In a meadow just on the outskirts of a foggy, Pennsylvanian forest, a blonde woman can be seen carefully tiptoeing barefoot through dewy grass. Her hair is tied up in braided knots and her summer dress skims the dirt as she strolls around quivering trees that whisper the woes of past loves. She greets them with a grateful smile before wading ankle-deep through a running crick, the hem of her dress balled up in her fists. As she crosses the water and steps up onto the opposite embankment, she finds herself face-to-face with the seven year old she used to be, and in the child’s eyes, she sees every version of herself. A single tear carves a streak down the woman’s cheek and ricochets off the lace of her dress.
The girl takes the woman’s hand and leads her deep into the forest, where the trees are denser and the daylight disappears. It’s so quiet and peaceful here, that the woman finally hears the echoes of voices she doesn’t recognize. The murmurs play hide-and-seek as they spin through the weeds and around the pricker bushes. The woman follows them, listening and repeating their tales back to them. A melody flows from her lips into her hands as she picks the strings of a guitar and caresses the ivory keys of a piano. In the cacophony of bluesy music and reverberating whispers of the town’s gossip, a teenager’s first love, the lust of a clandestine meeting, the heartbreak of an abandoned man, and the betrayal of a scorned woman, folklore is born.
Below is a collection of stories that could be heard in that forest, recounted by Taylor Swift.
Bridgete M:
I was desperately in love with my best friend from college. I think he was in love with me, too, but we never did anything about it. I admitted early on in our friendship that I had feelings for him, but he had just gotten out of a serious relationship, so he was hesitant to start something new. It was fine and I insisted we continue being friends no matter what because that was more important to me than anything else. We were friends for several years after college, but the minute I was clearly in a serious relationship, he dropped off the face of the earth, as if I were to blame for his failure to just admit he loved me, too. I do wonder what could have been.
I persist and resist the temptation to ask you
If one thing had been different
Would everything be different today?
Natasha Preston:
When I was 23, I had finally gotten over a really bad, emotionally abusive relationship. I was open to dating and met this one guy who was friends with one of my best friends. We were both in our early twenties, trying to make a way in Washington D.C. We met and instantly clicked—it was the most romantic thing I have ever experienced, and in comparison to what I had been in before, extremely healthy. Our values were the same, we experienced a lot of the same stuff in our past, and being with him just made me feel at home.
I remember one night, we were sitting in the car and he leaned over to me and said, “two things: one, can I see you again, and two, can I kiss you?” We had our first kiss. The whole relationship was quick and intense, only lasting a few months, but I told my cousin it felt like he was the opposite side of the coin I was on.
But we were something, don’t you think so?
Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool
And if my wishes came true
It would’ve been you
We broke up for really stupid reasons that made no sense, and I didn’t see him for a year. I was devastated, and kept thinking I saw him at bus stops, or at restaurants, but I always turned out to be wrong. But, hearing this song now feels exactly right because I haven’t felt that way for someone since, but I am doing really well alone. It feels like each time I go through thinking of him, I really am digging up the grave of our past, but I think I just miss that period of feeling like I had found my ‘the 1.’
I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn’t though
I hit the ground running each night
I hit the Sunday matinée
You know the greatest films of all time were never made
He is in a relationship now, and I saw him for the first time since the breakup by complete accident when he was on his first date with her, and I was alone at a theatre show. Our first date was at a theatre show, and as an actress, I see Sunday matinées all the time. When I saw him we talked awkwardly and I still felt the connection, and I have always wondered if we had met a year later like him and that girl, if we would’ve worked.
Grace Prentice:
I got out of a terribly abusive relationship with a straight up sociopath last year. The night we met, I was wearing this awful cardigan and in a total “don’t you dare talk to me” mood. Somehow, he engaged me in conversation and two and a half years of gaslighting, abusive misery. Cardigans have always been my “thing” and we adopted that as our meet-cute. When we broke up, I left that cardigan behind. A few months after getting out of that complete clusterfuck, I met the amazing man that I’m with today. My partner now has done so much to help me heal from that relationship and remind me that I am such a worthy and lovable person.
