By Alexandria Baker

You’ve probably heard by now, but in case you missed it, Swifties around the world awoke to a surprise album drop from their eponymous icon. Whimsically titled folklore, Taylor Swift’s latest work promised “…a collection of songs and stories that flowed like a stream of consciousness.”

Inspired by random images and anecdotes, and with plenty of time to write during quarantine, Swift herself said she was “…not only writing my own stories, but also writing about or from the perspective of people I’ve never met, people I’ve known, or those I wish I hadn’t.” Which begs the question: if Swift is claiming that she’s telling new stories through her music, then why does it feel so…Taylor? And moreover, why does it still feel so indelibly white?

In returning to a more stripped-down, low-key acoustic, Taylor has certainly made space for the lyrics to take centerstage, even partnering up with indie music legend Bon Iver to carry the story in what is arguably the album’s best single, “exile.” Throughout the album there is a nagging, bittersweet longing for times bygone, a halcyon past of simple pleasures (both good and bad) carried by the musical arrangements and Swift’s trademark love-song vocals.

And yet, it is precisely this longing for a simpler past that has so firmly positioned folklore within a distinctly white narrative. Much in the same way “exile” at first seemed a complex allegory of disillusionment with the current political system (I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending/You’re not my homeland anymore, so what am I defending?) only to fall inextricably into Swift’s classic post-break up bread-and-butter, folklore in its entirety only encapsulates a straight, white—and at times, problematic—narrative.

In her introduction to the album, Swift acknowledges at least some of this, stating that she was inspired by images of “battleships sinking down,” and “[her] grandfather Dean, landing at Guadalcanal in 1942.” In fairness, she also identifies inspirational founts in sources as varied as her own childhood, an old cardigan, and the story of a “misfit widow getting gleeful revenge on the town that cast her out.” But there is an insidious homogeneity in the way Swift approaches her subject matter, and certainly her nostalgic glorification of a “simpler” (read: racist, misogynistic, homophobic) past bears thinking about.

Even Swift’s surface-level feminist work “last great American dynasty” (And they said/There goes the last great American dynasty/Who knows, if she never showed up, what could’ve been/There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen/She had a marvelous time ruining everything) bears a myopic viewpoint on the end of one family’s “legacy.” At a time when millions are out of work and struggling, and billionaires are only getting richer, does the world really need a song about the way one woman fritters away a family’s massive fortune? While Swift presents it as the narrator’s “gleeful revenge” on the town, there’s no denying that old-money norms and class politics have influenced the way Swift approaches the source material. Even the name “last great American dynasty” implies that the sort of wealth stratification Swift is singing about has come to an end—a grievous and potentially even dangerous fallacy.

Moreover, Swift’s rosy-eyed view of the past continues in her ode to childhood, “seven.” Certainly the sweetest contribution to her album, “seven” invokes images of formative years spent running wild through the creeks and forests of Pennsylvania. Although the state is not traditionally considered part of the American South, her mention of “sweet tea in the summer” and “your braids like a pattern” is once again reminiscent of a golden, intangible past—a distinctly Southern phenomenon. The song’s wild, innocent childhood spent running through the wilderness is something many Baby Boomers will identify with, and Swift’s particular nostalgia for this freedom is so strong as to become a signifier of whiteness in and of itself.

Swift’s ode to her grandfather and the Greatest Generation, “epiphany,” walks a fine line as it compares the tragedies of coronavirus to the dangers faced by soldiers on the front line of WWII. The comparison itself is generally warranted as healthcare workers defending against the pandemic are arguably in as much danger as the soldiers of yore, but the lyrics paint a misty-eyed view of WWII—a particular point of pride with white conservatives like Donald Trump. Not only is the glorification of war a white phenomenon, the song’s analogy becomes more onerous when the president’s mishandling of the pandemic and its disproportionate affect on people of color is taken into account.

Now, let’s get a few things straight before you finish writing that comment. I’m by no means suggesting that Swift is solely responsible for the white-centered glorification of a problematic history. I’m also not suggesting that she should have written a song from the perspective of a person of color (I can only imagine how that would have gone down). What I am suggesting is that while folklore is admittedly catchy as hell, it continues the perpetuation of a straight, white-centered narrative and historical perspective. It calls us to think back on a golden past—and times that were often not particularly pleasant for people of marginalized identities.

The onus is not on Swift to be the catalyst for this change—but it is on her to be aware of current socio-political issues and movements when she publicizes her work. With an already checkered past as an ally of the LGBT+ community, her suggestion that the album was borne of her experience solely during quarantine and the pandemic—with no regard to the ongoing struggles of the BLM movement—is disturbingly lacking in intersectionality, and indicative of the privilege she holds as a white artist.

She even has role models to follow in this regard, as white country groups like Lady A (formerly Lady Antebellum) and The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Chicks) have taken it on themselves to make adjustments to their names and personas in solidarity with the BLM protests. The latter even came out with a protest anthem featuring the names of people of color who died by police brutality; a stunning and powerful tribute acknowledging the current struggles of people of color. While Swift shed her “country” status long ago, she still has a lot to learn from the genre where she got her start.

Since folklore has been out for less than 24 hours at this point, it remains to be seen if others will critically engage with the album in the same way I have, or if it will go down as another Taylor Swift classic: popular with the masses, but with nothing new to say.