Taylor Swift has recently released her 8th studio album 'FolkLore'. This album is a completely different style from previous Taylor albums. This more folky approach to a very mature album has definitely gained a lot of attention. Her lyrical storytelling is the best it's ever been. Throughout the album, each individual song has a specific storyline, but there are three songs that individual stories come together for a bigger picture. I wanted to dive into these three songs and really pick apart the impeccable lyricism within them. This trio is in different POVs of a boy who cheated, the girl who got cheated on, and the girl he cheated on her with.
1. "Cardigan"
Cardigan is in the POV of the girl who was cheated on. This song is so sad and just really makes you feel the betrayal she was feeling. She uses the metaphor of a cardigan to explain how the boy made her feel. He was the one who would make her feel worthy and wanted, then when he cheated that all shattered. She makes it known that even though they were young and aren't supposed to know anything, she knew how she felt about him and that that wasn't an excuse to cheat.
2. "Betty"
This is one of my favorite songs from the album. "Betty" has such an amazing storyline. It's in the Poverties of the boy who cheated. The relationship is in high school an d the song sets up the relationship as two young teens that were in love until "Betty" went away for the summer. The boy who cheated is trying to explain what happened and make things right with Betty, the amount of correlations in this song to the other two are crazy. This song is also really well produced. The different instrumentals throughout is so cleverly put together.
3. "August"
"August" is in the POV of the girl he cheated with. This song makes you feel empathy for the girl. Even though she knew he was in relationship, and that's never ok, He made her feel special and she eventually fell in love with him. She knows it isn't right and that he isn't hers to love, but that makes it even harder for her to let go. He used her for his quick fix and then left her in the dust. The subtle connections made between this song and the other two songs is so clever. Listening to them back to back is such an experience and I highly recommend doing it.
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