Swift is infamous for hiding messages in her lyrics since her self-titled debut in 2006, and expanded that habit into album art and music videos most clearly with Reputation and Lover. And she didn’t disappoint with folklore, admitting to fans in the comments of the “cardigan” music video on YouTube that she really infused some hidden messages into the lyrics of this album. “One thing I did purposely on this album was put the Easter eggs in the lyrics, more than just the videos,” she wrote. She also explained that some of the songs come from the perspectives of characters she made up, so remember that before you freak out about a possible breakup. Swift said in her chat that folklore is “sad, beautiful, tragic,” which is actually a song title off Red. The album is essentially a collection of stories—folklore in its truest form, some fiction with some reality peppered in to add to the folklore of Swift herself. She explained in a primer for the album: “It started with imagery. Visuals that popped into my mind and piqued my curiosity. “Stars drawn around scars. A cardigan that still bears the scent of loss twenty years later. Battleships sinking into the ocean, down, down, down. The tree swing in the woods of my childhood. Hushed tones of “let’s run away” and never doing it. The sun drenched month of August, sipped away like a bottle of wine. A mirrored disco ball hovering above a dance floor. A whiskey bottle beckoning. Hands held through plastic. A single thread that, for better or for worse, ties you to your fate. “Pretty soon these images in my head grew faces or names and became characters. I found myself not only writing my own stories, but also writing about or from the perspective of people I’ve never met, people I’ve known, or those I wish I hadn’t. An exiled man walking the bluffs of a land that isn’t his own, wondering how it all went so terribly, terribly wrong. An embittered tormentor showing up at the funeral of his fallen object of obsession. A seventeen-year-old standing on a porch, learning to apologize. Lovestruck kids wandering up and down the evergreen High Line. My grandfather, Dean, landing at Guadalcanal in 1942. A misfit widow getting gleeful revenge on the town that cast her out. “A tale that becomes folklore is one that is passed down and whispered around. Sometimes even sung about. The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact. Myths, ghost stories, and fables. “Fairytales and parables. Gossip and legend. Someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold. “In isolation my imagination has run wild and this album is the result, a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness. Picking up a pen was my way of escaping into fantasy, history, and memory. I’ve told these stories to the best of my ability with all the love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve. “Now it’s up to you to pass them down.” We’ve broken down Swift’s lyrics and other Easter eggs so you don’t have to, including references to her boyfriend Joe Alwyn, her career, her friends and her exes. Say it with us: Her mind!
What is the significance of the folklore album release date?
Folklore was released July 24, 2020, or 7/24: 7+2+4=13, Swift’s famously lucky number. Cynics have also noted that Kanye West, a longtime nemesis for Swift since 2009, previously announced he would release an album titled Donda on the same date, though it’s unclear whether the timing was deliberate for either party’s releases.
Is “William Bowery” really a pseudonym for Taylor Swift’s longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn?
Swifties were swift to notice that William Bowery, who cowrote two songs with Swift for folklore, isn’t registered in any songwriting databases, making this the only project connected to his name. Bowery was also the only collaborator Swift didn’t tag in her album announcement. Some Swifties insist that Bowery is a pseudonym for Swift’s longtime love, Alwyn, whose great grandfather, William Alwyn, was a composer and music teacher. It wouldn’t be the first time Swift has used a pseudonym in a songwriting credit: She notoriously went by Nils Sjöberg when she cowrote “This Is What You Came For” with then-boyfriend Calvin Harris, only revealing her true identity after they split. (She later had a gravestone marked with Nils Sjöberg’s name in her video for “Look What You Made Me Do.”) Swift said she wrote and produced most of the album and in April, and in that same month, Alwyn made it clear that they were spending quarantine together when he posted a since-deleted Instagram story with one of her beloved cats, Benjamin Button. The couple also were rumored to have had their first date at the Bowery Hotel in New York City.
Are there references to Karlie Kloss on Taylor Swift’s folklore?
Not long after the folklore album announcement, complete with its forest imagery, Swift’s one-time BFF, Karlie Kloss, posted photos of herself in a forest captioned “happy place.” https://www.instagram.com/p/CC_XN_DDaDR/?utm_source=ig_embed Hours later, Kloss posted a photo of code that translates to “Easter egg.” https://www.instagram.com/p/CC_4Ge6j32V/
Easter Eggs in Taylor Swift’s folklore Lyrics
The meaning of folklore as a whole is a form of storytelling, which Swift does in spades on her eighth album. Not all of her songs are autobiographical, but many have allusions sprinkled throughout to keep Swifties guessing, speculating and theorizing.
1. “the 1”
Could “the 1” be about Swift’s ex Calvin Harris? She sings of her “roaring twenties / throwing pennies in the pool,” echoing her Great Gatsby references in “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” Her most high-profile relationship in her 20s was with Harris, and she mentions “digging up the grave another time.” In the video for “Look What You Made Me Do,” there’s a visible grave marker for Nils Sjöberg, Swift’s pseudonym for the writing credit on his hit “This Is What You Came For” with Rihanna. Swift may also reference the 2016 election and its aftermath themes of resistance, singing, “I persist and resist the temptation to ask you / If one thing had been different / Would everything be different today?”
