grammy nomination in its own right. But would it have been a better Song of the Year candidate than Cardigan? It's a stronger song. It might have been a stronger entry. Cardigan did not win Song of the Year.

Taylor was nominated for six Grammys, including one for Cats. But she was shut out until folklore ultimately won album of the year at the end of the night. You were nervous too, okay? It got a little stressful. Come on, I was talking you down.

This is revisionist history. You were doing no such thing. You were just as nervous as I was until you did, and this is true, point out the possibility that, one, Cardigan just isn't the most resonant song on this album, but then two, that they needed to kind of spread the love a little bit and share things around, which I think is right and is ultimately what happened. And really what matters is that focal. which is an album's album. It was sort of created through this really interesting process that led to

a real collection that has all these shared sonic elements and all the different songs. It was listened to as an album. And that is how it was awarded at the Grammys, making Taylor a three-time album of the year winner, which was really significant. And I think gave folklore its appropriate and well-deserved shine. So we can actually be having. happy about where we landed in in Grammy's territory with this, even if songs like exile didn't win in their respective categories. Yeah. What I'm building to in that argument is that this song is a moment more than it is like a great song. It's a great moment. It's not in my top 25 favorite favorite favorite favorite sort of Taylor moments on an album. Yeah. It's really,

I mean, it's just, and it did come to life in the Long Pond video. All right. So I'm going to, this is going to relate actually still to exile, but I am going to move us along to most purposeful Easter egg. Which, and we already talked about the teen love triangle song, so we'll leave that. Yeah. William Bowery. Okay. Co-writer on exile. And the genesis of that first verse being in that low register that's unusual for Justin Vernon, William Bowery, who we know is just. Joe was at the piano. The most conspicuous pseudonym of all time. Yeah. Well, okay.

It's a conspicuous pseudonym because Joe's grandfather was a composer and a music teacher and his name was William. And then Taylor and Joe potentially met and definitely both went to the same Kings of Leon show after party at the Bowery Hotel in New York in 2016. They were not necessarily like together or hanging out, but they were both there and there's photos. so people know. So William Bowery, people figured out pretty quickly, was likely to be Joe, and then Taylor confirmed it in the Long Pond video, even though Jack Antonoff, like, tried to keep the bit going.

And she was like, no, no. Yeah. And I think Aaron Dessner had sort of denied it or claimed ignorance about it. It was obvious to everybody. And it's kind of cute. Has anyone ever been more uncomfortable than Aaron Dessner, like,

having to sort of lie to the press about some Taylor Easter egg thing. The attention is not what he wants. And so he's like, I don't want to be in this world. Please stop asking me. I don't know. It's some guy. I don't know.

I mean, his DMs must be so full of insanity. Just like all the killer. Was Carly Claus in the studio? I know she was there. Just insanity. Yeah, but listen, we got to give him credit. He's won award on his way to an Egot. I don't know that he's going to get any further than that.

but he's got the G William Bowery does, Joe Alwyn does, because he wrote this song and a number of others on this album. And it's cute because they were locked down. He's clearly got a musical year and can do this well.

And I mean, it takes a lot within a relationship to write songs together. I mean, it's pretty noticeable that Taylor sort of walked into that and allowed that to happen. She's kept some walls up

in other relationships in that way. Yeah, well, and also had times when that went awry. I'm looking at you, John Mayer. Well, I was thinking, I was thinking Calvin Harris and that. Yes. But I think we know that she and Joe are on a little bit of a different plane than that. For sure. I still think Taylor's more likely to Egot than Joe.

Even though, like, that's counterintuitive, right? Because he already has a Grammy. I think she's more likely to win an Oscar. I think she might be more likely to get a part in a movie than he. is at this point. But I think you're right. We're so mean to Joe. We love Joe. No, we're not. We love him. It's just fun because it is great that she has this person in her life who doesn't need the spotlight. And so we just give him a hard time because of that. But the problem is that he's an allegedly working actor. Yeah. Which tends to come with some degree of spotlight, but Joe manages to have

threaded that needle and we support him for it. We do. Absolutely. And he is clearly a good songwriter because Taylor doesn't jump on, you know, the songs of everybody that walks in the room. So he was sitting there at the piano, right? And she was like, wait a minute. What's that? And she just like grabbed it. I want that. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. My least favorite part, or my second least favorite part, other than grading, I guess. But we have to cut at least one song. This is not a painful exercise for me. It really isn't. Hokes. meaningful for me.

