Whispering Woods Unveil Secrets

     Gosh, where do I begin? Growing up we all heard of Taylor Swift she was successful at a very early age. Although I never really listened to her, yes every now and then her classic hits would come on the radio and I would sing along but I didn't think much of it. Until I discovered this album. This album as a whole is my favorite album from Swift. Truthfully this album converted me into a "Swiftie" Swift's surprise album Folklore was declared to be the "Best Album of 2020" and it was the highest-selling album of the year with over 1.2 million sales. Swift went on to break the Rolling Stone 200 record for "most consecutive weeks at Number One, with six straight weeks at the top." ( Blake 3 ) Folklore was nothing like Swift had written before, this was not her typical "pop" style nor "country" She was essentially telling a story here, where fiction becomes reality and her lyrics are written from the heart, truly what I would say a masterpiece. Everything was, she even created a "love triangle" in that album. These are known as "Betty", "August" and the infamous "Cardigan". 

     Cardigan was the point of view of a girl named "Betty" singing about a guy named "James" in this, she sings about how he made her feel, which was special. Off the bat, we see the second verse in the song as "high heels on cobblestones" Wearing heels on uneven ground is risky, and they were never well suited for each other because their level of commitment was never even. So obviously she was way more hurt than him and it ended poorly, that's what happens when you try to wear high heels on cobblestones. The whole song is filled with metaphors, in the 30th verse she writes "You drew stars around my scars, but now I'm bleeding" We see that James helped her heal past her trauma and wasn't afraid of how broken she was, he saw her pain and replaced it with acceptance. Yet after all that he turned around and abandoned her "leaving like a father" line 42 making her feel unwanted like the chorus "cardigan under someone's bed" and doing it so effortlessly - "running like water"  line 43. Along with that lines 33 and 34, she writes "Steppin on the last train marked me like a bloodstain" This is to represent James leaving reluctantly and how the memory of them will be hard for her to forget or "remove" like a bloodstain. She then hits us again with the line " Tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy" because James never wanted to grow up essentially and lost the girl. "Cardigan" is just such a masterpiece every line and every lyric is just so good I'm honored to write about it. I could talk about this song or this album for hours. The song also quickly rose to Number 1 on the Hot 100 making this Swift's sixth chart-topper on the Hot 100. 

Works Cited 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-folklore-2020-biggest-album-1102709/ 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2020/08/03/taylor-swift-debuts-her-surprise-single-cardigan-at-no-1/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CCardigan%E2%80%9D%20blasts%20onto%20the%20Hot,seven%20days%20it%20was%20available. 

Photo credit 

https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2020/08/review-of-taylor-swifts-folklore