2. “cardigan”
“Cardigan” tells of a tumultuous relationship that ultimately weathers the storm. Using a lot of New York City imagery (“downtown bars,” the Highline), Swift recalls a romance that starts out with trepidation and uncertainty but ends up like a cozy, comforting, soft place to land. She sings of a man who dated around but eventually returned to her like she knew he would. Swift said of the tune, “The song is about a lost romance and why young love is often fixed so permanently in our memories. Why it leaves such an indelible mark.” Fans also noted that she went from leaving her scarf with a toxic ex in “All Too Well” to being someone’s favorite cardigan.
3. “the last great american dynasty”
“The last great american dynasty” is a song about a woman named Rebekah Harkness, a patron of the arts and founder of the Rebekah Harkness Foundation—and the previous owner of Swift’s Rhode Island mansion. The song may also reference the Kennedys, with whom Swift became close in 2012 when she dated Conor Kennedy. It wouldn’t be the first time Swift wrote about the American dynastic family, as “Starlight” from Red was inspired by Ethel Kennedy.
4. “exile” (featuring Bon Iver)
Swift’s duet with Bon Iver can easily be interpreted as a breakup song (especially from her “teenage love triangle” storyline of which she spoke to fans in her chat before the album’s release), but the title can also reference her self-imposed exile from the public eye following her harrowing 2016.
5. “my tears ricochet”
The fifth track from folklore is one of Swift’s most heartbreaking ever, with a few potential meanings: It could easily be about a bitter ex-lover, but it could also reference her feud with Scott Borchetta, Scooter Braun and Big Machine, as some lines, in particular, can easily be about her former record label: “We gather stones, never knowing what they’ll mean / Some to throw, some to make a diamond ring / You know I didn’t want to have to haunt you / But what a ghostly scene / You wear the same jewels that I gave you / As you bury me / I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace / ‘Cause when I’d fight, you used to tell me I was brave / And if I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake? / Cursing my name, wishing I stayed.”
6. “mirrorball”
No, it’s not about a Dancing With the Stars trophy! Swift’s “mirrorball” is about being reflected in a partner and showing one another all of yourselves, for better or worse, and celebrating all of those parts. Fans speculated that her “tightrope” mention was a reference to her Red-era fan-favorite “Treacherous,” and “spinning around in my highest heels” may reference “Stolen” by Dashboard Confessional, a band Swift has said she loves.
7. “seven”
Swift mentions Pennsylvania, her birthplace and where she grew up before moving to Nashville, in “seven.” She also references “hiding in the closet,” which many Swifties interpreted as being an extremely thinly-veiled LGBTQ+ reference. The visuals for “seven” are very reminiscent of one of Swift’s own childhood homes.
8. “august”
Swift said the album folklore as a whole has a vibe of “the sun-drenched month of August, sipped away like a bottle of wine.” The song is reminiscent of a teenage summer love, evoked by imagery in lyrics like “meet me behind the mall.” The line “you weren’t mine to lose” is also a tell-tale sign it’s part of the “teenage love triangle” series of songs.
9. “this is me trying”
Swift is reflective of her own life on “this is me trying,” which also references “Bad Blood” in its opening lines, as well as her going into hiding: “I had the shiniest wheels, now they’re rusting / I didn’t know if you’d care if I came back / I have a lot of regrets about that.”
10. “illicit affairs”
“Illicit affairs” is seemingly about infidelity and the lies told to cover it up: “Make sure nobody sees you leave / Hood over your head, keep your eyes down / Tell your friends you’re out for a run / You’ll be flushed when you return.”
11. “invisible string”
“Invisible string” references the twists and turns life takes to bring two people together. Swift mentions Centennial Park, a beautiful area in Nashville. She also mentions “bad was the blood of the song in the cab,” an unveiled nod to “Bad Blood,” as well as dive bars (a big theme on Lover). “A string that pulled me / Out of all the wrong arms, right into that dive bar,” the lyric goes, which could be a reference to the couple’s first meeting back in 2016. And the line about gold reminds us of how she’s used gold to refer to him before. “One single thread of gold / Tied me to you.” When she sings “Cold was the steel of my axe to grind / For the boys who broke my heart / Now I send their babies presents” may reference her ex-turned-platonic pal Joe Jonas, who’s expecting his first child with wife Sophie Turner. When she sings “Gold was the color of the leaves / When I showed you around Centennial Park,” it may be a callback to Lover’s “Daylight,” in which she sings that love is “golden.” She almost mentions “the lakes,” which may well be a reference to her bonus track of the same name, as well as wool—a common material for a cardigan.
12. “mad woman”
Though it’s about witch hunts and a widow, could “mad woman” be about Hillary Clinton? Swift mentions a scorpion; Clinton’s astrological sign is Scorpio. She mentions the “master of spin,” which could be in reference to how she feels about a current or former president…singing, “The master of spin has a couple side flings / Good wives always know / She should be mad, should be scathing like me, but / No one likes a mad woman / What a shame she went mad / You made her like that.” Of course, it could also be about Swift’s own reputation as an oft-scorned woman, with the speculative onus of her previous failed romances falling on her shoulders in the past.