Hoax doesn't grab me. Your faithless loves the only hooks I... She wrote The One and Hoax right at the end of the cycle and used them as sort of bookends on the album. The One grabs me. It grabs me. I love the one. It's like the only banger that you could possibly call a banger on this album.

And it's a great reset. There's a lot of space. The beat's cool. there's, you know, it's enough of a tailored song that it sort of transitions you into folklore. Hoax for me just never got its hooks into me at the end. Did it for you? Okay, I'm going to answer that in a second. I just want to say, Last Great American Dynasty in August are bangers. Come on. Yeah, okay. That's August. Yeah, I don't know if it's a bad. August is like a summer banger.

Yeah, but do you bop your head or do you do the Jack smile, you know, head sort of like, like, he's in the monkeys or something. You're obsessed with the Jack Antonov-August face. I love it. When it gets really loud at the end with the Remember One thing, when it comes back around the second time and really takes off.

I'm in a groovy, groovy place. Yeah, look, and what's cool about that line where she says, remember when I pulled up and said get in the car, that is syncopated lyric that's pulled straight out of getaway car from reputation. So I hear you that's more of a rocker than anything, but this is just not a rocking album.

Sure. The one gives you that sort of introduction and that smooth transition. But I don't know. I mean, Last Great American Dynasty, as you say, is the most fun song on the record, isn't it? Yeah. I think so. Because you just want to get inside that song. And it's the closest that you will ever get to being at the Fourth of July party at the house.

Right. Exactly. And it's actually kind of an incredible flex that a song about the heiress who used to own Taylor's multimillion dollar beach mansion is incredibly charming and kind of gets everybody in their heads. Like, we're all a little bit Rebecca Harkness by the end of it, a little bit. which is a remarkable accomplishment, right? Because that's not exactly everybody's life. Yeah. But it is Taylor's.

Yeah. And the marvelous time ruining everything. It's just... Her walking herself into it and making it biographical. It's cool. It's so cool when it comes back around and she, I mean, she talks about that in the Long Pond where it's like the country music trick where all of a sudden it's like, surprise, it was me.

And even, I actually love the way that that she writes that line because it's like 50 years is a long time holiday house sat quietly on that beach free of women with madness. There are men in bad habits. And then it was bought by and at the very last second, me. Yeah. As all the instruments fall out. Yeah. It is the last second. She waits until the very last second there. Okay. No. No. Please go back to your island. You're in time out. I'm back, I'm back, I'm back. When we're talking about one of my very favoriteest songs ever. Yeah, no.

But the way the instrumentation just falls out and she just, boom, she walks, she kind of breaks through that fourth wall and says, no, this is actually a song about me. Well, and the other thing is that like the combinations of guitar and strings on that song and the instrumentation of it, there's something where it's like sometimes it sounds very now and sometimes it sounds very like throwback. Yeah. Sounds very sort of old. it sounds very Rebecca Harkness. And then the guitar is like a little bit very Taylor.

Yeah, I hear you. I think you can hear it. Well, so, all right, you're not going to cut that song. Are you with me on hoax? Or is there another one that you would point to and say that's the one that we got to eject? So I'm with you on hoax. Hokes is the song that I would cut if forced to make a cut from folklore. Okay.

Can we? And we are moving on from what we would actually cut. Okay. Can you do a little bit of like folklore therapy for me? because I will be honest, I think I, there are different songs in this album that seem to resonate with me versus what I know resonates with a lot of people. And I'm wondering if you can sell me on peace or mirrorball. Okay. I'm going to have a harder time on mirrorball because I think, give me peace. Let me give you a piece. So that base in the beginning of peace.

and I'll keep your brittle hard warm if you cascade ocean wave blues come is pulled right out of the song Forest Green by Big Red Machine. Okay. And this song in particular was very, very special to Aaron Destner. It is for him a lot like

Tis the damn season that we're going to talk about on Evermore. But this was a piece of music that he had been sitting on. This to me is a love song and an apology from one of the most famous people in the world to Joe, because of this dynamic that we were just talking about.

She cannot change the insanity that is Taylor Swift, and it is so clear that that is not what Joe's into. And so she is such a human in this saying, is it enough? Is all of this stuff enough for you? Is it enough? Every other person that she's dated, almost every other person that she comes in contact with, wants or needs Taylor Swift the icon.

