開頭講了這張專輯的創作初衷。這張專輯因為疫情的緣故，采用的是遠程協作的方式完成的，是一種“chart a new path”積極面對的方式。除此之外Taylor也希望用這張專輯和那些焦慮的心靈一起度過這段不確定的時光。 這張專輯既有執念、焦慮，又表達了希望。 Jack Antonoff: I feel like it’s also one of the reasons why it resonates with me so much is because, in the dismantling of all our systems of life that we’ve known in the pandemic, you’re left with two options. You either cling to it and try to make it work, or to just say, “well I guess I’m just gonna chart a new path” and kinda get a frontier mentality. And I think it was such a thrilling use of quarantine to say like, “Well, everything’s a blur, so I’m just gonna rewrite it." Taylor: There’s something about the complete and total uncertainty about life that causes endless anxiety, but there’s another part that causes sort of a release of the pressures that you used to feel.

1 The 1

“I’m doing good. I’m on some new shit, been saying yes instead of no”, it applies to the situation that the song is written about where you’re updating a former lover on what your life is like now and trying to be positive about it. But it was also where I’m creatively where it’s like, I’m just saying yes, I’m just putting out an album in the worst time you could put one out.

2 Cardigan 3 The last great American Dynasty

這首歌是寫給Rebekah Harkness的。她和石油大亨Bill結婚，選了一處房子名叫“假日樂園”。她是Taylor羅德島Watch Hill豪宅(Holiday House)的前任主人。 Rebekah家中本就富裕，加上四任丈夫都非富即貴，她成為了頂級名媛，非常有名、有錢、有才。很多藝術家都是她的座上賓，她也組建了自己的芭蕾舞團。但光鮮亮麗的她也有一些怪異的舉動，比如歌詞里提到的用香檳刷泳池、把鄰居養的狗偷來貓染成綠色等等。像歌詞里寫的"she had a marvelous time Ruining everything." 歌的前半段寫的是Rebekah的故事。然后bridge里最后一句是 "and it was bought by me”，故事的主人公變成了Taylor。這座豪宅把兩個有著相似經歷的女人的故事串在了一起。這首歌hold an entire story of somebody’s life and move between generations. Jack: That song is such a folklore moment to me, because it’s not about you, but it is all about you.

4 Exile

這里在講另一個co-writer William Bowery的時候好可愛，每次看我都要笑。真的很酷，鋼琴部分、第一部分的verse的詞居然都是Joe寫的。我真的驚了。Bon Iver(Justin Vernon)寫的bridge，厲害！

5 My tears ricochet

最好的朋友反目成仇是最可怕的，因為他們知道怎么樣才能最快、最狠地傷害你。 In all of the superhero stories, the hero’s greatest nemesis is the villain that used to be his best friend.

6 Mirrorball

這首歌我之前沒想到是這樣解讀的。Mirroball是被觀賞的客體，是娛樂的產物，本質是碎片，卻在光的照射下光彩耀人。我們也像反光球一樣，被切成不同的碎片，shimmering beautiful，向不同的人展示不同的面。這是大多數人的現實，更是藝人的現實。因為疫情，Taylor的演出被取消了，失去了光照的mirrorball，還是trying everything to keep you laughing at me.即使得到的可能是嘲笑，還是迫切地希望你的注意力在我身上。 另外，I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight在我看來也別有深意，你是怎么樣的，你看到的mirrorball就是怎么樣的，每個人見到的mirrorball都是不一樣的。我們怎么看待這張專輯，覺得它是療愈還是覺得它讓你悲傷，那都是從mirrorball千萬面中見到的、獨屬于你的那一面。你見到的，是你自己。 這首歌和This is me trying是可以相對照的。 They reflect light, they are broken a million times and that’s what makes them so shiny, we have people like that in society too. They hang there, and every time they break, it entertains us. And when you shine a light on them, it’s the glittering, fantastic thing, but then a lot of the time when the spotlight isn’t on the, they’re still there, up on a pedestal, be okay. It was a metaphor for celebrity but it’s also a metaphor for so many people. You have to be different versions of yourself for different people, everybody has to be duplicitous. That’s part of the human experience but it’s also exhasting. Everyone of us has the ability to become a shape-shifter. Jack: it’s a great piece of pandemic-time work, but it’s not about pandemic, it’s about the experience of what happens to an artist when you’re living through the pandemic.

7 Seven

Taylor談這首歌時候說到，她已經不在生氣的時候狠狠摔在地上耍賴，把東西扔到媽媽身上，不會放肆尖叫了。但是她覺得有東西隨著她的被教育、文明化而流失了。 When did I stop doing that when I was upset? When did I stop being so outraged that I would throw myself on the floor, and throw the cereal at my mom? So the idea is, please picture me before I learn civility, like I used to scream anytime I wanted. Obviously we can’t throwing tantrums all the time, and we learn that that’s not the right thing to do, but there’s something lost too.

