thellakes

[thellakes]

folklore : the essay

taylor’s essay says everything she wants us to know about folklore. including its concept. 

paragraph one : “it started with imagery”

→ album artwork. taylor points us to the visuals she created for folklore and tells us that the crux of what folklore is, the origins and roots of the album, are in there.

1. the fog. fog is symbolic of mystery, obscurity, lack of clarity, illusion vs reality.

2. taylor’s stance. there are two elements at play here. the first is body language. it’s neutral and her body is openly positioned facing the camera. forthcoming. in contrast, her head is turned away. specifically, up and to the right, the same direction considered a tell of deception.

there’s something hidden in folklore.

paragraph two : key themes

there’s no inherently new information in the second paragraph. by that I mean it’s all content from the album itself. there’s two layers of significance in this. the first is the significance of each of the individual moments she has chosen to feature. the other is the choice to combine ten pieces of imagery from ten different tracks and combine them into one paragraph.

focussing on the latter and considering the paragraph as a whole, there’s a notable unity between the first and last sentiments :

first : “stars drawn around scars” last : “a single thread that, for better or worse, ties you to your fate”

we see the shadow of an underlying concept starts to form. there’s positive/negative in stars/scars and better/worse, differentiated with choice conveyed through the action of drawing and inevitability through fate. coexisting opposites making way for something that is both, neither and somewhere in between. something complex.

paragraph three : roots

here taylor offers two new sentences :

1. she speaks specifically to creating “faces or names”. she doesn’t claim to have created anything else about the characters or their stories. rather, she chooses to use passive language when she says they “became characters”. It was an evolution from another state of existence, rather than pure creation.

2. she follows this by then describing the perspectives from which she wrote folklore. she only describes people. not characters or ideas or images. real people. it’s extremely clever. characters are a distinct feature of tales and stories. of folklore. it’s the primary connotation of the word. but character is also defined as a person’s distinct traits. it’s what makes someone who they are.

there’s no break in paragraph here, but the paragraph shifts back to references from the album. the moments here are ones that speak more to characters and their stories, rather than imagery. we know, unequivocally, that the last two stories are directly inspired by real people.

what taylor communicates in this paragraph, is that folklore is rooted in reality. that the fictional characters of folklore tell stories that remain true to the character of the people that inspired them. and it seems important to her to express - it’s the longest paragraph of the essay.

paragraph four : conceptualising folklore

the word folklore has two distinct definitions that are both reflected in how taylor describes folklore.

the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through generations by word of mouth : “tales”, “passed down”, “whispered around”, “sung about”.

an often unsupported notion, story, or saying that is widely circulated : “speculation”, “gossip”, “written in the sky for all to behold”.

this paragraph focusses primarily on a merging and juxtaposition of opposites. there’s fantasy and reality. truth and fiction. speculation and fact. she speaks to the blurring of lines. there’s gravity in this idea, conveyed through repetition. it continues in the types of stories taylor lists - and the way that she groups them.

myths (widely held false beliefs), ghost stories (stories intended to frighten), and fables (a story conveying a moral).

fairytales (a fabricated story intended to deceive) and parables (a story intended to communicate a lesson).

gossip (conversation often passing unconfirmed or untrue details) and legend (story often regarded as historical but not authenticated).

taylor differentiates the stories she lists by two main factors : intent and accuracy. why the stories were created. and whether they convey something real. it suggests these are elements that are significant about folklore.

the paragraph that opened with the words “a tale that becomes folklore is”, ends in one cohesive statement that stands out after the list driven style the precedes it : “someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold”.

paragraph five : closing

this is taylor’s conclusion. there’s the reference to “fantasy, history and memory” - one fictional element, two non-fictional elements. she reiterates that she is telling stories. she could have said that she wrote or created folklore, she wrote the album and the songs and its her name in the byline, but she chooses to say “told”. she conveys that she sees her role as the narrator.

she also offers an emotional investment in the stories when she says they deserve “love, wonder and whimsy”. she expresses care for them, from an external point of view. she wants to do right by them because they aren’t solely a reflection upon herself.

paragraph six : “now it’s up to you to pass them down”

taylor’s essay ends with a clever homage to the concept of folklore. passing down tales. what’s interesting is the way the beginning of the sentence is a call to action. there’s an onus put on the listener. it comes with an implied gravity. an implication that doing so is important.

folklore isn’t just for entertainment. it has something to say.

[thellakes]

folklore : the teenage love triangle

the teenage love triangle is a centrepiece of folklore and makes it a good place to start piecing together the album as a conceptual whole. it’s the clearest example of the overarching narrative and it's also a pointed metaphor for closeting and bearding.

track 2 : cardigan

track 8 : august

track 14 : betty

1. queer themes and gender ambiguity

there's plenty of discourse on the queer tones present in the teenage love triangle and bowery's songs in general. there's even a vulture article claiming betty specifically as queer canon.

there's a lack of gendered language in all three songs - particularly when it comes to the main characters, betty and james. on top of that, while the name james is most commonly associated with boys, taylor directly linked the name back to a girl with its inspiration.

deception and blurring lines are themes in folklore and that taylor speaks to in her folklore essay.

2. betty, james and "augustine”

only two of the three teenage love triangle characters are given names within the context of the album itself. this speaks volumes to the significance of each character. to contradict what I said to start this post : the central focus isn't the love triangle at all. it's the relationship between betty and james.

the love triangle is a distraction. it's designed to take centre stage. to draw attention to itself and in doing so, deflect from betty and james. just as a beard is used in closeting.

3. debunking the cheating interpretation

the taylor swift who tackled toxic masculinity and relationships in the all too well short film didn't recently release two albums that romanticise cheating.

on the contrary, in the one song in which she chooses to make a situation known to be "infidelity" (no body, no crime), she murders the character. it's an emphatic statement, if you ask me.

this is just a summary, full analysis to come.

[thellakes]

the peter losing wendy line is like. so fucking intricate. and heavy. peter pan lost wendy because she chose to leave behind the wild, immature, fun life she could've had with him in neverland. james was insecure about his relationship with betty, as we can see from the lines "i was nowhere to be found i hate the crowds you know that/ plus i saw you dance with him" from betty. so this means that james actually felt threatened that betty could leave him and his wild, immature, fun ways for a more stable relationship. we can see the similarities between james and peter in the lines from the studio version and og scrapped version of cardigan "dancing in your levis drunk under a streetlight" and "laughing like a damn fool breaking every damn rule." so basically because james felt threatened that he too could get left behind like peter, he tried to change the ending by betraying betty and cheating on her with augustine. so he wouldn't feel abandoned. and betty clearly knows the reason he cheated and even said that all they needed was to kiss in cars and downtown bars and like. that was literally all. she wouldnt have left him but james went and fucked everything up. way to go james how are you such an asshole

#s: cardigan #s: betty