And this guy wants Taylor Swift, the human being, but you can't have one without the other. And so it's just lovely to hear her make this case to somebody who doesn't need Taylor Swift the star. That's my first part of the argument. Well, okay, so let me bridge these, though. Because the story of it, that's in some ways why I'm asking for you to sell me on it. Because the story of it, I think, is so compelling.

And that's why I'm like, I don't, I do not skip it. I always listen to it. I'm listening for something. I think, and this is the same thing with Mirabal, which is a song where in Longpon, where they're talking about it, she and Jack are talking about basically doing this song about needing people's attention and like needing to keep the spotlight. I'll get you out on the floor. Be all things to all people. Right.

And they say, she says something like, that they were talking about, like, is this too real? Is this too honest and raw? Is this too just like my sort of deepest insecurity and need to please people reflected in song?

And I think that's fascinating. And some of the lyrics are spectacular. And that must be why it's a lot of people's favorite song. And I, And I know people just absolutely go crazy over Mirabal. I can't get over the fact that it sounds like Linger by the Cranberries. I just can't.

That's not my issue with it, but that is true. I just, and I feel this way about peace a little bit too. Again, this to me is a Taylor Swift album, in part because a lot of these songs are immaculately structured. They're a little bit more like they have this sort of free-flowing, woodsy vibe. But they're still really, really, really immaculately structured. Sometimes I get lost in peace. Like, I don't quite know where I am in the song sometimes. And Mirabal, I have a little bit of that with too.

But I enjoy listening to both of them. I just know that they don't hit me the same way that they hit some other people. I think yourself included on peace, at least. I don't know how you don't melt when she says, give you a child. Give you my wild. Give you a child. on peace. Like, she is now thinking,

and this is an important song that we got to come back to lyrically when we start thinking about what's next after this era, for sure. But this is, to me, this is one of the most human songs that I've ever heard her write and sing.

Maybe it's because, I mean, you have, you have, wonderful children of your own. I can barely keep plants alive. So maybe that doesn't think. Maybe that's what it is. All right. What do we wish this album's title had been?

I like folklore. I always like the album titles, but I like folklore. Yeah, folklore works in a million ways, but for me it is what she wrote about, which is that these are songs that she wants to be passed down, right? These are folk songs, they really are. And they tap into a lot of folk artists that she discovered. You hear a lot of Joni Mitchell all over the album. Everybody drank.

Everybody drank. Seven in particular for me. The way that her voice bounced. from low to high register and back down, all those vocal mannerisms and melody drops from the high register. That's Joni Mitchell on Blue. It's California. It's Case of You.

It's all I want. Oh, you're in so big and so sweet. I love Case of You. Yeah, I do too. But in the liner note, she says, these songs are yours to pass down. And for that reason, you know, this is the perfect name for an album. Well, and in seven there is the lyric

Passed Down Like Folk Songs The Love Lass So Long, which is sort of That's what she wants The life of this album to be. How do you feel about the lowercase styling? I have no problem with it. Is that a thing?

Does it annoy people? I mean, people just like to get annoyed about stuff. I have no issue with it. But I think some people feel like it's sort of an attempt to telegraph endiness. I don't know. Are the street signs on Indie Dodd Rock Island, all lowercase?

I never come out of the castle to see, so I wouldn't know. The one thing I have to ask you is... Oh, excuse me. Should this have been called Woodvale? Oh, my gosh. Well, it was, right? It was called Woodvale for a time. That was Taylor's secret code name.

That was the William Bowery of folklore. Of folklore. But then our girl gets a little taste of her own medicine when the watermark that says Woodvale accidentally gets on the real art that people see. Right. And all of a sudden, all of the Swifties, because they are nothing, if not dogged. Yes.

See Woodvale and start speculating that either, once ever more came out, it was maybe Woodvale is the third of a trilogy of albums. Right. Or that it was going to be the album name and then wasn't, or just that Woodvale is some secret message. Yeah, it's an international incident. Yeah, it's an international incident. She has to come on TV to answer the question of, right? She used to go on Jimmy Kimmel and basically be like, it's not a thing. It was just my code name. This got out of hand, but it's sort of my fault.

I tend to be sort of annoyingly secret agency about dropping clues and hints and Easter eggs. And it's very annoying, but it's fun for fans and it's fun for me because they like to pick up on things. And then sometimes I take it too far. and I make a mistake. I have no sympathy for Taylor in this moment. She brought this on herself.

