“invisible string” by Taylor Swift, Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Taylor Swift went from America's sweetheart to a polarizing figure in her twenties. Feuds with Kanye West and then wife Kim Kardashian, Katie Perry, and others; a dating reputation; and self-deprecating and aggrandizing songs made Taylor's star not for everyone. But in 2019, Swift was starting to change the narrative, patching up things with Perry in the video for "You Need to Calm Down," reducing her reliance on hip-hop beats, and reducing lyrical narcissism.
SAID I LOOKED LIKE AN AMERICAN SINGER. Swift didn't gain universal acclaim for Lover, though it did bode better with critics than Reputation. Swift shows her most mature efforts on 2020's folklore and evermore. I've spoken at length about folklore this year, writing about the tracks "exile," "august," and "cardigan." And my thesis about all of these songs is about how unlike Taylor Swift they are. I've argued that if you have bad blood with the pop star, you can listen to folklore with an open mind. You can sneak it into an indie singer-songwriter playlist sort of like how I played Switchfoot songs that sounded different from "Meant to Live" to the "gotcha moment" to convince my sister that not all Switchfoot songs are a lazy-voiced Jon Foreman, but I digress. But today's song, "invisible string" feels like the most Taylor Swift song on folklore, yet it doesn't overwhelm the listener. Swift feels like a present narrator on other tracks, revealing that she bought the house in "the last great american dynasty," and the story about a friend who moved away in "seven" seems like it could be about Swift's childhood. But it's "invisible string" that gives longterm Swifties the Easter Eggs they crave. To a moderate Swifty, the verse about "Bad Blood" playing on the radio when the singer goes to LA, being identified on vacation with a boyfriend as someone who looks like "an American singer," having a "ax to grind" with exes, but sending their "babies presents" now.
TEAL WAS THE COLOR OF YOUR SHIRT. But "invisible string" is not a bragging tune, a fight song, or a forced pop banger. Instead it's the musical equivalent to an indie rom-com. It's the story of a young girl who sits reading in Centennial Park, a teenaged Taylor who has moved from Pennsylvania to Nashville to write and record. She feels that she will someday meet someone special in this park because it is such a special location to her. But across the world, in London, her eventual boyfriend actor Joe Alwyn, is working a job in a yogurt shop. Every image that Swift gives us in "invisible string" has a color mentioned with it, illustrating the season and making the details more vivid. But the overarching concept of the song is an Asian myth, the "red thread of fate," an invisible string brings lovers together, no matter the distance. In "invisible string" Swift sees the events in her life as points on that thread that eventually made love make sense. Swift and Alwyn had been dating for over five years, three at the time of folklore, but the two have kept the details of this relationship quiet. And yes, sometimes when you are listening to songs about longterm relationships it can get a little bit stuffy; you don't want it flaunted in your face, but one song on folklore is hardly gratuitous. Instead, we get a portrait of how healthy love can look. We get a portrait of how the seemingly random details of our lives can play out in something bigger. And we get a beautiful plucked guitar played under an oak tree on a beautiful fall afternoon.
Lyric video:
Live recorded version:
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