I knew you
Hand under my sweatshirt
Baby, kiss it better
And when I felt like I was an old cardigan
Under someone’s bed
You put me on and said I was your favorite
We’ve been staying together for long weekends during the quarantine. We had only been dating a few months when it started and it was a leap of faith for both of us to take such a new relationship to that level.
But I knew you
Playing hide-and-seek and
Giving me your weekends
I knew you
Patricia Armstrong:
My parents divorced at a very young age and from there, my mom dated people who just weren’t good for her. This has caused me to be so afraid of relationships because I’ve seen all the bad endings, and I never want to go through that. I am always the person that will leave rather than work it out and get through it.
I think I’ve seen this film beforeAnd I didn’t like the ending
I think I’ve seen this film before
So I’m leaving out the side door
Anonymous
I had a relationship with this girl, I guess it was love at some point. There was a lack of communication. She was giving so many warning signs of a sad ending, but I wasn’t receiving them. Now, I just look back and think to myself: she’s not my homeland anymore.
You didn’t even hear me out (You didn’t even hear me out)
You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)
All this time
Anonymous:
I studied abroad in the UK in 2014 and made a friend that I reconnected with when I moved back for my Master’s in 2016. We started dating and ended up getting married in early 2018. Then, last autumn (2019), I moved on my own to the Netherlands for my PhD. Within a couple months of being here, I ended our relationship. For him, it was entirely out of the blue, for me it had been a long time coming. We had had so many conversations and issues in the year/year and a half leading up to the end.
I never learned to read your mind (Never learned to read my mind)
I couldn’t turn things around (You never turned things around)
‘Cause you never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)
So many signs, so many signs
You didn’t even see the signs
Then, the whole ‘exiled’ theme. I now feel a bit exiled from his family, the home we shared, various cities in the UK, exiled from my home in the States and from some mutual friends. My former husband is convinced I had to have fallen for someone else to have left him so abruptly/quickly.
I can see you standing, honey
With his arms around your body
Laughin’, but the joke’s not funny at all
And it took you five whole minutes
To pack us up and leave me with it
Holdin’ all this love out here in the hall
B:
My parents’ marriage was a mess. Infidelity. Physical abuse. I watched how my mom tried everything to make my dad love her. So, I grew up believing love was work. I fell in true love at 21. He was available, but not mentally.
For the first year, he bounced back and forth between me and another girl. But… love is work so I worked for it. Eventually we moved in together, he settled down with me and said he loved me. I never trusted him. I manipulated him. I was so fucking toxic, I’m surprised he stayed!
I can see you starin’, honey
Like he’s just your understudy
Like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me
He wanted a life for us so enlisted in the navy. He left for basic training and I cheated on him and eventually broke up with him. I miss him. So much. I really connect with ‘exile’. I can’t really understand it but Jesus, the feeling is raw right now.
Em:
I struggle to find much common ground in Taylor’s writing about her numerous relationships with boys and men, but folklore is different. She’s writing for others, people who don’t have those same life experiences. To me, ‘seven’ feels so much how I felt as a child before I realized I was different…gay. I had a best friend whose dad scared the hell out of me, who wanted this idyllic life for his daughter, but instead, she was biking with me and building forts and getting muddy from playing football.
And I’ve been meaning to tell you
I think your house is haunted
Your dad is always mad and that must be why
And I think you should come live with me
And we can be pirates
Then you won’t have to cry
Or hide in the closet
And just like a folk song
Our love will be passed on
She stayed so often with me one particular summer, and she later told me how that summer made her feel better. Whatever that meant. We have drifted apart now, but this song instantly sent me back to those days of innocence and unspoken best friendship that probably crossed a line to any outsiders looking in. I hope she hears this song and remembers that summer, too.
Kaili, @prettyoddchild:
I started to talk romantically with a friend of mine at the start of the coronavirus madness. Due to the lockdown, we were in different cities, so we decided to not start a relationship yet. As things began to get more serious, it was implied that when he moved back to campus in August, that we would finally be together.
To live for the hope of it all
Canceled plans just in case you’d call
And say, “Meet me behind the mall”
I kept my schedule open around the chances of visiting him and talking to him for the whole summer. Right as I was sure we were an item, he decided he lost interest in me by July. I had an expensive bottle of wine saved for us to share when he got back. All of my hopes and anticipation lied in sharing that wine in August.
