“i just wanted you to know…” — the gift of taylor swift’s folklore.

If your favourite musician releases an album based on the idea of folklore, filled with songs from the perspectives of various characters and herself, could it be talked about on a blog you’d like to dedicate to your musings on fiction?

That is the question I contemplated when I saw that Taylor Swift would be releasing her eighth studio album, Folklore. When I had my first listen at noon on July 24th, I knew the answer. You can guess what it is. I promise, though, it ties back to fiction and my solace in it.

It’s rare to feel like an artist has produced something just for you, that the universe has connected you and the artist by some invisible thread. That feeling, that unique and indescribable surprise may come along once, maybe twice in your lifetime. Sometimes there will be works that come close, but they’ll never bring about the thrill and sense of ownership that makes you question if fate or forces in the universe are at work, even if you and the artist have never met. For me, that’s Folklore, an album I didn’t know I needed, whose arrival is strangely on time.

I’ve been a huge fan of Taylor since I was 11. My first album of hers Fearless’ platinum edition, a gift from my dad. But my love for her was cemented with Speak Now’s release. I loved the latter’s fairytale motifs, the carefree attitude towards bullies in Mean, Never Grow Up’s gentle caution as I was entering my teenage years and a fraught time for my family. The first time she came to Singapore was the first time I’d attended a concert. The album was my calm in the middle of battering storms. From there, I followed her career, and I fell in love with her storytelling and commentary on love and life. My parents bought me album after album, and generously took me to her concerts whenever she came to tour. I witnessed with fascination as she transitioned from country to mainstream pop. There would always be at least one or two tracks I could relate to or hope would provide a glimpse into my future with each cycle. Some of them the very same tracks, some of them not. I didn’t know what it was like to be 22, but I had friends I stayed up late with, and I imagined a magical future the track on Red described for us. 1989’s Shake It Off and New Romantics were my anthems similar to how Mean was. And I confess, I wanted a relationship like that of You Are in Love’s. I still do.

Reputation and its cycle was a bit of an outlier in this regard, and I consider it the rockiest part of my relationship with Taylor’s music. I was 18, going through a difficult time with my health, disillusioned with the world and the state of international politics, and the prospect of romance had suddenly seemed unattainable. The last thing I wanted to hear was an album about fame, revenge, break ups, and running away with someone. I didn’t see it for the spark of hope it is until last year, when I tried listening to it again as inspiration for my own writing.

Then Lover came out. Though I still couldn’t relate to much of the new songs — with the exceptions of I Forgot That You Existed and You Need to Calm Down, and even then, only as fragments — I was in a much healthier place, and I could appreciate Taylor’s take on the paradoxical, exhilarating nature of love in its multitude of forms again. The album also served as much of the inspiration for some romantic fiction I’d started, fanworks and original. But with that aside, I accepted that while my characters may feel strongly influenced by and connected to her music and phases in life, I likely wouldn’t. At least for a while.

Folklore proved me startlingly wrong.

I have long adored fairytales and mythology, descendants of folkloric tradition. As a child, it was for the escapism they offered and the questions they posed to me. As an adult, I find myself returning to them like old friends for those same comforts, and to learn more of their ancient and mysterious conventions and transformations, as fascinating to me as the transformations of an artist and a person. How could one story be told in countless new ways over countless generations, yet remain intact and relevant? Because it is a mirror of us, demanding we reflect it back to the world and to itself. Or, that’s what I think, when I look at some of my favourite films, musicals, and books. In my mind, they all share two traits: The first is the awareness that they are retellings, echoes of the generations before us, passed down, rearranged to ask both age old questions and new; to show us another, possible version of ourselves, or to reveal what already exists that we’d rather turn away from. The second is that they center the experiences of women or are authored by women themselves, a foundation of so many folktales, laid by our ancestors as a comfort for each other.

Taylor’s Folklore shows a graceful understanding and exploitation of these traits. Her choice to present the stories on the album as both autobiographical and fictional, to blur the lines, invites us to reinterpret them and make them our own — as we would with any other oral tale, or as many Taylor Swift fans have already done with her prior work.

I’ve found characters I know and clues to those I’ve yet to meet in every single one of Folklore’s songs… And much of my own life in a rather large selection of them. the last great american dynasty is the euphoric experience I have with every story given to me, inspiring me to write; the rare days where I wonder what the lives of my loved ones would’ve been if I wasn’t around, if I was different; my wry humour at my life and determination to enjoy it. mirrorball is my desire for my stories and presence to mean something to someone; the crushes I’ve had, the friendships I’d hoped for. The sapphic teenage love triangle in cardigan, august, and betty is the response to my lament over a lack of queer love triangles in a friend’s DMs (literally days before the album’s release!) mad woman is every woman I’ve known who’s taken the accusation of being “too emotional” in stride. epiphany is my dad’s time in the army and his near-death experience before I was born; my admittedly hazy memories of hospital stays whenever pneumonia collapsed my lungs, the doctors and nurses who saved me. this is me trying hits particularly close to home, with Taylor sighing the words, “at least I’m trying,” like they ought to free her in some way, and its second verse:

They told me all of my cages were mental
So I got wasted like all my potential
And my words shoot to kill when I’m mad
I have a lot of regrets about that
I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere
Fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here
Pouring out my heart to a stranger
But I didn’t pour the whiskey

But the reason I feel this album was made for me is because of its timing. It’s been nearly a decade since Speak Now was released. I’m dancing into the age of 22 in December this year. I don’t know where most of the friends I used to stay up with are right now, I don’t have exes, and if I’m honest, I’m not exactly fond of hipster culture. But I think I’m beginning to know what it means to be “happy, free, confused and lonely in the best way.” I’ve met new people and made new friends. I’m open to romance again. I’m figuring out what I want out of life, if it should be so kind. I’m making plans like they’ll happen. I’m working on projects independently and with collaborators. I’m learning the value of telling truths through fiction’s mask, my own retellings of fairytales and myths. And if all goes well, I’ll be studying for my BA in English Literature next Autumn.

So, to Taylor: Thank you for this unbelievable gift, and for everything you’ve given to me since I was 11.