5 Questions Taylor Swift’s Folklore Is Asking Your Subconscious Mind
Why you like the new Taylor Swift’s album and what delicate questions it brought out that you were afraid to ask yourself?
Taylor Swift needs no introduction. As she claims, her reputation precedes her. Either you knew her through some of her famous hits (Shake It Off, Blank Space, Bad Blood…). Or you already learned all the lyrics of all her albums and know the songs by heart. There is hardly someone in between.
For some odd reasons, her albums always come out in a time that is really relevant to my life at that moment. You are not the only one wondering,
‘is Taylor Swift spying on my life and then writes songs about it?’
She is masterful at songwriting. I have followed Taylor and her music for over a decade now. Her transcendent style of storytelling swoops you to far-away-land, where you find unicorns and everlasting love. Whatever comes first.
Words. And lyrics. And music. How some words when strung together give you a rhythm. A poetic reading is like listening to a spring stream running down the cracks in the forest. If heaven doesn’t have poems, I wouldn’t want to be there very long.
That’s why you can’t stop listening.
Taylor’s songs give you images and feelings that make you just want to wrap yourself in something PJ-soft or sparkling, or sexy, or just a comfy plain t-shirt.
All depending on which song you are listening to, and also in which era they fall into.
That was the magic that she put in her music and I fall for that every time. There is a lot of talented indie/ country / Pop singer-songwriter out there, who created incredible pieces. Don’t get me wrong, I got chills when I hear something good. And it just happened a lot with Taylor.
The masterful use of metaphors is just marvellous! My soul is drenching in honey and afternoon sun listening to this album. It not all roses and champagne, of course. But this is the melancholy I can live with.
You might have been looking for something when you listen to music, too.
We all do. We all have ‘our song’. Like it is just not some music you put on to fill the room, it is the kind of music you can identify and connect with. The kind you understand what it is about. A part of you knows you are the heroine. It is something that eases you, supports you, fills you up, wakens you. Tell your stories and you are free to be there.
For the lyrics to be good, it has to be honest. And it has to bring the connection that the songwriter has with his listener.
And in all of us, there are dark places that we don’t normally admit to the world out loud, not even to ourselves sometimes.
We put the leash on our dragons in the cellars underground of our shiny castle and every time it breathes, you can feel the ceiling moving. But music can shine a little light on the animal, your animal. And for that minute, it is happy to be seen. And soothed.
I have picked up the words in this album that make hearts sway and move. And there are questions you may or may not ask yourself, once or a million time. So, listen to the lyrics. Find out what the song is about.
Find out what parts of your story are being played out in the open. Get pulled into another world by slowly taking off all that is heavy.
And just be.
1. Would love be enough?
All these people think love’s for show
But I would die for you in secret
Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?
(peace)
What is love? Really though? Is it a feeling? Is it actions?
There are millions of ways people love every day. And millions of ways they show it.
And it hurts when you want to keep the love in, when someone just wants to show it off. Trophy love is also a kind of love. And when two people not loving(verb) the same love(noun), it can be daunting. Because how are you gonna get through the obstacles?
You would sacrifice in secret for your lover, because you don’t need anybody to know. You don’t need to prove a point of love.
But would it be enough? Would it be enough if your life together is never gonna be peaceful? Either it is because of your choice of career, your strict family obligations, or anything beyond your control.
Would love be enough to keep love?
2. Are there second chances in the future if I let this go?
I got wasted like all my potential
I have a lot of regrets about that
(this is me trying)
We get drunk. And we waste ourselves and a lot of other opportunities. Time is one of them.
How much is too much? How far is too far? Can we go back and re-do what we did?
Wish we knew then what we do now. But none of us did. And this is us trying. Living despite it all.
3. Will this pain be subdued?
My only one
My smoking gun
My eclipsed sun
This has broken me down
My twisted knife
My sleepless night
My winless fight
This has frozen my ground
My only one
My kingdom come undone
My broken drum
(hoax)
When you love so freely and so fully. And it didn’t work out.
You thought you will be ok about that. You have no regrets now knowing you have done your best. But then you twist and turn. You have sleepless nights. And the pain in you is physical and real.
And you sit in the broken castle surrounded by the ruins and ask yourself, “will this pass, too?”
“How?”
“How are you gonna recover from this?”
“How are you supposed to move on?”
This was what you believed in. Your altar of faith built on your purest intentions and hopes. And this is your fallen dream, brokenhearted.
4. Are we done growing up?
A friend to all is a friend to none
And if you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow
(cardigan, the 1 )
Growth of any kind is painful and you can try to escape it.
But escaping pain means escaping growing up. No amount of alcohol nor drugs nor one-night-stands is gonna make you a better version of you. Nothing will change you unless you allow it.
You numb the discomfort of pain. We are all guilty of that, we run away from pain all the time. It is how we are wired–to run away from things we don’t understand or something we don’t have the capacity to deal with.
It is dismissing your teachers and then failed at exams. Except for we don’t know when the exams are. And we thought winning at life means everybody loves us.
Well then, what are the exams?!
5. Are you strong enough?
Balancing on breaking branches
Those eyes add insult to injury
(exile)
On your tiptoes. Try very careful not to break another eggshells.
So fragile, so broken, so lost.
The feeling of being judged so harshly when you are already trying your best.
You will break the branches if you lose your balance. You are standing on thin ice, on frailty. You can lose what is under your feet now so easily, and you are so scared to ruin it all. But apparently, even trying hard means you can still fail.
Even on my worst day, did I deserve, babe
All the hell you gave me?You wear the same jewels that I gave you
As you bury me(my tears ricochet)
And if that happens, are you strong enough to take it in? Looking at your ex-lover with that lingering pain and fading connection, are you able to hold back?
How can you learn the lessons and release the pain? Because that is what is difficult.
Balancing on eggshells is not difficult. Steping out of them is.
In short:
- Would love be enough?
2. Are there second chances in the future if I let this go?
3. Will this pain be subdued?
4. Are we done growing up?
5. Are you strong enough?