And I can see us twisted in bedsheets
August sipped away like a bottle of wine
‘Cause you were never mine
Annika, @sippingbourbon
I met my best friend back in January on a trip with our school to Berlin. Silly me obviously fell head over heels in love with him. I was unaware of him dating someone else. Fast-forward to June, I find out he and this girl are back together after they had previously broken up. So, now you have a heartbroken girl sitting in her room listening to ‘august’ for the first time, and I just felt so understood.
Back when we were still changin’ for the better
Wanting was enough
For me, it was enough
To live for the hope of it all
Deep down, I always knew this was never gonna happen. I was even pretty sure he had someone else. Still, all the conversations we had, all the silly inside jokes, all the cuddling in my bed while watching movies that we could never even concentrate on because we got so caught up in laughing about something else. Of course, I thought it could be more. For the first time ever, I felt like I had found someone who I could be happy with.
Whispers of “Are you sure?”
“Never have I ever before”
But I can see us lost in the memory
August slipped away into a moment in time
‘Cause it was never mine
Cassie Burton:
I fell in love for the first time as an adult when I was 19 years old. It was August, just before my sophomore year of college. I had met this man several years before as we had worked together and had a crush since the first moment I laid eyes on him. We kept in contact after we both left the job. We video-chatted a few times when I went to college, and talked on Facebook Messenger. My crush grew. I knew he had a crush on me, but I wanted him to make the first move.
Finally, my parents had a few friends over one night, and they were being really loud. I honest to God couldn’t sleep, so I texted the guy and told him about it, and he offered for me to come sleep at his place. I trusted him, so I told my dad I was going to a friend’s house and left and got to his place at 2 in the morning wearing pajamas, legs hairy. He worked nights so he was up at his computer in another room for most of the night. I tried to sleep, but my heart was pounding in my chest almost non-stop for hours because I was at his house in his bed. At around 5 in the morning, he crawled into bed with me. Nothing happened at first, then we started cuddling, and then he kissed me. We talked and giggled and kissed for a couple of hours.
Your back beneath the sun
Wishin’ I could write my name on it
Will you call when you’re back at school?
I remember thinkin’ I had you
For the next two weeks, I would sneak over to his house several times a week, often at night. I fell hopelessly, desperately in love, for the first time in my life. Two weeks later, I went to college for my sophomore year. I wanted us to last. We were on and off for years, and I knew in the back of my mind it would end, but the idea of someone else holding him meant I held on to him tighter, while I still could. We had a weird, ‘no labels’ sort of relationship, so he wasn’t mine to lose.
Frannie I:
I was in high school and had never dated or anything before. A guy from a sort of adjacent friend group started talking to me and we got close so fast. It was pretty much my first experience with everything, and I was just so excited and happy. We were hanging out and talking all the time over break and then when school started back up, I was super surprised when he told me he didn’t want a girlfriend and we just completely ended.
So much for summer love and saying “us”
‘Cause you weren’t mine to lose
A few months later, he started getting close with another girl from our class and though they didn’t ever get together that year, they got engaged recently. It’s always been a hard one for me to wrap my head around because I wouldn’t classify him as an “ex”, but it definitely affected me. And I feel like the song has that mix of nostalgia, sadness, and gratefulness that I’ve felt looking back on that time in my life.
Madison Kitchen:
TW: suicidal ideation, mental illness, mental hospitals
I have OCD but wasn’t diagnosed until I was 21 after I checked myself into a mental hospital for intense suicidal ideation. My boyfriend sat with me when I checked in on our two month anniversary. The relationship was so new and he hadn’t even met my family yet. I really didn’t want to check myself in because I was afraid I would lose him, but my therapist told me my life was more important than my very new relationship.
And I just wanted you to know that this is me trying
(And maybe I don’t quite know what to say)
I just wanted you to know that this is me trying
He visited me in the hospital and became the point of contact for my parents to let them know how I was doing, which is how he met them. He learned everything he could about OCD and became my number one support, which was amazing because I was very unable to give him the love he deserved at the time. I would always say, “I want you to know that I am trying.”
