Taylor Swift surprised fans big-time on Thursday, December 10, when she revealed another album, Evermore, was coming just five months after Folklore…her other surprise album from this year.
Well, the album is here, and it's incredible. “I have no idea what will come next,” Swift wrote on social media. “I have no idea about a lot of things these days and so I’ve clung to the one thing that keeps me connected to you all. That thing always has and always will be music. And may it continue, evermore.”
She also gave some details about the stories behind the songs. “Before I knew it I had 17 tales, some of which are mirrored or intersecting with each other,” she wrote. “The one about two young con artists who fall in love while hanging out at fancy resorts trying to score rich romantic beneficiaries. The one where longtime college sweethearts had very different plans for the same night, one to end it and one who bought a ring.”
“Dorothea, the girl who left her small town to chase down Hollywood dreams—and what happens when she comes back home for the holidays and rediscovers an old flame,” Swift continued. “The ‘unhappily ever after’ trilogy of marriages gone bad that includes infidelity, ambivalent toleration, and even murder. The most righteous motive, to avenge the fallen. The realization that maybe the only path to healing is to wish happiness on the one who took it away from you. One starring my grandmother, Marjorie, who still visits me sometimes…if only in my dreams.”
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In typical Taylor Swift fashion, Evermore is chock-full of references, stories, and Easter eggs, both about her life and the fictional characters she created in Folklore. Below, we break down all the major moments from each song. Take a look after you've finished crying (which, full disclosure, I still am).
Swift was dropping hints about this track before she announced Evermore, and we didn't even realize it—like with a photo of a willow in a recent Instagram post and using the word in a tweet on December 4.
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And, as she mentioned, some of the songs on the album (and Folklore) intersect with each other. The video for “Willow” begins where “Cardigan” ends and that gold string ties them together.
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This appears to be the song about the college sweethearts that Swift referenced in her note about the album in which one half of the couple is ready to break up, the other to get engaged. “Because I dropped your hand while dancing / Left you out there standing / Crestfallen on the landing / Champagne problems / Your mom's ring in your pocket / My picture in your wallet / Your heart was glass, I dropped it / Champagne problems,” she sings.
But fans shouldn't read into it as a statement about her and Joe Alwyn, as she's made it clear this is one of her fictional tales. Plus, William Bowery, a.k.a. Alwyn, cowrote the song.
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People also connected it to “The 1” from Folklore.
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This track is an early favorite—but really, how to pick just one? Some fans surmised that the lyrics “What must it be like to grow up that beautiful? / With your hair falling into place like dominoes” might be about Swift's ex Harry Styles, who happens to have a hit song called “Golden.”
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The ship imagery returns with the line “Eyes like sinking ships on waters / So inviting, I almost jump in.” She also references the name of her last album when she sings, “My mind turns your life into folklore.”
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Ah the age-old tale of hooking up with your ex when you come home to visit for the holidays. Who among us can't relate to lyrics like “So we could call it even / You could call me ‘babe’ for the weekend / ’Tis the damn season, write this down / I’m stayin’ at my parents’ house / And the road not taken looks real good now / And it always leads to you in my hometown.”
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Some fans think it's even about August and James (from Folklore) having another tryst. Or maybe it's James and Betty?
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Whatever your interpretation, it's certainly a heartbreaker.
As any good Swiftie knows, track five always has special significance on a Taylor Swift album and this song is quite the gut punch. “Tolerate It” would seems to be the tune about “ambivalent toleration” in what Swift called the “unhappily ever after trilogy.”
“I wait by the door like I'm just a kid / Use my best colors for your portrait / Lay the table with the fancy shit / And watch you tolerate it,” she sings. “If it's all in my head tell me now / Tell me I've got it wrong somehow / I know my love should be celebrated / But you tolerate it.”
Excuse me while I go sob in the corner….
The transition into this next track did not go unnoticed by the fandom—for good reason.
