Taylor Swift is an artist that I've adored since her debut album. For me, she's someone as timeless as it gets. I've supported her since I was a pubescent middle-schooler with my CD player blaring "Our Song" and "Tim McGraw", and here I am as a grad student, passionately listening to folklore on repeat. I've grown with her music, and it means the world to me. I've loved watching her grow as an artist. I'm here to give my first impressions of her newest album, evermore. Give this album a listen, and you're in for a treat, one full of tales of heartbreak and stories of the kind of love you can only dream about.
1. willow
Taylor opens the album with a beautiful piece about following a man, her man, no matter what. "Life was a willow and it bent right to your wind." UGH. The strongest of starts, as expected from an artist like Tay.
2. champagne problems
Just from reading this title, I knew this song would be painfully relatable. It gives me the vibes of a past life-changing breakup - an engagement gone wrong. "Her picture in your wallet, and you won't remember all my champagne problems."
3. gold rush
This song depicts a situation of falling for someone you know isn't good for you, a person too beautiful to love completely. "What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?...My mind turns your life into folklore." A true poet, Tay.
4. 'tis the damn season
I knew this song wouldn't be a cheery Christmas song, and I was right. This song screams about that hookup between you and that ex that you left behind in your hometown, that person that will always hold a painful place in your heart and mind. A habit you can never quite break. "And the road not taken looks real good right now, and it always leads to you and my hometown."
5. tolerate it
The piano in this song is beautiful, and riveting. An absolutely gorgeous, melancholy song about loving someone who doesn't appreciate you as much as you deserve. "I made you temple, my mirror, my sky, now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life."
6. my body, no crime (feat. HAIM)
This masterpiece has huge old Taylor vibes, but with a much more mature aspect to it. She has such a beautiful way of telling stories in her songs, and this one is no exception. Speaking of a woman named Este, and her man's inevitable infidelity...with a dark turn. "She thinks I did it, but she just can't prove it. No, no body, no crime...I wasn't letting up 'til the day he died." Chills!
7. happiness
Another ballad about losing a lover. Looking back on a failed relationship and seeing the good times, but looking forward and knowing there will be more happiness in the future. "No one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you." Taylor does an exceptional job of playing the victim, in a glorious way.
8. dorothea
I absolutely love when Taylor writes songs about other people, from the point of view of someone they used to know. "But are you still the same soul I met under the bleachers?...I guess I'll never know, and you'll go on with the show." Inject Tay singing "Dorothea" in that gorgeous voice of hers into my veins.
9. coney island (feat. The National)
Although before listening to this song I had never heard of The National, I have to say Matt Berninger's voice paired with Taylors gives me chills in the absolute best way. This song tells the tale of losing someone on your own account, painfully and regretfully. "I'm on a bench in Coney Island wondering where did my baby go? The fast times, the bright lights, the merry go. Sorry for not making you my centerfold."
10. ivy
With this song, I get the vibe of falling for someone while promised to another. "I'd live and die for moments that we stole on begged and borrowed time." Too real, Tay. Too real. This one might be my favorite, purely for its captivating flow matched with heart-wrenching lyrics.
11. cowboy like me
Almost falling into the country genre once more with this one, Tay, but in a good way. "Takes one to know one, you're a cowboy like me." This number tells the tale of meeting someone with all the tricks up their sleeve, but in a way that's just like you, and the inevitable dilemma of falling anyways. Just one of those songs that makes you want to close your eyes and simply feel. "And the skeletons in both of our closets plotted hard to fuck this up."
11. long story short
This song is a BOP. Enough said. One of the more upbeat songs of the album, Taylor tells the long story short of someone she's now "all about" after a long reflection on past lovers. "If the shoe fits, walk in it everywhere you go."
12. marjorie
marjorie tells of a story of trying more than anything to rid a person's memory from your mind after they're gone, but failing. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were still around." How painful regret can be when death is what separates you from a person.
13. closure
This song has an edgy, but upbeat sound to it, and I'm diggin' it. Telling the story of hearing from an ex that wants closure, but you want nothing to do with it. "I'm fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles." Preach, Tay. Ladies, you don't need his closure.
14. evermore (feat. Bon Iver)
Back at it again with Bon Iver in another beautiful piece. The perfect song to complete the album, Taylor wraps up with a soul-gripping ballad about being stuck in a painful, everlasting ending. "I had a feeling so peculiar this pain would be evermore." I have to admit, hearing the last word of the album, "Evermore", sent chills up my spine on repeat.
So, she's done it again. Baffled the song-writing industry with yet another complete album while in the most life-changing year of most our lives. I can't begin to put into words how proud I am of her, and how proud I am to call myself a Swiftie, evermore.
