Taylor Swift’s evermore: Part 1
For some, their favorite album. For others, a “clunker.”
“Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was 15.” - no body, no crime
Equilibrium
The love stories in Swift’s last album folklore were big and ended with big devastation. The love stories of evermore are still dealing with the aftershock of betrayal, but more time has passed. On the cover of folklore, Swift is standing in a forest. On evermore’s cover, she’s in a field looking back at the forest. She’s out of it.
Swift’s evolving perspective lands on the idea of equilibrium. Love was flying so high, maybe it was inevitable that it would crash just as hard.
Take for example the narrator of it’s time to go. She was hit with three betrayals:
First, her partner cheats, “he’s insisting that friends look at each other like that.”
Then personal betrayal, “she was not in fact what she seemed, not a twin from your dreams, she’s a crook who was caught.”
Finally, business betrayal, “Fifteen years…he gave me nothing at all…he’s got my past frozen behind glass.” This sounds like a reference to Swift’s first six studio albums, which she recorded over a “fifteen year” period and then lost the rights to.
But she’s not reeling like the narrator of this is me trying or enraged like mad woman or fighting back like my tears ricochet (all songs from the last album folklore). She feels certain that “walking out is the one thing that will find you the right thing.” She lets go in this song. Maybe, her new growth will be just as powerful as the heartache it was born from. Equal but opposite.
“Honey, when I’m above the trees, I see this for what it is” - happiness
High & Low
The idea of ‘equal and opposite’ continues in the song gold rush. Memories of a “beautiful” ex-lover tempt the song’s narrator: “eyes like sinking ships on waters so inviting.” The water looks inviting, but those ships are sinking for a reason. Once again, deception finds its way into a break-up.
The narrator resists indulging in daydreams of this past relationship (“I almost jump in”) because the high and low, or “gold rush” and “bone crush,” are indistinguishable: “I don’t like that falling feels like flying til the bone crush.” But this relationship sounds like it was really flying! Here are some lines: “gleaming, twinkling,” “red flush,” “rose blush” “slow motion double vision.”
Indulging in a daydream of the past also means recalling the ensuing nightmare—the equal, but opposite side of those euphoric memories.
“And then it fades into the gray of my day old tea" - gold rush
Frozen
Problems arise in evermore when characters don’t let go. Heartbreak freezes them in time. For example:
In right where you left me, the narrator’s boyfriend breaks the news to her that he met someone else. She stays in that moment forever.
In the title song evermore, the narrator is stuck reliving past memories, while struggling with the classic betrayal/break-up combo we saw in folklore.
In tis the damn season, starlet Dorothea visits home and begs an ex to be hers “for the weekend.” We get the flip side of this story in the song dorothea, when the ex-boyfriend lightheartedly remembers their high school romance.
Outside, “time went on for everybody else” (right where). But for these three characters, the persistence of their heartbreak means lack of forward motion: “all [time] does is pause on the very moment all was lost” and “I stayed there” (right where, evermore). The weekend Dorothea spends with her ex seems to last forever and mean everything to her. But when they’re apart, “time flies messy as the mud on your truck tires” (damn season).
Time only moves forward in evermore when characters let their heartbreak die. Then, something new can grow.
But how can you let go when you’re decimated by heartbreak?
"In from the snow, your touch brought forth an incandescent glow" - ivy
Winter Before Spring
The narrator of it’s time to go discusses just that. She says “you know when it’s time to go” when you feel “that old familiar body ache.”
I’ll continue with the three songs right where you left me, evermore, and tis the damn season. For the narrator of evermore (a duet with Bon Iver), the curse is also the cure. Memories of her ex-lover finally allow her to let go: “And when I was shipwrecked / I thought of you / in the cracks of light / I dreamed of you / it was real enough / to get me through / I swear / you were there.” (or is it a new lover?? Who knows.) Either way, relief finally arrives after this emotional low point: “this pain wouldn’t be evermore.”
Death precedes rebirth in evermore, just like the seasons.
The shipwreck in evermore sounds like death. Maybe she actually dies, “staring out an open window catching my death.” But I am hopeful the mention of “floors of a cabin creaking under my step” at the end confirms her death was metaphorical. “Cabin” here could be the cabin of a boat. Maybe the ship didn’t sink after all.
Until this character hit her lowest point, in “frost,” “violence,” “waves,” “being tossed,” and “shipwrecked,” she would never be able to grow “tall again.” Death precedes rebirth in evermore, just like the seasons. There is no spring without winter.
