Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions: A Revelation

I already surprised myself in August with a long post about how much I loved Taylor Swift's latest album, Folklore. But apparently I'm about to surprise myself again by waxing poetic about the "concert" movie she released over Thanksgiving, where she and the album's producers, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, sat in a studio and performed a stripped down and soothing version of the entire album.

Why did I love this movie so much? Well context is everything. This isn't just an hour of music; instead, Swift has a little chat with her collaborators before each performance where they briefly discuss the song in question and what inspired her to write it. And those discussions kinda floored me. My post about her album was very focused on the lyrical magic, and in this movie, I got so much more insight into how she came up with those lyrics and how she wove different but complimentary themes together. These chats probably did not offer any major insights for the Swift fans who have been poring over these lyrics since this album was released and have steeped themselves in Swiftian lore, but for a novice fan like me, it was a revelation.

The other benefit of this movie is the extremely low-key production. Every song is just Swift singing to a piano or guitar accompaniment, perhaps with some light percussion, but otherwise there aren't any sweeping pyrotechnics in the background. This enhances the lyrics themselves and puts them in the foreground. And this is how I discovered my new favorite song on the album, This Is Me Trying. Swift's description of what inspired this song (which is longer than the song itself) gave me all the feels, and when I heard her perform it, I teared up and was like Yes, this is the greatest, why didn't I love this song the first time I heard it?! And then I listened to the album version and realized that because of all the instrumentation in the background, I could never quite pay attention to the lyrics like I did for the other songs I loved during my first listen. I felt similarly about Seven and Mirrorball, songs that I didn't think much of before, but am definitely hearing in a new light now. Swift is not the world's greatest singer and sometimes there is too much emphasis placed on using music production to enhance her vocal quality, but screw that. Going forward, I demand solely acoustic versions of all her songs so that I can fall in love with all her lyrics. But also, can we please air these movies on some other platform than Disney+? Because it is truly ironic that in a song like Mad Woman, when Swift is singing about a woman expressing her rage, Disney insists on censoring the word "Fuck." Yeesh.

Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is one of the best treats I've gotten this holiday season and serves as yet another reminder that all is not lost in 2020. In a shitty year, we still have been granted some moments of joy, and this movie was sublime. Much like I found myself listening to the album on repeat, I will likely end up watching this movie on repeat for a while. You should join me.