(Cover Photo Courtesy of David Eulitt/Getty)
The budding relationship between singer-songwriter, Taylor Swift, and Kansas City Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce, has just about broken the internet. Ever since Swift attended Kelce’s game on September 24th against the Chicago Bears, ‘Swifties’ everywhere began to educate themselves right away on all things NFL and, of course, Kelce himself.
But if you’re here, it seems as though you are on the other side of the spectrum. Whether you watch football, your partner is a ‘Swiftie’, and you’re trying to impress them, or you’re a Chiefs fan wanting to know exactly what your superstar tight end is really getting himself into, you’re in the right place.
For starters, let’s inform you about the basic knowledge of Taylor Alison Swift. She was born on December 13th, 1989, consequently making 13 her favorite number and 1989 the title of an album that she would later go on to write and produce. She grew up in Pennsylvania, so yes, she is an Eagles fan at heart which I know may be a hard pill to swallow. Swift adored music and songwriting from a young age, which eventually paid off and led to the release of her first self-titled album on October 24th, 2006; and the rest is history.
That’s enough “training camp” for now, let’s get into our week one lesson.
It’s important that we start week one off with a bang, and the only appropriate topic is none other than the “Folklore Love Triangle”. Folklore was Swift’s eighth studio album that was released on July 24th, 2020. This album is beloved by many of her fans and falls under the indie or folk genre. But what is this so-called “love triangle”? Essentially, it's a story that Swift created that connects three of her songs on the album to a love triangle between three characters: Betty, Augustine, and James. Each one of these characters tells a story through song from their own perspective.
James’ song is Betty, Augustine’s is August, and Betty’s song is Cardigan. The story is about three high schoolers and goes as follows… Betty is James’ longtime girlfriend, but when he leaves for the summer, he develops a fling with a girl named Augustine. James eventually realizes he made a huge mistake and, in his song, pleads for Betty to forgive him and take him back, which pretty much leaves Augustine on her own to grieve what she once had, which we hear throughout the lyrics in August. Now that we know the backstory, we can find out how these songs correlate.
First, the connection from August to Betty. The biggest thing that links these songs are the lines “Remember when I pulled up and said get in the car?” from August and, “She said James get in, let’s drive” from Betty. The two are recalling the night when their summer romance began, and it all started with a drive. However, their views on what they truly had were very different because Augustine thought there was something while James had other things on his mind.
This can be seen through the August lyric “I remember thinking I had you [James]” but in reality, James was always thinking about Betty, and we know because in Betty Swift sings, “Slept next to her but I dreamt of you [Betty] all summer long”. Augustine eventually comes to the unfortunate conclusion as she says throughout August “You [James] weren’t mine to lose”.
Now for the next connection: Betty and Cardigan.
Cardigan is a song that is supposedly set 20 years after the whole love triangle incident and is a reflection from her perspective on how she felt but also matured. She is obviously upset and hurt as she refers to what James did to her as “Peter losing Wendy” and “Leaving like a father” but she also says, “I know you’d come back to me” and “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired”, meaning she knew James was going to realize that she was the one for him.
For these songs the lyric we can pull from Betty is, “I’m only 17, I don’t know anything” and from Cardigan, “When you are young they assume you know nothing”. In Betty, James is trying to blame his mistakes on being young and dumb, but Betty through her lyrics in Cardigan challenges his statement saying that his age isn’t the issue he’s just using it as an excuse because people assume teens don’t know any better.
Two other lyrical connections are “Would kiss me on the Porch in front of all your stupid friends” from James in Betty, and “I knew you’d be standing in my front porch light” in Cardigan. James knows that he messed up but is trying to go through hypothetical situations and going crazy over how he can make it up to her. But the thing we can note once again about Betty is that she had no doubt that he would return to her all along.
This brings us to our winners and losers. We know that Augustine felt passionate about James and really meant no harm instead just wanted to be loved the way she loved James, but in the end, James’ feelings didn’t match up with hers.
So, the question is: did James and Betty partake in their long-awaited porch PDA?
Yes. They. Did.
Swift, along with co-writers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, confirmed in her November 2020, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions documentary, that Betty and James did indeed end up together.
That’s a wrap on your week one lesson. In the coming weeks, you’ll continue to learn all things Taylor Swift, and in no time you yourself can be a ‘Swiftie’ too. Let’s just hope Travis doesn’t follow in James' footsteps because something tells me Taylor won’t be as forgiving as Betty and neither will her next album.