Period poetics and modern metaphors are combined in the last and bonus track on the deluxe edition of Taylor Swift’s eighth studio (and Grammy Award-winning) album Folklore. In her documentary concert film, ‘Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions’, she revealed she was inspired to write ‘The Lakes’ after she visited England’s Lake District.
Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me?
I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones
These hunters with cell phones
In the song’s opening, Taylor comments how all her ‘elegies eulogize’ her. Elegies are melancholic poems that are written with the intention of remembering someone who has passed, and a eulogy is an emotive descriptive piece of speech, written in tribute to a lost or passed loved one. This could be considered to be Taylor referring to the breakup songs she has written (something she was mocked for, referring to this mockery in Blank Space in her album 1989).
The lyrical metaphors of ‘cynical clones’ and ‘hunters with cell phones’ could represent all the paparazzi, reporters, and critics who hide behind their cell phones, expressing themselves on social media, and talk negatively about Taylor, as if they were ‘hunting’ her down. It could also be a reference to the cancel culture she experienced especially before her album Reputation. Taylor was criticised and met with disbelief when she said she did not give Kayne West permission to write that lyric about her, even when it was later revealed that she was telling the truth and the clip that was supposed to show she was a liar had been edited.
Take me to the lakes, where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off, but not without my muse
When Taylor reveals she wants to go to the lakes, she calls it a place ‘where all the poets went to die’, this refers to a group of English poets who were considered to be part of the Romantic movement. Williams Wordsworth, Robert Southey, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge all lived and wrote in the Lake District in the early half of the 19th century.
Lake Windermere and its Windermere peaks are considered to be England’s largest natural ‘ribbon’ lake (as it is formed through a glacial trough after the ice retreats when the current interglacial period began), and the heart of the Lake District. It is around 11 miles in length and said to be where Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn is from. The muse she refers to is likely Joe who has even written songs for Taylor’s folklore and evermore albums, including Exile.
The lakes are known to be where famous poets went to create and escape from the world, away from negativity and critics, suggesting this is something that Taylor wishes for, the feeling of content and creativity that these poets had at the lakes.
What should be over burrowed under my skin
In heart-stopping waves of hurt
I’ve come too far to watch some name-dropping sleaze
Tell me what are my Wordsworth
In this verse, Taylor could be revealing the negative feelings she would like to go to the lakes to get away from, such as the hurtful comments that get under her skin and make her think negatively about herself that come in ‘heart-stopping waves’. She comments that she has come too far in her personal and professional life to let ‘name-dropping sleaze[s]’ (Scooter Braun comes to mind) influence her. She uses a clever play on the word, Wordsworth, referencing both the famous poet who lived in the Lake District whilst also being a soundalike phrase tell me what are my ‘words worth’.
Take me to the lakes, where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off, but not without my muse
Taylor repeats the chorus and in it, her plans to run away to the lakes, away from the critics and negativity with her muse, the one she loves.
I want auroras and sad prose
I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet
‘Cause I haven’t moved in years
And I want you right here
A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground
With no one around to tweet it
While I bathe in cliff-side pools
With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief
There is a great deal of lyrical description and poetry, in one of the most emotional verses of the song.
When Taylor reveals she wants to see the Wisteria grow, it creates vivid imagery and emotion that comes from the reference to the flower. Wisterias originate from Asia and the United States, they could be anything from small weeds that are connected to huge trees with purple and lilac flowers, that are often found to be hung in types of racemes. The flowers can grow in a vigorous manner within a couple of weeks and have been known to last up to a century, which could symbolise the long-lasting love that Taylor wants to have with her muse.
It also has different meanings across the globe, in China, the Wisterias are seen to represent playfulness and adventure. The Victorians saw them as warning signs over passionate love, which like the flower, can have vine climbing like habits that wrap around you tightly. Although, Wisterias can become entangled and fatal if they are left unchecked.
In Taylor’s case, Wisterias can represent a desire to put down roots, and stay in one place with someone she loves and how her fondness and love for her ‘muse’ has strongly rooted itself in her. As the flower imagery continues she could be referring to her wanting a red rose to grow from the ice frozen ground, where her lover stands. This symbolises that the ‘ice frozen ground’ could be where all the criticism and negativity grows, and she wants/sees her ‘muse’ as the red rose who is the good in all the bad.
The manner in which the ‘red rose’ lyrics are worded where ‘a red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground, with no one around to tweet it’ is a modern take using social media and the language of flowers, in a way that it refers to the philosophical thought experiment. This experiment suggests that “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Taylor then talks about bathing in “cliff slide pools” which could refer to how she feels her negative emotions make her feel as if she is on the edge of a cliff, and she is sitting and dealing with her “calamitous love and insurmountable grief”. Calamitous refers to a catastrophic or disastrous event, so a calamitous love could be a disastrous love or could refer to past relationships that didn’t work out, it could also refer to the lost loves/relationships that Taylor refers to in other songs. Insurmountable means something that is too great to overcome, suggesting that the grief she feels, whether it is grief over something personal or professional, could not be overcome. The recurring idea of her muse suggests she has found someone she could love without it ending in calamity.
Take me to the lakes, where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off, but not without my muse
No, not without you
Now, the chorus is repeated for the last time in the song, but this time it has an extra line added to it, which concludes the ‘The Lakes’. The line is connected to the last line of the chorus used throughout the song where she says, “I’m setting off, but not without my muse” but she has affirmed that she will not go without her muse in “No, not without you”. To do ‘The Lakes’ true justice, you have to listen to it in full, with its gentle, descriptive, and emotive poetry and its dreamful and melancholic instrumental.
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