TSWIFT OR DIE

“I could hear Lover opening the doors for the rest of her career, it was like a real grown up album, it had the concerns and the perspective of someone who was almost thirty. When I spoke to her - and I don’t think any of this made the article - but when I spoke to her for Lover she had a lot of banter about not being a kid anymore, about feeling - I mean, obviously thirty is super young, it’s young for the Earth, it’s not super young in pop - and she was very aware of being an adult, and then joking about how everyone’s younger than her, like the photographer for the album is younger than her… Just this thing of feeling like a grown up and I think this [folklore] just crosses the threshold even more - and just like constantly cursing - there is that grow-up-ness.”

“[James] has lost the love of his life basically and doesn’t understand how to get it back. I think we all have these situations in our lives where we learn to really, really give a heartfelt apology for the first time. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody really messes up sometimes and this is a song that I wrote from the perspective of a seventeen year old boy. I’ve always loved that in music you can kinda slip into different identities, and you can sing from other people’s perspectives, so that’s what I did on this one. And I named all the characters in this story after my friend’s kids and… I hope you like it!”

– Taylor gives more insight into her song “Betty” for country radio (August 5th 2020, source: @TSwiftNewsLA and @ofbeinghonest13)

“Here’s the thing - I am so protective of what I say about anything about her art, because I am such a super fan, and I’ve only given it like a quick listen this morning while having coffee, so I really need to give it a listen it deserves before i talk about it. [On Taylor’s ability to transport one out of reality with her music] It shows her artistry and her strength of songwriting to be able to just swing the pendulum back and forth on different genres, different collaborators, and it still holds up. It’s crazy, not a lot of people can do that. [On whether she texted Taylor] I texted her yesterday and I was like, ‘Alright, am I red wining? Am I manhattan-ing? Am I tequila shooting? Like, where am I going?’ And she was like, ‘Red wine. Buckle up.’“

– Kelsea Ballerini on whether she heard “folklore“ yet and her text exchange with Taylor (Radio.com, July 18th 2020)