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We've got ourselves a murder, folks! The main character, Este, is named after one of the Haim sisters, close friends of Swift who also appear on the song. She is murdered after confronting a cheating husband, and I'm glad to know I'm not the only one out here with a massive true-crime obsession. The song is also a tie to Swift's country roots in the best possible way.
“Working with the Haim sisters on 'No Body, No Crime' was pretty hilarious because it came about after I wrote a pretty dark murder mystery song and had named the character Este, because she’s the friend I have who would be stoked to be in a song like that,” Swift told Entertainment Weekly. “I had finished the song and was nailing down some lyric details and texted her, ‘You’re not going to understand this text for a few days but...which chain restaurant do you like best?’ and I named a few.”
“She chose Olive Garden and a few days later I sent her the song and asked if they would sing on it. It was an immediate ‘YES,’” Swift continued and thus the line “Este wasn't there / Tuesday night at Olive Garden” was born.
“Long story short, I’m the 4th Haim sister now, confirmed,” she said. (Yes, she even referenced another song title there.)
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Love lost is the theme here yet again, and Swift's note about “the only path to healing is to wish happiness on the one who took it away from you” really comes to life in the most devastating emotional way.
She also references The Great Gatsby with the line “I hope she'll be your beautiful fool.” The line from the novel is “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
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Like Betty and James before her, everyone wants to know “Who is Dorothea?”
Swift sings, “Hey, Dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me? / When we were younger down in the park / Honey, making a lark of the misery / You got shiny friends since you left town / A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now / And I got nothing but well-wishes for ya.”
Some think it's about Selena Gomez.
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Others strongly disagree.
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Some fans were feeling sapphic vibes from Swift on this track.
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Swift offered some insight during a YouTube chat, per E! News: “There's not a direct continuation of the Betty-James-August storyline, but in my mind Dorothea went to the same school as Betty, James, and Inez.”
Swift seems to reference past relationships in this song. “And when I got into the accident / The sight that flashed before me was your face” gives me Harry Styles–“Out of the Woods” flashbacks to “20 stitches in a hospital room.” Then there's the line “But when I walked up to the podium, I think that I forgot to say your name,” which could also be about a pre-Alwyn relationship.
Also, there's a nod to Brooklyn—which is where Coney Island is.
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This seems like the third song in the “Unhappily” trilogy, about a married woman who loves someone else. “I'd live and die for moments that we stole / On begged and borrowed time
So tell me to run / Or dare to sit and watch what we'll become / And drink my husband's wine,” she sings. Talk about Illicit Affairs! Her mind.
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Does the voice on the backing vocals sound familiar to you? That's because it's none other than Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons.
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The country vibes are also pretty clear.
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The lyrics on this track could definitely be about the era surrounding Reputation, when Swift found herself under fire in the press and the culture. “And I fell from the pedestal / Right down the rabbit hole,” she sings. “Long story short, it was a bad time / Pushed from the precipice / Clung to the nearest lips.” Could those lips have belonged to Tom Hiddleston?
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Marjorie is Swift's grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who was an opera singer. It seems only fitting that her grandmother has a song on Evermore, since her grandfather has “Epiphany” on Folklore.
You can see personal photos and more in the lyric video.
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This song feels very much like a statement about where Swift stands now in her personal and professional life. “Yes, I got your letter / Yes, I'm doing better / It cut deep to know ya, right to the bone / Yes, I got your letter / Yes, I'm doing better / I know that it's over, I don't need your / Closure, your closure.”
It could be about a relationship or it could be about the drama over her masters with Scooter Braun. I hope she never stops calling him out in songs, frankly.
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Swift knows the year has been hard and this holiday season is going to be “lonely” for many—it's one of the reasons she wanted to give the world this album. But there is hope in this song too.
“And I was catching my breath / Floors of a cabin creaking under my step / And I couldn't be sure / I had a feeling so peculiar / This pain wouldn't be for evermore.”
Indeed, Taylor. It won't last forever.
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