13. “epiphany”
Track 13—Swift’s lucky number—is “epiphany,” opening horrific scenes of war (possibly a nod to Swift’s grandfather, Dean, landing at Guadalcanal in 1942) as Swift sings, “Crawling up the beaches now / Sir I think he’s bleeding out.” She also sings of breathing in and out, potentially about the COVID-19 crisis, with a haunting lilt: “Something med school, did not cover / Someone’s daughter, someone’s mother / Hold your hand through plastic now / Doc, I think she’s crashing out.”
14. “betty”
In “betty,” Swift drops another F-bomb in a song, written from the point of view of a 17-year-old named James with a crush on a girl who switched her homeroom after true rumors (“from Inez”) that he hooked up with another girl. When “James” sings about how he “showed up at your party,” Swifties may notice a parallel between that and her Red-era song “The Moment I Knew,” about a lover who skipped her birthday party. The song also references “cardigan” by name. Additionally, Swiftie’s BFFs Blake Livelyand Ryan Reynolds—the latter of whom appeared in her “You Need to Calm Down” video—have a daughter named Ines. (Their daughter James’ voice is featured in the introductory moments of “Gorgeous” from Reputation.) Some fans think Swift may have revealed the name of the couples’ third child with this song. While Lively and Reynolds welcomed their third daughter in 2019, they haven’t shared her name. Could it be Betty? There is also speculation that “betty” herself is Alwyn’s mother Elizabeth “Betty” Alwyn or Karlie Kloss, whose middle name is Elizabeth. The song was cowritten by William Bowery, another reason many think it’s Alwyn. Swift said in a chat that she has some songs on folklore written from the point of view of a teenage love triangle, and this song certainly fits that bill. “Betty” is sung from James’ perspective, while fans believe “cardigan” is from Betty’s point of view and “August” from Inez’s vantage point.
15. “peace”
“I never had trust in my convictions” could reference Swift’s silence about sociopolitical issues until her Lover era, “robbers to the east / clowns to the west” could reference Kim Kardashian’s Paris robbery and Kanye West’s public struggles. Swift also sings of seeing her lover’s brother “as her brother,” and Joe Alwyn has a brother—and in “King of My Heart” on Lover, Swift sings “trust him like a brother” of Alwyn. One lyric mentioning a “child” has her fans going mad. “And you know that I’d swing with you for the fences,” she sings. “Sit with you in the trenches. Give you my wild, give you a child, give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other.” Naturally, this led fans to believe she is ready to have a child with Alwyn. Some are taking it to the extreme, wondering if she’s already pregnant.
16. “hoax”
“Hoax” opens with the lines, “My only one / My smoking gun / My eclipsed sun / This has broken me.” One can possibly theorize that it’s a reference to ex Taylor Lautner, who starred in The Twilight Saga, including Eclipse, especially since that particular romance came under scrutiny for potentially being a publicity stunt for their film Valentine’s Day. Later, Swift sings of a “winless fight” that could be any number of her public feuds through the years, but it was her beef with West andKardashianthat led her into hiding for a long time during the lead-up to Reputation. When she sings of a “faithless love” and references the color blue, it can be about Jake Gyllenhaal, especially when she references “ash from your fire”: In “State of Grace,” from Red, rumored to be about the actor, she references “twin fire signs” (they’re both Sagittarius) and “four blue eyes.”
Easter Eggs in Taylor Swift’s “Cardigan” Music Video
How Music Saved Her
In Swift’s music video for “cardigan,” filmed during lockdown due to COVID-19, Swift starts out in an old attic playing a piano. When she notices a glow emanating from the instrument, she opens it up and climbs inside, landing in a serene, mossy forest, where she continues peacefully playing piano. Eventually, the same glow emanates from her piano bench, leading her to crawl inside once more, but this time the landing isn’t serene — she’s plunged instead into stormy seas, clutching her floating piano as a lifesaver, symbolic of how her music rescued her in a dark time. She eventually climbs back into the top of the piano, glowing once more, and ends up back in her attic, this time with a cardigan—the same exact one sold in her merch store for folklore—waiting for her.
Love for Joe Alwyn
There’s a gold motif in the video that Swift has used to allude to Alwyn before.
Is There a Hidden No. 13?
The clock in the introduction of the video reads 1:15—but it could be a reference once more to Swift’s lucky number 13, as the hands are at 1 and 3.
Someone Special
The video ends similarly to “Delicate,” with Swift looking up hopefully, gazing at an unseen but clearly adored person.
Taylor Swift’s Family Photos
She has a photo of her grandfather, Archie Dean Swift, in the attic. She sings about his World War II experience in “epiphany.”
A Taylor Swift Nod to Harry Styles…?
Fans also pointed out parallels between the water imagery in “cardigan” to her ex Harry Styles’ music video for “Falling.” Also, let’s not forget that his former band One Direction celebrated its 10 year anniversary on the same day she dropped the news of her new album! Can’t get enough Taylor Swift Easter eggs? Look back on the Easter eggs for her “The Man” music video.
