Evermore: Taylor Swift continues alchemy and teamwork started with Folklore

Last Friday, music megastar Taylor Swift released her ninth studio album on very short notice, Evermore. It’s the sister record to her eighth studio release from earlier this year, the Grammy-nominated Folklore. 

“To put it plainly,” Swift wrote on her Instagram, “we just couldn’t stop writing songs. To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in.

“I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with Folklore.

“In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So, I just kept writing them.”

What immediately caught my attention – and I’ve never spent much time listening to or exploring the immensely popular music canon of Taylor Swift – is Swift’s collaboration with members of one of my favorite indie rock music groups, The National. In particular, Swift worked closely with the multitalented Aaron Dessner and she shared vocals on “Coney Island,” a song that deals with losing oneself in a relationship, with The National’s melancholy frontman, baritone vocalist Matt Berninger. In listening to both the song and the album, there’s a sense of artistic freedom and a break away from Swift’s conventional pop radio sensibility to create a folk album that’s full of sound and texture.

 Taylor Swift / Evermore

Meanwhile, sitting across the kitchen table, here’s what Aaron Dessner wrote on his Instagram: “It’s only been five months since Folklore was released. But truth be told, Taylor Swift and I never actually stopped exchanging ideas and somehow we’ve finished a sister record called Evermore that I love just as much. 

“These songs are wilder and freer, sometimes in strange time signatures and darker hues, but very much a continuation of what we started with Folklore. 

“I can’t begin to express my gratitude and respect for Taylor – I never cease to wonder at her seemingly boundless talent as a singer and a songwriter and storyteller. It’s been the experience of a lifetime to work so fast and furiously with her. ...

“My band mates in The National – Matt, Bryan and Scott, along with Bryce – are here, too. Hearing Matt sing with Taylor and the entire band perform on “Coney Island” – things have come full circle.”

Perhaps, Berninger put it best. He wrote on Twitter: “Singing a song with Taylor Swift is like dancing with Gene Kelly. She made me look good and didn’t drop me once. ‘Coney Island’ is an incredibly beautiful song she and Aaron Dessner wrote together. It really made me miss Brooklyn. Such a blast being a part of Evermore.”

Hearing the Swift-Berninger duet “Coney Island” for the first time recently was very intriguing and it’s what nudged me into giving the entire Evermore album a good listen on Spotify – and I like what I heard. If you’re someone who has always had an appreciation for the sense and sensibility – and seriousness – of The National, I think you’ll like what you hear from Swift with backing from The National on Evermore.

Cover photos: Beth Garrabrant (@taylorswift13/Twitter). Video: Courtesy YouTube.