8 August

談到august就一定要講講cardigan和betty這兩首歌了。男主角James在和betty談戀愛的同時，出軌了august。它們也是相互對照的，跟連續劇一樣，從不同人物的角度去寫這段故事。 august是從這段三角戀中“小三”的視角去寫的。Taylor說，這種“小三”角色看起來都是十惡不赦的，但是從“小三”本人的角度來看，這是一段非常卑微的愛情故事。她想要爭取到自己喜歡的人，甚至因為一絲James可能和她約會的希望就可以取消所有的計劃，只是等著他隨便打電話過來說一聲“meet me behind the mall”。被深深吸引的同時，她很清楚，她和James在八月的短暫情愫，會隨著八月的逝去而消失殆盡，他會回到betty身邊。August slipped away into a moment in time, cuz it was never mine, and you were never mine.太卑微了，太讓人心疼了。 August was obviously about the girl that James had this summer with, so she seems like she’s a bad girl, but really, she’s not a bad girl. She’s a sensitive person who really fell for him and she was trying to seem cool and seem like she didn’t care because that’s what girls have to do. She was trying to let him think that she didn’t care, but she really did and she thought they had something really real. He goes back to betty. The idea that there’s some bad, villain girl in any type of situation who takes your man is actually a total myth because that’s not usually the case at all. Everybody has the feelings and wants to be seen and loved.

9 This Is Me Trying

這首歌是寫給“失敗者”的。有很多人每天都在抗爭著，和自己內心的抑郁，和某些癮。努力地往前爬，但這種努力只有自己看得到，而無論若何努力，結果仍是別人眼里的亂七八糟。Taylor還講到有些人在學校里表現得非常出色，但離開了學校，沒有學校規定好的課程，他開始失去方向，用酒精麻痹自己，然后每一分鐘都trying not to。 I’d been thinking about people who, if they’re either suffering through mental illness or they’re suffering through addiction or they have an everyday struggle. No one pats them on the back everyday, but everyday they are actively fighting something. But there are so many days that nobody gives them credit for that, and how often must somebody who’s in that sort of internal struggle must wanna say to everyone in the room, “you have no idea how close I am to going back to a dark place”. Jack: “You have no idea how hard it is to get to the point where you guys think is still shitty.” When you’re doing your damn best, and it’s not good enough. We’re all doing our best and feeling like it’s not even close to good enough. The second verse is about someone who felt like they had a lot of potential in their life in our school days to excel and to be patted on the back for something, and then I think a lot of people get out of school and there are less abilities for them to get gold stars. You have to make all these decisions and pave your own way, there’s no set class course you can take. I think a lot of people feel really swept in that. This person is lost in life and then starts drinking and every second is trying not to.

10 Illicit Affairs

這首歌不是Taylor自己的親身經歷。她知道粉絲想要知道她的近況，讓她講出自己的感受，但她慢慢發現全自傳的創作有點局限，于是她從書、電影里找別人的故事，跳脫了自身局限。

11 Invisible String

Taylor在給前男友的寶寶送禮物之后寫的這首歌。這首歌有點宿命的味道，有點浪漫主義色彩，往前走的每一步，無論是歡喜還是苦難，都讓我們離命定的最終價值更近了一步。 I kind of love the romantic idea that every step you’re taking, you’re taking one step closer to where you’re supposed to be, guided by this little invisible string. Aaron Dessner: It is all about fate.

12 Mad Woman

我第一次聽專輯的時候，我對這首歌的印象最深。女性面對男性的過線行為，沒有權利表現憤怒。憤怒就是小氣、斤斤計較，是羞恥的，沒有人會喜歡歇斯底里的女人。女性的自我保護行為會被認為是攻擊本身。 For centuries we’ve been expected to absorb male behavior silently. Oftentimes when we in our enlightened state and our emboldened state, respond to bad male behavior, or somebody just doing something that was absolutely out of line. That response is treated like the offense itself. It’s like I have absolutely no right to respond or I’m crazy, I have no right to respond or I’m angry, I have no right to respond or I’m out of line.