Yeah. Sorry. When you poop the bed, you have to sleep in it. That's what happened here. And I'm glad that it became folklore because it's a better name than Woodvale for sure. What did you find about this on the internet? Well, yeah. So Woodville is a good little bit of internet research. But we mentioned that Kitty Committee Studios is Taylor's House in L.A.

It's credited on the album is where she recorded the vocals. She actually did it. She did them in her bedroom, the little studio that she and Laura Sisk set up. She had to keep her door open because if she didn't keep the door open, then she was going to have background noise, which was either the cats wanting to get in if they were out or anybody who has cats knows once they're in, all they want to do is leave. If they're out, they just want to come back in. Very relatable, I think, to any of us who have had to navigate, like, working from home where you're making noise and what. you're doing. So that was something that they needed to make sure was all locked down when they were tracking this thing. This is the first Taylor album with an explicit tag. Five songs get it.

I'm doing good. I'm on some new shit. Yeah. Right off the bat. I mean, Taylor swears now, like we already knew that, but she was really going for it on this. I like it. Core component of Dad Indy Rock Island is you swear a lot. You swear a lot on Dad Indy Rock Island. It's how you say. It's how you stay cool. It's actually the, it's the, it's the currency. It's like a barter swearing system is basically. There you go. That's it. Here's my favorite one. So Rebecca Harkness, the woman from last great American dynasty. There's the portion of that song where it says she's in a fight with her neighbor, she stole his dog and died at key lime green. Right. Apparently Rebecca Harkness stole a cat and died at green. But Taylor must like cats too much to allow that to go into song. So she made it a dog.

Okay. So she used some alternative facts to protect the cat nation. I get it, I guess. Maybe I'd do the same in reverse as a dog person. Yeah, just, you know, a little artistic freedom. Well, Rebecca Harkness owned the house that was the site of the Tom Hiddleston moment. So for you, what is the Tom Hilsson Award on this album for showing the word? All right. So we talked about this a little bit when we were talking about biggest song in Cardigan. My theory on why Cardigan was the single and the music video and the choice for all of that stuff, even though it is, even though I like the other songs in the trilogy better and think there are just so many spectacular. Okay. No, it doesn't have to do with Carly Claus. It does nothing to do with Carly Claus. Okay. Continue. It has to do with the Cardigan itself, the piece of merch, which I have to tell

you. So I have some feelings about this cardigan, mainly that because it existed, they like shoehorned this song into being this big deal song when maybe there might have been other choices for that. The cardigan itself, one thing that I feel strongly is that Taylor needs to have more merch for like, I don't know, maybe her fans in their 20s just to pick a particular age range. Maybe. Hypothetically speaking. Just hypothetically speaking. Just hypothetically speaking, like maybe just a normal shirt, like a normal shirt or a sweatshirt. Because the cardigan, it's a little too cutesy for my taste. It has like a lot of stuff going on. The person who really cannot handle this cardigan is my mother. What? She calls it Cardi B minus. No. Mom. How could you?

She really like it doesn't really. I don't understand why she has such an issue with it. But she called me once and she was like, we were talking about folklore. And she was like, that cardigan. And I was like, yeah, it's not my favorite song, but it's nice to listen to it, whatever. She was like, no, no, the cardigan itself, it's ridiculous. I'm like, okay, you're a little out of control with this. She watched the Capital One commercial too many times or something.

It's looking kind of chilly out today. What am I going to wear? I think I'll go with Cardigan. It definitely is something that can fuel a whole lot of Taylor Inc. I mean, there's a lot of sales. It was given by one of my daughters to the other daughter for Christmas. It shows up in the commercial. I mean, yeah, you think, okay, so your theory is we leaned in heavily to Cardigan

because of the merch, because of the Cardi B minus. 49 buckaroos. Homeplace. Okay. Plus shipping, probably. All right. Well, hey, that's the genius of Taylor Swift. How is she going to make money?

It's not from all the streams of folklore. I don't, I don't begrudge her. being a smart businesswoman for for a second. Yeah. But I do. I just, that is that and just the overarching thing of like, the point of this album was that you didn't need to think about singles and which

was going to be the biggest song and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that much. Like those two things are why Cardigan, I think is Cardigan. Whereas like, I don't know. I just, I would have rather, like, Betty, I think I would have rather have heard first. Yeah. Okay. Well, so that was the peak. For me, for me, I just felt like the William Bowery pseudonym was made to be revealed as Joe Alwyn in the Long Pond dock. It felt like that was held back specifically for the purpose of putting something newsworthy in Long Pond. There's been a lot of discussion about William Bowery and his identity because it's not a real person.