He and I listened to the album last night and when this song came on, I started bawling because I still resonate with that feeling when I have hard days. Our 3 year anniversary is later this year. The hospital saved my life, and he stayed.
Jules Rivera:
I spent 24 hours locked up in my apartment with an ex-lover, who I knew I shouldn’t be with. It was late July, and neither of us were cheating on anyone, but it felt so wrong and so good at the same time. It was that intoxicating love that you just want to keep getting drunk on, so I did for 24 hours, forgetting about all my conviction. Then, I spent the next month building up the confidence to cut all ties because of how toxic and harmful he was. Being with him went against so many of my morals, but I was truly addicted. I’m disgusted with myself for giving him as much time as I did, and it’s songs like this one that cover that complexity.
You taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else
And you know damn well
For you, I would ruin myself
A million little times
Anonymous:
A man I started dating and I had a strong connection. He didn’t tell me he was married. A few months into our affair, his wife found out about me and we stopped talking altogether. He reached out again and our meetings went from our usual Hamptons house late nights and sleepovers, to literally sneaking out of my house into his truck and driving to parking lots down the street, and even the oh-so-romantic waterfront parking lots. It all felt so good and so wrong at the same time.
Make sure nobody sees you leave
Hood over your head, keep your eyes down
Tell your friends you’re out for a run
You’ll be flushed when you return
Take the road less traveled by
Tell yourself you can always stop
What started in beautiful rooms
Ends with meetings in parking lots
Gretchen Seidel:
There were so many things that my fiancé and I learned we had in common throughout our lives, before we even met, that it was like we were connected the whole time. It felt like destiny for us to be together and that we would have been, one way or another. Born just miles from each other, loved horses as kids, both were swimmers, only applied to the same two colleges (Michigan State and UMiami FL) and ended up going to the same one, I made friends with people who had been his longtime friends without knowing they all knew each other.
Were there clues I didn’t see?
And isn’t it just so pretty to think
All along there was some
Invisible string
Tying you to me?
Jess D:
I’m very much a believer in the idea that things play out the way they’re meant to, and it just feels like we were always meant for each other. The line, “a string that pulled me out of all the wrong arms” hit me so hard, because the timing of when I left my ex and when my current partner and I met felt like fate.
Rachel:
My husband and I are a year into trying for a baby. We’re going next week to start some fertility tests. It’s obviously been a hard road, but there’s also been some things that have happened along the way that have felt like this is the way it was supposed to happen. I had to get a lump in my breast checked, but through that, I found my fabulous OBGYN. Probably a different interpretation of how most are interpreting the song.
Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven
Jules Rivera:
I was coming off of a series of toxic relationships and quite a bit of turmoil, and somehow, my current partner Edd showed up just in time. Running from love was easy for me, but with him, I learned that as hard as it was to stay still with someone, it was worth it. On our first date, we parked next to each other without meaning to, and he wore purple sunglasses, which I had an exact pair of sitting on my dresser at home. That date only happened because his improv rehearsal got cancelled.
Time, wondrous time
Gave me the blues and then purple-pink skies
And it’s cool
Baby, with me
And isn’t it just so pretty to think
All along there was some
Invisible string
Tying you to me?
On the night we decided to be serious, we ran into a stand-up comic who knew both of us and said we were two of her favorite people, so it made sense we were together. As we spent more time together (almost 4 years now), I realized every year of my life was getting me ready to be with him. I’ve gone from parking my car at Centennial Park behind the Parthenon to write songs in the winter, to having my lover, who I go to Shakespeare in the Park with, whom I would marry with paper rings in a heartbeat, and who helps me live in the daylight.
Gold was the color of the leaves
When I showed you around Centennial Park
Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven
Reiley I:
All 31 years of my life, I’ve been told I’m too much. Too much attitude. Too bossy. Too loud.
I feel too much or fall too hard. And when those relationships go south, and inevitably I’m the crazy one because I can feel things before I know things. I’m too mad/crazy/much to deal with. This song makes me feel heard.
