The 1: Analysis of Taylor Swift’s folklore (from larger post)

This is a more digestible portion of my album analysis:

Here, I have tried to analyze what and who each track of Folklore is about.  Which is complex because it’s not in a linear order.  Names are obscured.  Facts may be reality or story.  The narrator is unreliable.  And this whole thing is going to be from a Kaylor perspective, because that’s how the songs, and Taylor Swifts catalog as a whole makes the best sense to me.  I’ll show you what I mean.

Track 1. The 1.

Folklore opens with The 1 which I think is an introduction to what is happening throughout the album.  This song sets the tone for the remaining songs.  Taylor is telling us she is going through memories of all her past relationships (not one person specifically) and looking at them closely to see what could have been.

This sets up the album, Folklore, which is going to explore what would have happened if Taylor Swift had her dreams come true in every relationship (purportedly). She sings, “never leavin’ well enough alone” to show Folklore is not an album of her current feelings (a white lie).  Taylor says she is not depressed about a break-up, she is still just pondering about past relationships.  Setting the stage for, ‘this is all theoretical, I’m simply having a thought experiment and looking back on those past relationships.’ 

I don’t think this song features any one relationship in particular, but it’s set up to double-down on the narrative that folklore is fiction [it’s not].  

The title is not spelled out, but a number.  Very reminiscent of Highway 1, which goes through Big Sur, a famous weekend excursion with Karlie Kloss.  One line features the Diana argon movie tag line, about the roaring 20s.  Also both Diana and Karlie happened when Tay was in her 20s. And in this song she sings of digging up the grave, which was in the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video for to symbolize death of a relationship.

Also may feature Joe or other guys-what if Tay had been straight?

Basically the song is to explain why folklore is so sad, when Taylor wants us to believe she is in a happy, stable, long term relationship with that guy.  It’s a ‘what if’ & thought experiment, to throw off the preponderance of depressing break up/negative stuff.