It's not? Jack. I'm doing a bit. The bit. That would have gone on forever. What? Who? When?

So William Bowery is Joe. And I didn't think Longpond needed anything that was newsworthy because it was so great as an insightful way of learning about the musical experience that these people were going through. And in particular, as we'll talk about on Evermore, they just kept drinking all night and started recording Evermore the next day. So it's a very important doc in the sequence of events that happens here. I just felt like the pseudonym we didn't need it. I want Joe Alwyn to get us due, but Joe Alwin doesn't want us do. So maybe that's fine. All right.

Peak Taylor, though. Yeah, wait, hold on, though. I didn't have the same reaction to you because I don't, was that even that big of a deal? I mean, I know people went down the William Bowery rabbit hole, but I don't, I remember watching Long Pond for the first time and being like, oh, L.O.L. They talked about how William Bower is Joe and, like, Jack was being silly about it. I don't feel like people number one take away from that was like, It's true.

Stop the presses. Okay. We knew already. Yeah, we did know already. That's true. It just was not a very hard mystery to uncover and decipher and solve. And what was a hard mystery to uncover and decipher and solve was the tweet she sent in April and the Instagram post that she made as well, corresponding, that she posted right after she got the first set of files from Aaron Dessner.

And it's just her sort of looking blankly into the camera saying, not a lot going on at the moment. That was Peek Taylor. Which is the T-shirt from 22, which, by the way, speaking of like age-appropriate Taylor merch, I do have that T-shirt. And I like that T-shirt a lot. Okay. Well, I have a no-it's-beddy shirt that I had to source from someplace other than Taylor Swift.com because she doesn't sell it.

Maybe she should. I love the notes. Becky shirt. That's a really good peak, Taylor. I just have the full embrace of Cottage Corps. Like, I declared it fall the moment this album came out because we heard folklore and it was, it may have been July 24th, but it was suddenly fall.

Yeah. It's an interesting question because, first of all, the braids and it, but she really purposefully talked about this album as being spring and summer. And then Evermore, as we'll discuss, was sort of fall and winter. I had the fall vibes from this from the beginning. Did you? So, yeah, I think it's totally fall. If you're in England and it's raining all the time, I think that influences, I mean,

not that she was doing this there, but, you know, she spent a lot of time there. The lakes, obviously, is the lakes region and was influencing some of this, I think. Yeah. That's where she was going to the woods and being in cabins. So that might have something to do with it because I think seasonally, yes, it would be more consistent with UK weather. But yeah, no, I was just like, we're wearing sweaters. Like, it's fall now.

That's what it is. Well, tell me in hindsight, and we don't have that much time since she put this out, but what is the belatedly best song from this album? Okay. There are six candidates for me. What? That's not the game.

Okay. I'm just going to make it the game. What is it? Because, you know what? You're cheating at this game. I don't, I don't, you have no jurisdiction over me from Indy Dad Rock Island. I can do whatever I want. And I'm going to tell you that the six songs that I just like would invade Indy Dad Rock Island for are last great American dynasty, my tears ricochet, madwoman seven August and Betty.

I think that my favorite among them is my tears ricochet. Wow. But that says a lot about this album that you have six. six favorite songs, and it's hard for you to pick your favorite, doesn't it? It's a whole mood. There, I mean, so the idea of like no skips is sort of, if I ranked, I mean, how many songs does Taylor have? She's in like 100 and she's getting close to like 150 at this point. If I ranked all of the songs, we would be in the probably 140s by the time we got to songs that I like actually choose to not listen to. So we are grading on a real curve here.

Yeah. But this album truly like, it's just a vibe. I don't skip songs on it. And I don't, I mean, I don't want to spoil our grade here. I don't think it's like the best thing that she's ever, ever, ever done in her entire life. But it was the meeting of just like art that everybody loved. She's playing with sounds that are super meaningful to her and are exciting for her to be a part of. The collaborators are just blown away by the opportunity to work with not only a superstar,

but someone who's an incredible talent in a moment when a lot of people needed to hear it or wanted to hear it or got something out of hearing it and they got something out of doing it and it's just great. It's just, it was a real gift. Well, that's all fine and good.

