10 Things We Learned From Taylor Swift’s Triumphant ‘Evermore’
There's a lot going on within Swift's surprise new album.
2020 has had its fair share of surprises and, never one to be outdone, Taylor Swift has been responsible for a good handful of them. Last week, with less than 24-hours’ notice, she announced that her second album in less than six months, evermore, was ready to be released.
“To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs,” Swift said on Instagram, revealing that she’d reunited with The National’s Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, along some new collaborators like Haim.
Just like folklore, evermore is a treasure trove of stories — both fact and fiction — with clever easter eggs tying it to previous projects. We’ve picked it apart and presented the most vital takeaways from early listens of Swift’s ninth record.
Double Or Nothing
Swift already took a risk in taking a stylistic detour and surprise-releasing folklore. The risk paid off. The album broke the record for the biggest opening day for a female artist, remains the best selling album of the year in the US, and was nominated for five Grammy awards.
It would be a landmark year for any artist, but by gifting it a sister record she has automatically taken a chance on folklore. If evermore isn’t well-received it tarnishes the success of folklore. If it is, she extends her streak and adds more acclaim to a year that has already been monumental.
Early listens indicate that she’s more likely to experience the latter. Still, you have to appreciate the gutsiness of it.
More Nods To The Sound Of The National Than folklore
The comparisons to folklore have been welcomed by Swift. By calling it a “sister record”, she sits the two side-by-side. They share collaborators in Dessner, Antonoff, and Vernon while also featuring the same imagery.
The indie aesthetic remains, but there are some key differences between the two — the first is that she extends even further into the sonic world of The National.
Dessner co-produced 11 tracks on folklore but on evermore he takes the production reigns on 13 of the songs. His brother Bryce also had more of a part here: “Orchestrating the entire record,” as Aaron puts it on Instagram.
That increased National presence makes the sound of the band more recognisable here than on its predecessor. The National have always worked within gloomy backdrops with rollicking drums creeping in from below the surface as keys dance atop. You first feel that influence here as a beat creeps into ‘tolerate it’, lurking but never exploding.
‘Long story short’ also bears resemblance to The National’s more stadium-ready moments like ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’ with stormy percussion elevating the chorus.
The whole band joins in on ‘coney island’ as Swift duets with lead-singer Matt Berninger. Together, they capture the same kind of hopeless longing that exists on a National song like ‘I Need My Girl’.
If folklore Is Its Sister, reputation Is Its Cousin
Reputation is the most underrated album in Swift’s discography. Thematically, the album considers how Swift’s reputation from a public perspective impacts her intimate relationships — mostly notably on ‘Delicate’ when she sings, “My reputation’s never been worse/So you must like me for me.”
That concept appears time-and-time again on evermore. “When I dropped my sword I threw it in the bushes and knocked on your door,” she sings on ‘long story short’, one of the few songs on the record that appears to be directly personal.
It details the transition from fighting public battles to finding comfort in personal relationships. Online fans have made the connection to reputation closer ‘New Year’s Day’, specifically the lyric, “Threw out our cloaks and our daggers/Because it’s morning now.”
On ‘’tis the damn season’ she leaves her ex in her hometown, singing, “So I’ll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends/Who’ll write books about me if I ever make it.” Once again, she’s reckoning with the idea of fame versus personal relationships and what’s more important.
If we want to get into fan theories, fans have also spotted visual references in the ‘willow’ music video. Swift appears as a witch in the woods while references to pythons can also be found. Both can be linked to the dark aesthetic of reputation.
Yee Haw
There’s a part of all of us that have been wanting Swift to return to country since she hung up her cowboy hat on Red. She gave us a glimpse on ‘betty’ from folklore, but she leans into it even harder here.
The Haim-featuring ‘no body, no crime’ is a wicked murder mystery that draws comparisons to The Chicks’ ‘Goodbye Earl’ or Carrie Underwood’s ‘Before He Cheats’. It’s one of the album’s most sonically and lyrically surprising moments with Swift popping Este Haim right in the middle of an unsolved murderplot. It’s wicked, unhinged, and endlessly entertaining.
‘Cowboy like me’ gives a titular nod to the genre but there are also stylistic connections. Swift pulls in backing vocals from Marcus Mumford while also adding a lap steel, harmonica and mandolin to the mix. It’s easy to imagine Kacey Musgraves crooning alongside her.
