Now I’ve had enough time to process Evermore, I thought I’d do another favourite lyrics post. You can check out my favourite lyrics from Folklore here! Taylor Swift really did go all out this year to save 2020. She hyped us all up in the first half of the year with Folklore and now she is saving the second half with Evermore. In a year full of cancellations and bad news, it was nice to be reminded that good surprises do still exist.

You can definitely tell that Evermore is the sister album to Folklore, but at the same time they have different sounds. I can only really describe it as Folklore being a walk through the woods and Evermore being the cost cabin you reach after the walk once you have set up a fire. So please enjoy some of my favourite lyrics from Evermore below:

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1. Willow

“But I come back stronger than a ’90s trend”

Waking up at 5am to hear this album the moment it was released was so worth it to hear those mythical opening bars of Willow. I’m gonna start off with a lyric that is full of sass. I feel like it alludes to the very public fallouts she’s had over recent years, and how the success of Folklore has shown that she can once again rise up.

2. Champagne Problems

“Your heart was glass, I dropped it“

First time I heard this song it hit me right in the feels. The song tells the story of a woman who runs out of a relationship, anxious at the idea of her boyfriend wanting more commitment than she is reading for. Glass is a fragile thing and I love the way Taylor makes the comparison between that and the way she broke his heart.

3. Gold Rush

“My mind turns your life into folklore”

I enjoy this cheeky little reference to its sister album Folklore here. This particular lyric could also be related to the fact that she tends to write songs about people and therefore in a way turning their stories into her own kind of ‘folklore’.

4. ‘Tis The Damn Season

“The road not taken looks real good now. And it always leads to you and my hometown”

As someone who has moved away from home this is a theme I think about constantly. This song tells the story of a woman who moved away from home and is returning for the holiday season. The road not taken refers to the hometown and the people that she abandoned when she moved away. You might know from my first ever blog post that I lost my job this year, and currently I am home with my parents for the holiday season… so this line hits deep. I feel like I’m at a strange looking crossroad in my life and I think about how things might have turned out if I didn’t move away.

5. Tolerate It

“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky. Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life”

This lyric perfectly captures how you can give your all to someone who doesn’t appreciate or even acknowledge you. It’s a theme I’m sure many of us can relate to. In a completely unrelated topic, the word ‘footnotes’ gives me horrible flashbacks to writing my dissertation.

6. No Body, No Crime

“Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was fifteen. And I’ve cleaned enough houses to know how to cover up a scene“

Man, this song is a wild ride. Going from a sad song to a murder song was just not something I was anticipating. No Taylor didn’t murder anyone, this is definitely one of the ‘character’ songs on the album. It’s about a cheating husband who’s mistress moves in after his wife mysteriously disappears. His wife’s friend (Taylor) is convinced he has murdered her so she does the completely sane thing to do in this situation… murders him and then blames it on the mistress. All the while, no one can prove what has happened because no bodies have been found. The specific quote I pulled out from the bridge always gives me the giggles.
*No one was harmed in the making of this song.

7. Happiness

“There’ll be happiness after you. But there was happiness because of you too”

Sometimes the things that used to make us happy, no longer do. But what Taylor is trying to say with this song is that both your happy memories and your painful memories can co-exist. It’s perfectly valid to feel two very opposing emotions because of something or someone in your life.

8. Dorothea

“You got shiny friends since you left town. A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now”

This song tells the story of a woman who left behind her hometown to pursue Hollywood dreams. There’s a theory that it’s the opposing perspective of ‘Tis The Damn Season’ through the eyes of the lover she left behind. I think this song is heavily story-based so it was difficult to pull any significant and meaningful quotes from it. But I do enjoy how these lyrics seem to link to “so I’ll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends” from ‘Tis The Damn Season’. Whilst Dorothea is maybe regretting her choice of moving away and thinks all her friends are fake, the person singing this song thinks she is living the perfect happy life without them. It’s a sad contrast.

9. Coney Island

“If I can’t relate to you anymore then who am I related to?”

This is quite a tragic concept. The idea that someone feels as though they’ve lost all sense of their own identity after a relationship has ended because so much of themselves was tied up in the other person.

10. Ivy

“My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand”

I just love the imagery here, it’s so poetic.

11. Cowboy Like Me

“Eyes full of stars, hustling for the good life”

I feel like these lyrics refer to someone who has their sights set on fame and fortune, trying to get it by any means possible. But being the poet she is, Taylor doesn’t say it in the bland way I just did.

12. Long Story Short

“And I fell from the pedestal, right down the rabbit hole, long story short it was a bad time”

I am ALWAYS singing this chorus. Honestly, I feel these lyrics sum up my 2020 completely. This is one of my favourite songs on the entire album, it’s a right old bop!

13. Marjorie

“Never be so kind you forget to be clever. Never be so clever you forget to be kind”

Taylor wrote this song as a tribute to her late grandmother. Whilst the chorus seems to allude to the idea that someone we love is never truly gone, the verses seem to be the advice she gave when she was alive. I love these lyrics in particular because I think they are things we should all aspire to do. Her grandmother was an opera singer and I think it’s incredible how during the line they’ve incorporated old recordings of her singing during the line ‘and if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were singing to me now’. It’s a beautiful tribute.

14. Closure

“Yes, I got your letter. Yes, I’m doing better. I know that it’s over, I don’t need your closure”

This is my new daily affirmation. A reminder that after a bad fallout with someone we shouldn’t forget our own worth. In the song it feels as though the person on the other end is reaching out to Taylor to wish her well. But at the same time you can see it is almost all very self-serving and not attempting to benefit her in any way.

15. Evermore

“Gray November, I’ve been down since July” & “Hey December, guess I’m feeling unmoored”

So I cheated and chose two sets of lyrics here. But I feel like they link together so it’s okay. Evermore deals strongly with themes of mental health and hope that can drive you through the rough times. These lyrics in particular resonate strongly with me because July is when I lost my job and I feel like it’s been a downhill spiral from there. Now we’re in December, still with no job… so I guess I am feeling a little unmoored. But as Taylor tells us, this pain won’t be for evermore.

16. Right Where You Left Me

“Matches burn after the other. Pages turn and stick to each other”

This is the first of two bonus tracks on Evermore which are currently only available on the physical copies. It’s another character song that follows the story of a woman who feels like after a painful break up she doesn’t know how to move forward in her life. I love these lyrics in particular!

17. It’s Time To Go

“Sometimes giving up is the strong thing, sometimes to run is the brave thing”

Hands down this one is my favourite of the two bonus songs, mostly because I think it has a powerful message to give. The song depicts various different situations that have turned toxic or have made them unhappy, and telling you it’s okay to just… leave. I think it’s an important message to give. Often there are times when we feel guilt over leaving something so this song gives me validation that it’s okay to abandon things that don’t bring us joy.

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Huge credits to my friend Jenny for gifting me the Folklore cushion cover featured in the photo! It’s super cute.

What are your favourite songs and lyrics from Evermore? Let me know in the comments!