But I think my list of songs that I would pick and have to cull down doesn't have overlap with yours, which is really interesting. Wow. The best song in this album for me is This is Me Trying.

My cage is we're mental. So I got wasted like all my potential. And my words shoot to kill when I'm... And it's not even close. Oh, I do also love that song. I am dead at the end of this song. Yes, it is about somebody struggling with alcoholism. But there's also sort of a double meaning of a woman who's had her heartbroken so easily

and talking about a relationship. I have a lot of regrets about that just kills me every time. The horns and the keyboards. Those are played by Evan Smith, who does a lot of work with Bonne Verre and the National and churches and Lord and St. Vincent. You can hear that. But this song feels like a tribute to Eight Circle by Boni Vair. And then a bunch of the chords are from stings. why should I cry for you?

By the Arctic fire over the seas of silence. Which, by the way, Boni-Vair has also covered. But just the song itself has so much power for me. I cannot. It's one of those songs that over time, it will not wear on my ear. I just am always going to want to hear this song.

It just moves me so much. I'm surprised that you didn't go with, I mean, Invisible String. or elicit affairs or epiphany, those aren't on your radar? I love epiphany, and I love invisible string. Illicit affairs, I like.

It's definitely not one of my favorites. I like the lyrics, I think, more than the music of it just really sinking into me. Just on, This Is Me Trying. That's one of the songs where she is very clearly sort of pulling different narrative threads

from different places. Right. That song just blue, me away in Long Pond in a way that it didn't when I first heard it on the album. Because I think I had trouble just like processing the depth of the emotion of it because I was a little bit like, oh, that seems like it's about this and that seems like it's about that. And it's funny because I usually, when I hear a Taylor album for the first time, like I usually hear music first, then lyrics and then lyrics within context sort of.

Like it'll take me a little bit to start piecing together. What is this about? I'll always hear what do I think this sounds like first? that's one where I think I was trying to find the story right off the bat. And then I just remember like, honestly, I was bawling my eyes out by the time they finished that on Long Pond. Like, it just hit. I just wanted you to know that this is me trying. I just wanted you to know that this is me trying.

Yeah. And it just, it didn't matter that the things were maybe. be about different situations because they were just selling it. And I think, you know, her, her eyes are welling up at that point in the Long Pond video. So that's given that song a real second life for me. Epiphany, I mean, Epiphany didn't move you in the same way. It's certainly like one of the most current songs on the album. It's got the sort of juxtaposition of her grandfather, you know, in his, in his World War II experiences, and then the frontline health care workers, right? It's really sad.

Hold your hand through plastic now. I think she's crashing out. I mean, I find it very moving. But, you know, like if you look at this list, I do still, I still gravitate to the songs that feel very structured and solid relative to some of the other ones. And I think that's like, again, the magic of this album is that you have people from sort of different musical islands.

Yeah. Coming together in this beautiful thing. Yeah. I still am, I'm still on my island a little bit. And I think you can see that in the songs that I love from this. Yeah. Yeah. Epiphany for me, just that walk towards the light, the moments of panic in this song,

that, you know, I think he's bleeding out. Yeah. I think she's crashing now. I just, maybe it's more of a moment than a song here, too, but that gets me every single time. I will make a case. I'll make a brief case for Invisible String. I don't think it's the best song, but since we didn't talk a lot about it, I mean, this is a love song for Joe Alwyn. It brings back the dive bar on the east side from Delicate and the jeans. I love this one. It's got hardcore Suffolchen Stevens, The Mystery of Love.

But I think it is a song that. that stands up on its own. Yeah, I like that song a lot. I'm also just, I'm looking at my list again and realizing, I am a bridge stand, you know? Okay. Yeah, I know you are. Like, I just, the songs that really deliver there

are always probably going to be among my favorites. And we hear so few bridges now in like big, I mean, this isn't really even pop anymore, but just the group of artists that we consume in a similar way that we would consume like Taylor Swift. Yeah. there's less delivery of like big, juicy, exciting bridges than there used to be.

And Taylor still does that and that she's still doing that, even within like this thing that she created just fitting words over these instrumental tracks, I think is one of the main reasons why at the top we kind of bullet pointed for this whole thing. Like, yes, this got received as Taylor's doing an indie record. Right.

But she's still doing a Taylor record. Okay. So your track five is your favorite. That means you have to rank for me where this fits in the all-time track fives. Actually, I can do this. It is, wow, is it third? It's either third or fourth. So all too well, dear John.