It’s An Album Of Heartache, But Not Swift’s
Breakup and heartache anthems are part of the Swift experience. They have been since her debut album. When she released Lover, however, she played an NPR Tiny Desk where she spoke candidly about people questioning what she would write about if she was not heartbroken. “What will you ever do if you get happy? What will you write about? Will you just never be able to write a song again,” were the questions she received — and also asked herself.
That album features one breakup song ‘Death By A Thousand Cuts’. According to Swift, she took inspiration from conversations she had with friends while comforting them through breakups. “This song was my proof that I don’t have to stop writing songs about heartbreak and misery,” she said.
Folklore and evermore are further proof of this. She’s pulled inspiration from both fictional and historical figures to write some of the most crushing songs of her career. On ‘coney island’ she sits on a bench contemplating where her relationship went. On ‘happiness’ she’s moving on from a lover, questioning how she’ll find happiness in the future. On ‘tolerate it’ she’s reckoning with a one-way love.
Swift may be happy with current partner Joe Alwyn, who has writing credits on this album, but her imagination will always wander towards a breakup. That suits us — her heartbreaking songs on evermore are the most powerful.
Yep, Track Five Is A Heartwrencher
Track five is notorious among Swifties for being the most emotional of the bunch. ‘All Too Well’, ‘Delicate’ and ‘my tears ricochet’ have all occupied the spot and now they’re joined by ‘tolerate it’. This one hits hard. It’s a dimly-lit, piano-driven cut that vividly paints a picture of a couple’s dwindling romance.
Swift’s character does all she can to show her love — setting the table with “fancy shit”, waiting by the door like “a kid” — only to be met by a soul-destroying blankness. She sticks the dagger in with the hook, “I know my love should be celebrated but you tolerated it.”
Panning For Gold With Jack Antonoff
Evermore has the least Jack Antonoff contributions since 1989 but it’s a case of quality over quantity here. The pair co-wrote and co-produced ‘gold rush’ together and it’s one of the album’s glimmering highlights.
It’s the biggest pop play of the record with a hook that wouldn’t be out of place on 1989 but its beauty comes from Swift’s heady vocals and the sweeping orchestrations. This one glides like a dancer in a ballroom and adds the first sense of momentum to the album.
“Wilder And Freer”
In a social media post ahead of the album’s release Swift wrote: “It felt like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music”. Dessner echoed this sentiment, by calling the songs “wilder and freer”.
A number of these songs put Swift in a sonically liberated space, exploring instrumentation and time stamps she never has before. ‘closure’, a frustrating tale of receiving an apologetic letter from an ex, rumbles with skittering percussion. It distorts and dramatically compresses like the most experimental moment off Bon Iver’s 22, a million.
Speaking of Bon Iver, while ‘exile’ was one of the most straight-forward and loved ballads on folklore, their reunion here is more challenging. The title track and closer is sparse and haunting until Justin Vernon steps in. The piano dances ahead of the tempo as we reach a dramatic climax. Swift and Vernon’s voices collide before we dropped back into the opening tempo as the album comes to a halt.
More Folklore
On folklore we were introduced to fictional characters like Betty, Inez and James, as well as historical figures like Rebekah Harkness, the former owner of Swift’s Rhode Island home.
Evermore offers even more tales. Dorothea is the main protagonist here — according to Swift, she “went to the same school as Betty, James, and Inez.”
Dorothea’s lover is never named but it’s suspected the song ‘dorothea’ is sung from the perspective of him. On ‘dorothea’, she’s left him but the aspiring Hollywood actress returns home on ‘‘tis the damn season’ where they share a rendezvous over the Christmas holidays.
The most touching real-life story on the album is that of Swift’s grandmother Marjorie Finlay. She died when Swift was only 13 but on her 31st birthday, she shares her most vivid memories of her grandmother. “And if I didn’t know better/I’d think you were singing to me now,” Swift sings in the songs fading moments — a particularly goosebump-raising line given that Finlay has backing vocal credits on the song.
Fuck!
Do you remember the whiplash you sustained when you first heard ‘betty’s potty-mouthed line, “Would you tell me to go fuck myself”?
This time around, six songs off evermore earned an explicit stamp and there are some great F-bombs amongst them. On the otherwise cordial ‘champagne problems’ she sings, “She would’ve made such a lovely bride/What a shame she’s fucked in the head,” putting a deserved emphasis on the “fuck”.
On ‘cowboy like me’, she waits until the elevating bridge to sing, “The skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this up.”
Of all the points made here, this one is of the least importance — but it’s thrilling to hear Swift so unrestrained.
Sam Murphy is a music writer and Co-Editor of The Interns. Follow him on Twitter.