The Woods

Folklore

Taylor Swift

GENRE: Pop/R&B

LABEL: Republic

A finely crafted journal, brimming with detailed love affairs and epiphanies, penned by a songwriter whose hands are as quick with a pen as they are with a guitar.

Taylor Swift’s Folklore, made largely in collaboration with Aaron Dessner of The National, is the album you’ll want to throw on when the air turns crisp, and your thoughts become as cozy as your favorite sweater. It’s full of cinematic love stories and rich, fictional details that swirl around like autumn leaves in a gust of poetic whimsy.

Let’s talk about that peculiar, aching emotion of longing for someone you’ve never met—there needs to be a word for it, right? That whole “we were meant to be” thing, stitched into the fabric of time and fate? It runs through songs like Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” and The National’s “Slow Show,” and, of course, it’s a theme Taylor Swift knows all too well. One of the most delightful moments on Folklore is the song “Invisible String,” which weaves the tale of two souls unknowingly connected before they even realize it. “And isn’t it just so pretty to think/All along there was some/Invisible string/Tying you to me,” she sings, and suddenly we’re in the middle of a daydream, quoting Jane Eyre and The Sun Also Rises while sipping a chai latte.

Now, Folklore will forever be remembered as Swift’s “indie” album, the one she dropped on a whim, like a surprise letter from an old friend you never expected to hear from again. This is her “sweater-weather” record, steeped in the melancholic magic of love songs you could swear are destined for a film soundtrack. Sure, there are haters who’ll dismiss it as another calculated “artsy” move to reinforce her reinvention narrative (how dare she), but true Swifties will hold it up as proof that their queen can do no wrong. Folklore does push Swift’s sound into more minimal, indie territory, but let’s not kid ourselves—it’s more homage than reinvention, borrowing from her collaborators’ sound and a fair dose of nostalgia.

At its best, Folklore does what Swift does best: tells a story. Her songwriting is a finely honed craft, laced with whimsy and vivid details, wrapped in melodies that allow her imagination to run wild. The production—primarily by Dessner, with Jack Antonoff’s pop touch here and there—is sparse, leaving space for Swift’s words to shine through. Those words? As quotable as ever. This is Swift’s superpower: creating worlds out of words, bending them to her will with curious cadences and sharp imagery.

After years of documenting her own life in pop’s first-person diary, Swift now shifts gears into the realm of fiction and autofiction. Take “The Last Great American Dynasty,” where she spins the tale of Rebekah Harkness, the eccentric debutante who once lived in Swift’s Rhode Island mansion and married into the Standard Oil family. It’s part history lesson, part feminist rallying cry—Swift celebrates women who “have a marvelous time ruining everything.” The song plays out like a storybook, and yet, it’s also a pointed commentary on how society treats bold, unconventional women. The twist? Swift cheekily draws a parallel between herself and Harkness, a narrative thread she later picks up in the scathing “Mad Woman.” “The Last Great American Dynasty” is an instant classic—textural, majestic, and dripping with Fitzgerald-worthy lines like “filling the pool with champagne instead of drinking all the wine.” If you didn’t know you needed a National/Taylor mashup before, you certainly do now.

Then there’s Folklore’s teen heartbreak trilogy, where Swift circles the same love affair from every angle. “Betty” tells the story of 17-year-old James trying to win back his girlfriend after cheating—classic teen drama, but with real emotional depth and, dare we say, a touch of remorse. It’s like if Wide Open Spaces grew up, got wiser, and maybe a little queerer. Meanwhile, the first single “Cardigan” gives us Betty’s side of things—disillusionment with James, wrapped in a melancholy, Lana Del Rey-esque vibe. And let’s not forget “August,” the forbidden summer romance in full, nostalgic glory. But it’s “Illicit Affairs” that really digs into the tender, saccharine love story, with Swift singing, “You taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else”—and, oh, the scandalous pull of it all.

The underlying theme of Folklore is something we’ve seen before in Swift’s catalog: people will talk, and there’s nothing you can do about it. This is the inverse of the Reputation era, where Swift played the villain and took aim at the tabloids with her trap beats. Folklore is like a quiet rebellion, sonically placing Swift somewhere between Lana Del Rey and Florence Welch, with occasional dips into AAA radio and Sufjan Stevens if he ever decided to abandon his grandiose ambitions. The album’s duet with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, “Exile,” is a slow-burner that builds into something breathtakingly beautiful—kind of like if Bon Iver had tried his hand at “Falling Slowly” from the Once soundtrack, but with more heartbreak and less Irish folk.

While Folklore feels like a departure from Swift’s pop-heavy work, it’s not a complete outlier. The Antonoff tracks, for example, still carry that Lover dreamy, swooning vibe, with a touch of Mazzy Star’s haze and Imogen Heap’s influence. The imagery is rich, the hooks are unforgettable, and there’s real maturity here. “Mirrorball,” in particular, captures the fame trap with a sparkling twist—Swift comparing herself to a disco ball, constantly spinning to reflect what others want to see. “August” is a sultry summer anthem for forbidden love, swapping the fast-paced heat of “Style” for something more reflective. And while Swift might know that she’s had better summers before, "August" proves she’s learned to make the most of the ones that come her way.

In the end, Folklore is an album about accepting what comes with both time and fate—a little more introspective, a little less flashy, but still full of the storytelling magic we’ve come to expect from Taylor Swift. So, while she might have traded in the glitter for a flannel, don’t think for a second that she’s lost her touch. She’s simply playing the long game—and, spoiler alert, it’s working.