“A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now.” - dorothea
Who knew the hack for not staying..…frozen…..in heartbreak would be to…...let it go?
Swift compares the album evermore to winter: “wintertime myths and fireside tales of love lost and found” (from the Era’s Tour book). The album was released in December. Maybe this was her ‘era’ of emotional death and release, which hopefully preceded a spring of growth.
Unfortunately, the other two narrators don’t take this rebirth lesson to heart. The narrator of right where you left me stays stuck because she won’t let the relationship die: “if our love died young I can’t bear witness.” So instead, the relationship is draining the life out of her: “I haunt,” “dust collected on my pinned up hair,” “in dim light.”
Meanwhile Dorothea’s life in LA sounds life-less. So long as her heart is with her ex in “the warmest bed I’ve ever known,” she’ll only be half-present everywhere else (damn season).
Who knew the hack for not staying…frozen…in heartbreak would be to….let it go?
“Time flies messy as the mud on your truck tires.” - tis the damn season
When I was shipwrecked
“He’s got my past frozen behind glass” - it’s time to go
Seasons aren’t the only nature metaphor in the album. In folklore, love was our homeland. In evermore, love is the ocean.
When love is good, waters are calm: “my waves meet your shore ever and evermore” (long story short).
When love is intense, we’re submerged: “lost in your current like a priceless wine” (willow).
When love is rocky, so are the waves: “I’m on waves, out being tossed” (evermore).
When a relationship is going down, so is the ship: “I was shipwrecked” and “eyes like sinking ships” (evermore, gold rush).
When a relationship is over, the sea separates ex-lovers: “reaching across the sea you put between you and me” and “across our great divide there is a glorious sunrise” (closure, happiness).
Where should you dispose of the dead body of a cheating husband, you ask? The bottom of the ocean, of course: “good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was 15” (no body, no crime).
Maybe relationships were rock solid before betrayal in folklore. Now they’re as temporary and turbulent as ocean waves—up and down, give and take. Maybe they’re more powerful than just the two people in them. The moon and tides are at work.
“Across our great divide there is a glorious sunrise” - happiness
Leave it all behind
The narrator of happiness also knows letting go will lead to new growth: "leave it all behind and there is happiness” (happiness). But the eagerness for repair in this song feels rushed to me.
The eagerness for repair in happiness feels rushed to me.
I did a bit of digging in Swiftlore. So bear with me! (or skip ahead a few paragraphs).
The song happiness references Swift’s 2017 album reputation. First, happiness mentions leaving behind “the dress I wore at midnight.” This calls back to the reputation songs Dress, “only bought this dress so you could take it off” and New Year’s Day, “I want your midnights.” reputation was about a pretty sexual and earth-shattering relationship. I don’t know how easy it will be to “leave it all behind” now.
She also mentions in happiness, “I was dancing when the music stopped,” which calls back to “we were dancing with our hands tied” (Dancing with Our Hands Tied). In reputation, dancing and beds are metaphors for a sexual awakening: “we were dancing like it was the first time,” “carve your name into my bedpost,” and “you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis” (Dress, Hands Tied).
"I'm fine with my spite and my beer and my tears and my candles" - closure
champagne problems live in Zurich.
I am terrible at taking videos but here is what I got….
When Swift sings in happiness, “I was dancing when the music stopped,” I think it means the narrator didn’t see the betrayal coming. Because now, that same “sacred” bed couldn’t be more different: “my eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head.” In evermore, “seven years in heaven” would never come without an equivalent “price [to] pay.” Equal and opposite.
I think the narrator of happiness wants to rush along to forgiveness because she wants the “blood and bruise,” “curses and cries,” “fury,” “disbelief,” and “terror” to “go away.” But for now, she’s still “right down in it.”
She says the “new me” will eventually give her ex “the green light of forgiveness.” That’s generous and evolved. But in the song closure, she bristles at her ex’s attempt to “iron out” their relationship: “I don’t need your closure.” She thinks her own journey is genuine, but her ex’s is “fake and…unnecessary.”
While I agree that happiness can exist in a past relationship and after that relationship, I don’t think that mindset can be forced. evermore tells characters to let emotions die so they can move on. But letting something die takes time. And unlike other songs, this narrator does not control time.
Enter a couple of witchy women with a bit too much power and something to avenge. Can they slip through time and space and shipwrecks? Check out Part 2 to find out.
"Help, I'm still at the restaurant" - right where you left me
Up Next: Taylor Swift’s evermore: Part 2
This article is Part 1 of 3. Read Part 3 here.
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