As the five-year anniversary to Taylor Swifts album “folklore” approaches — her first of two original releases in 2020 —Swift is once again in the spotlight; purchasing the rights to the master recordings of her first six albums, after re-recording four of them. Starting in 2021, Swift began re-recording her first six albums after her old record label, Big Machine Records, who owned the original recordings of her songs, sold to a private equity group owned by music manager Scooter Braun, who later sold to another company, Shamrock Holdings, without Swift’s knowledge. Swift earned royalties as songwriter for the first six albums but did not have publishing rights.
Swift also claimed that Braun had bullied her and that, when he owned the albums, wouldn’t allow her to perform any live at her 2019 American Music Awards performance. Swift has been very outspoken about why she decided to remake her first six albums; believing that artists should own their own work because they are the only ones who truly know what it’s about. Now, she finally does.
“I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening,” Taylor Swift said in a letter published to her website May 29. “I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me.” Swift also briefly mentions the awaited release of “Reputation (Taylors Version)” and “Debut (Taylors Version).” She states that some unreleased songs from the “Reputation” era and a re-recorded “Debut” are not out of the picture and could be released at the right time. As Swift celebrates the rightful ownership of every “era” that was once taken from her, the anniversary of one of her most individualistic albums approaches.
“folklore” was released, as a surprise to fans, July 24, 2020, as her eighth studio album. The album featured 16 songs and was different from her other albums, both because of the more indie genre and its fictional storytelling. With a darker tone than her previous album “Lover,” “folklore” dove into a more alternative and indie folk/pop genre.
Being released in 2020, “folklore” was Swift’s COVID-19 album. She wrote the songs during quarantine, shaping up into an album quickly. As recording studios closed due to quarantines, Swift decided to make a studio in her house where she recorded the album.
In contrast to her previous albums, “folklore,” as previously mentioned, explores more fictional story telling than stories about her actual life. One of the stories she dives into in this album is the teen love triangle, as fans like to call it. A love triangle between the fictional characters Betty, James and Augustine, is told through three songs on the album from each characters’ perspectives.
“betty” has always jumped out as having a clear storytelling aspect. However, if you dive a little deeper into some of her other songs you can learn about how they are connected and what other stories they tell. The entirety of the song “betty” is told from the perspective of James, a high schooler who has just lost the supposed love of his life because of a mistake he made one summer.
The premise of “betty” is that James is apologizing to his girlfriend, Betty, for cheating on her. “betty” has a very high school vibe to it and focuses mainly on why James thinks Betty is mad at him and how he hopes to get her back. “cardigan” is a song that is a little less clear on the premise of the story.
The song, however, is from Betty’s perspective and Swift said she believes that it is an older, more matured Betty reflecting on what happened in high school. It highlights Betty’s feelings of being tossed to the side “like an old cardigan” and being treated poorly by James. There are a few parallels between “betty” and “cardigan” that reveal their connection.
The few obvious ones being the mention of a cardigan in “betty” and both songs mentioning walking on cobblestones. The biggest parallel between the songs though are lyrics “I’m only seventeen, I don’t know anything” in “betty” and “When you are young, they assume you know nothing” in “cardigan.” James is obviously saying that he was young and didn’t know what he was doing. As Betty reflects, she realizes that James knew exactly what he was doing because high schoolers aren’t so naive.
Another layer of the story that Swift revealed is that she believes James and Betty ended up together. The line in “cardigan” that makes this outcome more evident to the listener is “But I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, I knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs.” It portrays this idea that Betty feels like if she didn’t forgive James and try again, he would always be in the back of her mind as a “what-if.” After hearing Betty’s perspective, it would be safe to conclude that whoever this “other woman” James cheated on Betty with is some bad girl with bad intentions; but then you listen to “august.” In an interview Swift said people would think Augustine is a bad girl because she is the other woman but really, she isn’t. She’s a sensitive teenager who really fell for James and this is revealed through the song.
Swift believes that the narrative that there is always a “villain girl” who takes your man is a myth because in reality everyone has feelings. Many other lyrics reveal Augustine’s sensitivity, like “I remember thinking I had you.” She also mentions thinking he would call and wishing he were hers in “august” countless times. "betty,” “cardigan” and “august” are the only three songs Swift has confirmed are about the triangle; however, fans have theorized how other songs on the album could be related.
“illicit affairs” tells the story of an affair and could probably be from Augustine's perspective as she tells the tale of her and James sneaking around. “tolerate it” is theorized to be from Betty’s perspective as a girl who puts more into the relationship but doesn’t get the same love in return. “exile” is another good example of a song that could be related.
It tells the story of a guy who can’t get over a girl and still believes they will end up together, but the girl is angry because her ex won’t let her move on. This song doesn’t really support the theory that James and Betty ended up together but could still be related to the situation — in high school James wasn’t over Betty, but Betty was probably angry at him for some time. Personally, I don’t think that Swift intentionally wrote the other songs to expand on the love triangle and was instead writing about different fictional stories.
But it is cool to be able to connect the story of the love triangle to other songs and it is fun for fans to be able to come up with their own stories about how each song could theoretically be connected. That is the fun thing about an album that tells stories whether fictional or not.