And there’s nothing like a mad woman
What a shame she went mad
No one likes a mad woman
You made her like that
Natasha Preston:
TW: murder, death
My dad had colon cancer when I was 19. The night he went to the hospital, where he died, I was left home with my siblings and I stayed up all night. I let my eyes close for one second, and then fell asleep. It was the last peaceful sleep I got with some relief knowing my dad was still alive. But now I sleep and I will dream he is still alive, like some epiphany has happened. And I think about the nurse who saw him when he passed and whether she knew about me when he died, if she knew he had a daughter.
Something med school did not cover
Someone’s daughter, someone’s mother
Holds your hand through plastic now
“Doc, I think she’s crashing out”
And some things you just can’t speak about
I think about my grand aunt Donna who was murdered when she was 21, and the people who found her body, the person who did an autopsy, and those at her funeral. Last summer, I did a research trip to look into her murder, and I found a lot more details than I ever knew. It made me get these awful nightmares and I felt like I couldn’t sleep. At the time, I had a partner and I tried to explain what I was going through and the information I had in my head, but I couldn’t explain it. I still haven’t been able to put into words what I saw.
Only twenty minutes to sleep
But you dream of some epiphany
Just one single glimpse of relief
To make some sense of what you’ve seen
So, to me this song is about processing grief, and for me it’s been me processing grief of my family’s past and my own personal experience of the grief of my father. Even the music and vocals give this dreamy vibe to it, which makes me think of how when someone passes, you keep thinking “I must be dreaming.” Many people think that is weird because a dream is supposed to be nice, but this song as a literal dream is grief.
Jennifer M:
The first listen through made me think of my grandfather, who was a very special person in my life. He fought in WWII in the South Pacific, where he sustained an injury that caused him a great deal of pain for the rest of his life. He was haunted by the things he saw. He never talked about it with the family and could only manage limited discussion with a therapist in the later years of his life.
Keep your helmet, keep your life, son
Just a flesh wound, here’s your rifle
Crawling up the beaches now
“Sir, I think he’s bleeding out”
And some things you just can’t speak about
And the song itself is so brilliant in tying the past together with our present and this new trauma we are experiencing. From a composition standpoint, it sounds like a memorial hymn. It’s such a raw, cinematic piece.
Anonymous:
I was older than Betty was when all of the same situation happened to me. I was 23 when my Inez told me that my boyfriend of a year and a half was cheating on me with a friend of mine. My ex was rude and dismissive when I brought my Inez’s accusations to him. He told me repeatedly how I was just being ridiculous and paranoid and if I kept behaving like that, I’d lose my chance with him.
You heard the rumors from Inez
You can’t believe a word she says
Most times, but this time it was true
My birthday was about a month after the break up. I had coworkers over to celebrate my birthday and celebrate success at work. He showed up, drunk, with the gal he cheated on me with, using the key to my place he refused to give back, and insisted that we talk. He wanted to talk in my yard, and he asked me repeatedly to forgive him. He said he was 27 and that men at 27 just make a lot of mistakes, they’re not meant to be tied down. I told him to go fuck himself, I hope Betty did too.
But if I just showed up at your party
Would you have me? Would you want me?
Would you tell me to go fuck myself
Or lead me to the garden?
In the garden, would you trust me
If I told you it was just a summer thing?
I’m only seventeen, I don’t know anything
But I know I miss you
Elizabeth Lee:
I’ve often been described as fiery, intimidating, and too much, or have had people say it would take “a special person” to be with me. I come from a history of trauma and have had relationships in the past that made it extremely hard for me to think anyone would ever care for me the way I care for them.
But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm
If your cascade, ocean wave blues come
All these people think love’s for show
But I would die for you in secret
The devil’s in the details, but you got a friend in me
Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?
My husband flows with the ups and downs, he’s been the only thing holding our relationship together during times where I wanted to rip it apart. He makes me feel like I can do anything. I can’t ever give him peace. And it’s enough for him.
Julianna Fowler:
I lived in New York City my first semester of college and ever since coming back home, I’ve felt like I’m a different person than before. I’ve said before that I left part of myself in the city. I also quite literally did because I lost one of my favorite socks in the laundry room of my dorm. There’s not much to the story beyond that but the lyric was a punch to the gut.
You know I left a part of me back in New York
