"cardigan" by Taylor Swift, Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Folklore is an album without a radio single, according to Taylor Swift. However, the music industry, even with its changes in practices over the last decade and over the course of the pandemic, is still the music industry. And when one of the biggest pop stars releases an album, there better be a single to release. But what song? There was a lot of great music released and produced during lockdown. Charlie XCX, Lady Gaga, and The Weeknd had us dancing in our underwear in the living room with our old cereal bowls stacked up on the arm table (did I just confess something?). Travis Barker produced a shit-ton of music, changing rap into rock. There were a ton of lockdown concerts. For Taylor Swift, lockdown was all about reinventing herself by going back to the basics. 

CHASE TWO GIRLS, LOSE THE ONE. Like when Stephen Christian at a Cornerstone set jokingly called "Like Steps in a Dance" was the "radio hit" from Anchor & Braille's Felt, an album that didn't nor wasn't intended to impact radio, Taylor Swift's folklore was not intended to be a big radio hit. This is partially not true because Swift released "cardigan" as the album's lead single and filmed a music video. Quickly "cardigan" came to represent the album. However, other songs were also released as singles, including "exile" and "betty," the latter which charted on Country radio. Swift pays homage to the genre that brought her to popularity on even her poppiest albums by sending a ballad, even if the new Taylor doesn't twang. But on a record so full of storytelling and acoustic hooks, "cardigan" may or may not seem like the obvious choice for a lead single other than the fact that it's the heart of what the album does: Swift plucking at an acoustic guitar, embracing storytelling, and loving the change of seasons, in this case summer ("august") to fall. As the name suggests, "cardigan" is a chilly song, the old sweatshirt you put back on in the nipping mornings as the school year starts. Last month we talked about the song "august" being a third of the "high school love triangle" trilogy, and "cardigan" is another part of it, imagining the romance between Betty and James. 

VINTAGE TEE. Folklore in someways is the most Taylor Swift record and the least Taylor Swift record. Sitting at home in quarantine gifted Swift with the time needed to tell stories that she wanted to tell. Digging deep into the dusty old stories she heard growing up, Swift crafts stories based on a grain of truth but that have became much bigger than their subjects. Musically, the album seems to be inspired by classic rock, folk, and country--good old music so distant from who Taylor became on Reputation and Lover but connected to when Swift wrote her music on Fearless and Speak Now. Unlike any Taylor Swift album before folklore has the fewest songs personally about Swift whether genuinely like Red's "All Too Well" or in jest such as "Blank Space" on 1989, which pokes fun at the rumors of Swift's dating life. Only "the invisible string," track 11, diarizes in a normal Taylor Swift fashion, laughing off her early ideas about how love is formed. Still, this is not to say that there are no Taylor Swift ideas in the non-Taylor Swift narrated songs. For example Swift talks about growing up and becoming politically active in her Netflix documentary Miss Americana, and it seems to mirror the line in today's song: "When you are young, they assume you know nothing." So is "cardigan" the right lead single for the album? It's slow and a little bit cold, yet it gives a preview of what folklore is: fall encompassed in a record. It wasn't the catchiest song for me--that goes to "exile"--but "cardigan" stands out as a musical moment, one of the leaves fallen from a colorful maple. It's not the prettiest leaf, not the ugliest, but taken by itself, "cardigan" represents a part of the whole work in a way that none of the other standout tracks can.

Read “​cardigan” by Taylor Swift on Genius.