13 Epiphany

這首歌又是一首非常非常特別的歌。這首歌前半部分講的是Taylor的祖父在二戰期間于作戰前線服役的故事。祖父從不跟兒女，不跟妻子講自己的作戰經歷，Taylor在想，經歷了多大的創傷才會一生都不愿再談起那段回憶。后半部分講的是疫情期間的醫生護士們，他們和她的祖父一樣，正在經歷可能一生都不愿再提起的苦難。雖然悲愴，但這悲愴中也有一絲欣慰的色彩， “only 20 minutes to sleep but you dream of epiphany, just one single glance of relief, to make some sense of what you’ve seen.”。 I realize that there are people, right now, taking a 20-minute break in between shifts at a hospital, who are having this kind of trauma happen to them right now, that they will probably never want to speak about. There have been times in my life where things have fallen apart so methodically, and I can’t control how things were going wrong, and nothing I did stopped it. And I felt like I’d just been pushed out of a plane, and was like scratching at the air on the way down. This lockdown could’ve been a time where I absolutely lost my mind, and instead I think this album was a real floatation device for both of us.

14 Betty

講到william我又要開始笑了。整個chorus都是Joe寫的，真的服氣。他們調侃william的時候好好笑哦。 “Betty”是連續劇中用James的視角寫的，James向Betty懺悔自己的出軌，說“和她在一起卻一直想著你” 。bridge那里的“When she pulled up like a figment of my worst intentions, she said, James get in， let’s drive”真的把august刻畫成一個那種很壞的搶人男朋友的誘惑女郎，把自己描述成一個無辜的被蠱惑的形象了。當然，這也是上帝視角了，每個人都有這種“不道德”的時刻。 可憐的august通篇沒有她的姓名，通篇只有James向betty告白。在他看來那段出軌的時間是邪惡的，可是對于august來說就是一切啊。 He was singing the chorus of it from a man’s voice, from a masculine perspective. I’ve written so many songs from a female’s perspective of wanting a male apology. We decided to make it from a teenage boy’s perspective apologizing after he loses the love of his life because he’s been foolish.

15 Peace

這首歌講的是Taylor無法控制因為自己的藝人身份給家人、朋友、愛人帶來的各種不便，這讓她非常不安。如果我無法給你帶來peace，你仍然愿意接受我嗎？即使我很可能不是你最好的選擇，你還愿意選擇我嗎？ It kind of goes against the title, like I could never give you peace, over the most peaceful sounding instrumental track. I can’t stop from you getting a call in the morning that says, the tabloids are writing this today, I can’t help it if there’s a guy with a long lens camera two miles away with a telescope lens taking pictures of you, I can’t stop these things from happening. Is the stuff that I can control enough to sort of block out the things that I can’t? Aaron Dessner: I have in my life suffered from depression, and I’m a hard person to be in a relationship with because I go up and down, and I can’t help it. It’s a chemical thing that happens sometimes. Somehow the song captures the fragility fo what that’s like to be in a relationship with someone who may or may not have peace. You want them to have as much peace in their life as possible and reconciling the fact that you might not be their best option for that, but is it still a deal they wanna take?

16 Hoax

Taylor原本把這首歌放在了最后一首，因為她認為這首歌是主題性把所有歌串聯在一起。雖然我不是很懂。也許在她看來，所有的愛都是不安定的、隨時可能變成切身傷害的吧。 With this song being the last song on the album, it kind of embodied all the things that this album was thematically like confessions, incorporating nature, emotional volatility and ambiguity at the same time, sort of love that isn’t just easy. I think the part that sounds like love to me is, “don’t want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do”. It sounds like what love really is, like who would you be sad with, and who would you deal with when they were sad. And like, grey skies everyday for months, would you still stay?

17 The Lakes

這是一首關于逃離的歌，逃離到一個美麗的、富有詩意的、寧靜地方。我覺得這首歌比Hoax更適合做這張專輯的結束歌曲，因為它充滿了希望。她可以繼續自己喜歡的創作，但同時可以摒棄名氣而來的副作用，就像所有擁有exit plan逃到 Lake District的英國藝術家一樣。 “也許我沒辦法現在就到The Lakes，或者哪都去不了”，但她找到了逃離的理由，和一個能和她一起逃離的人。 The Lakes is really talking a lot about relating to people who hundreds of years ago, had the same exit plan and did it. I went to William Wordsworth’s grave and just sat there, and I was like, wow, you did it. You just went away and you kept writing, but you didn’t subscribe to the things that were killing you. That’s really the overarching thing that I felt when I was writing folklore is, I may not be able to go to the lakes right now, or to go anywhere, but I’m going there in my head. This escape plan is working. Jack: To me, the hope in this body of work is that it’s not "I can’t do this, I’m out”, it’s “I’ve found something worth escaping with” and a person to escape with. That’s a huge sincere statement of hope that everything I’m naming is completely small compared to this love. 第三刷了，還是邊看邊哭。第一次看沒有字幕，靠著蒙和猜一知半解，現在看了兩次帶字幕的，對這張專輯有了更多的理解，越哭越兇。