And then the decision that I have to make is between my tears ricochet and delicate. Yeah, which are the same song. Okay, they are good enough to have two of them. That's fine. Mr. Vice-Chancell or whatever. I think I would go my tears ricochet even over a delegate. Wow. Wow. I just love like...

Wow. It's so good. Okay. And we're not even to Evermore yet. That's very interesting. I know. I know. Speaking of which... Right. Do you hear Evermore on this album anywhere?

Well, I hear Evermore everywhere on this album. Yeah. The whole album is really the next album appetizer, isn't it? It's not even really an appetizer. It's like when you're eating at the airport, you're like, no, just bring it out whenever it's ready. Like, I got to, I got to go. Let's do, we're going to do all of this at one time. Yeah. I will argue that they are very different things once we get there.

But you do hear it's the Aaron Destner and the same team is going to make the next record. So then, single best lyric. Well, this should probably come as no surprise after we just talked about it 19 different times. But to me, it is that when you can't sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullaby and where the stolen lullaby part of that is the different sounding vocal that that comes in there that absolutely just knocks my socks off okay i can't argue with that i love the last line of elicit affairs for you i would ruin myself a million little times and then it goes into the paul simon end of boxer guitar that is awesome. That song had me at, it didn't have me at hello, but it had me at

goodbye, which is the last line in the song. I will also give a shout out to, I mean, there are so many moments on Last Great American Dynasty that could be in this category because they're just so fun. But the use of the word marvelous, that was first used in Starlight, which is the Ferrethel Kennedy song. That song being dedicated to Ethel, but about a family that historically has been defined by its men, Taylor bringing it around one crediting Starlight for Ethel in the liner notes, but then doing this song using the same word about like this crazy woman who pissed people off and did whatever she wanted. I just think like it's so. cool to see who her heroes are, kind of. And that's very fun for me, that little connection. The other thing that I want to mention in this category is just the bridge of seven,

where she's doing that sort of free associative stream of consciousness, childlike, just word vomit, almost. I think that is so, it's hunting and it makes, I mean, that song, I'm like, I, not that I don't care. More, so than a lot of Taylor songs where it's like, oh, who is this about? What is this about? What situation is this about where it's like a celebrity or a boyfriend or whatever? That's the one where I'm like, what made you think about that? There's like, the dad is mad and the kid wants to be pirates and what is like what happened here because it's this whole world of like childlike just associations and wonder and randomness. And it's so spot on.

somehow and just how sometimes kids ramble. And I just wonder what was in her head when she made that. It's so cool to me. It's almost like a screenplay that song is in the way that she writes it. Yeah, totally. I would actually love to see her do that. Yeah, me too. But what I would love to see is you be honest with me about what your grade is for folklore. Okay. My grade in the moment would have been just an A. but I do now, and I don't want to be giving spoilers here, but I give it an A-minus. I'm giving it an A-minus. What is happening? What?

Stop yelling at me. I'm giving it an A-minus because I do think that as much as there are no skips on this album, we are on a Taylor Curve here, and she had other places that she could go. That's all I'm going to say. Wow. What's your grade? That's really surprising to me. Listen, this was a no contest album of the year Grammy.

The third time that she's won it, it puts her in rarefied air on the Mount Rushmore of artists who have won this award three times. It puts her alongside Frank Sinatra. It puts her alongside Stevie Wonder. And it puts her alongside Paul Simon as the only four artists ever to win Grammy for album of the year three times.

Like Paul Simon, like Paul Simon had to go to South Africa and immerse himself in an entirely new genre of music to get his third Grammy. And that is a little bit like what Taylor did. I just think as a collection, as an album, this is a fantastic piece of work that will sort of historically be remembered as the album of a very significant moment in human history. And so I give this album a solid through and through A. I'm with you on your logic. I'm just saying that we are on, as you just so expertly illustrated, a curve for an all-time great here. And I know that as spectacular as this piece of work is,

there was more she could do. That's all I'm going to say. It's a little teaser. She's getting the hang of it. It's a teaser for what's coming up next. We have one more album to talk about. about. It's going to make me kind of sad. But yeah, before I start spoiling too many secrets, I guess we will have to leave it there. And when we come back, we're going to talk about Evermore.

This has been every single album, Taylor Swift. For Nathan Hubbard, I'm Nora Princiotti. We'll be back on Monday talking about Evermore, which means that we are almost to the end of our journey.