Screen & Sound · The Lori Diaries
I've been trying to find the right word for folklore: the long pond studio sessions, and I keep coming back to the same slightly ridiculous one: master-PEACE. Yes, I know how that sounds. But after the year we've had, there's something about watching Taylor Swift sit in a quiet studio and sing the songs that got me through the summer that feels a little like being allowed to exhale.
I have a theory that we don't always choose the albums that become important to us. Sometimes they simply arrive at a moment when we're ready to hear them.
That's what happened when Taylor unexpectedly released folklore on 24 July.
We were months into a year that had made even ordinary plans feel uncertain. So many things had been postponed, cancelled, or turned into the sort of sentence that begins with “when everything goes back to normal.”
And then, with barely any warning, there was a new Taylor Swift album.
Not the big, glossy pop album I might have expected, either. Instead, there were soft pianos, guitars, stories about people I had never met, and songs that somehow reminded me of people and moments from my own life.
I remember listening for the first time and feeling as though somebody had opened a drawer in my mind that I'd forgotten was there.
One song would bring back a particular feeling. Another would remind me of a conversation or a version of myself I hadn't thought about in ages. Things I assumed I'd put away quite neatly were suddenly making themselves known again.
Music has always been able to do that to me, but folklore did it with remarkable consistency.
I've been a Taylor fan for a long time, and if you ask me which of her albums has meant the most to me so far, you probably already know my answer.
But I didn't realise how much I wanted to hear these songs performed until Disney+ gave us the long pond studio sessions.
An Album Made Apart, Finally Played Together
Folklore was created during lockdown, with Taylor working remotely with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff. Rather than gathering in one studio and building the album together in the usual way, they sent ideas and recordings back and forth from different places.
Knowing that makes the Long Pond film feel especially lovely.
Filmed in September at Long Pond Studios in upstate New York, it brings Taylor, Aaron, and Jack together to perform the songs in person for the first time. Between performances, they sit and talk about how the music came together and what some of the songs mean to them.
That's the whole idea, really.
No enormous stage. No costume changes. No elaborate set designed to make sure we remember that we're watching one of the world's biggest pop stars.
Just musicians in a room, with the songs doing most of the talking.
And after months of seeing people mainly through screens, there's something especially moving about watching the three of them finally share the same space.
The album was made at a distance. Now, for a little while, the people behind it can actually hear one another play.
It's Nice to Hear the Stories Behind the Stories
One of the things I've always admired about Taylor is the way she can write a song that feels so specific and still leave room for somebody else to recognise themselves in it.
Folklore takes that even further. Some songs are told through imagined characters and their tangled relationships; others feel much closer to a private thought.
When I first listened to the album, I made my own connections. I had my own pictures in my head, my own ideas about what particular lines meant, and my own reasons for returning to certain songs.
The Long Pond conversations let me hear what Taylor, Aaron, and Jack were thinking while making them. I love that their explanations add another layer without necessarily replacing the meaning I heard the first time.
That's the wonderful thing about a song once it's out in the world. It may begin with one person's experience, but it doesn't have to end there.
I can learn what inspired it and still think about something completely different when I listen.
In fact, sometimes knowing a little more about a song makes me want to go back and hear it with fresh ears.
“This Is Me Trying” Sounds Different When You Hear Them Talk About It
I don't think I was prepared for how much the conversation around “this is me trying” would stay with me.
Taylor talks about people who are struggling with things that aren't always visible to everyone around them, and how simply getting through a day can require far more effort than someone else might realise.
I won't pretend that a song can neatly explain every difficult experience. But that conversation made me think about how quickly we decide what somebody else's effort is supposed to look like.
We notice the things people haven't done. The messages they haven't answered. The plans they haven't made. The version of themselves we think they ought to be.
We don't always know what it took for them to show up at all.
Hearing that song performed so simply, after listening to them discuss it, makes its tenderness even harder to miss.
I think we could all stand to be a little more careful about assuming we know how hard somebody is trying.
And Then There's “Peace”
This is where my terrible little title comes back into the picture.
The song “peace” has been one of the tracks I've returned to since July. There's something heartbreaking about the idea of loving someone deeply while worrying that you may not be able to give them the quiet, uncomplicated life they deserve.
In the film, Taylor and Aaron talk about what the song means to each of them. Their circumstances are different, but both recognise the feeling of caring about someone while knowing you can't shield them from everything.
I love that they can approach the same song from different places.
It reminds me that we don't all need to share an experience for a piece of music to make sense to us. Sometimes the emotion is familiar even when the story isn't.
And perhaps that's why folklore has felt so comforting this year. It doesn't insist that everything is fine. It leaves room for uncertainty, regret, affection, loneliness, and all the other things that don't disappear just because we'd prefer a happier ending.
The Long Pond Sessions don't make 2020 feel less strange. They make it feel a little less lonely.
I Didn't Know I Needed to Hear “Exile” Like This
Of course, I can't write about the film without mentioning “exile.”
Justin Vernon of Bon Iver joins the performance remotely, and hearing his voice alongside Taylor's in this more intimate setting is wonderful.
I've loved the song since the album came out, but this version lets me focus even more closely on the exchange between their voices. It's the kind of performance that makes you stop whatever else you're doing and just listen.
That's how I feel about much of this film, actually.
I thought I knew these songs fairly well by now. I've been listening to them since July. Yet hearing them played in a room, with a little space around the instruments and time for the words to settle, makes them feel new again.
The performances don't compete with the album recordings. They give me another way to spend time with songs I already love.
A Quiet Ending to a Very Loud Year
We're in December now, which means we're getting close to the end of a year I don't think any of us could have imagined when it began.
I don't want to pretend that one album has magically made everything better. It hasn't. There are people we miss, plans we still can't make, and an awful lot we don't know about what next year will look like.
But I've found comfort in small things: a familiar song, a film I can return to, and the feeling of hearing somebody put an emotion into words when I couldn't quite find them myself.
Folklore has been one of those things for me.
And the Long Pond film has given it a lovely new chapter. It's not a grand concert celebrating an album with thousands of people in the audience. It's a much smaller gathering, made possible after months of working apart.
There is something hopeful about that, even if it's only a little hope.
Watching them sit together and play reminds me how much I've missed the ordinary pleasure of people being in the same room.
So yes, I'm calling folklore: the long pond studio sessions a master-PEACE. I know. I'll see myself out.
But I mean it affectionately. I loved folklore when it arrived unexpectedly in July, and I love it a little differently now that I've watched the people behind it finally perform the songs together.
If the album helped me revisit feelings I'd tucked away, the film gave me a quieter place to sit with them.
I can't think of a more fitting way to return to this music at the end of 2020.
Some albums become the soundtrack to a particular year. I have a feeling folklore will always remind me of this one.
If you haven't watched the Long Pond Sessions yet, put them on when you have a quiet evening to yourself. And if you want a little preview first, here's the performance of “exile” with Bon Iver.
Watch “exile” from the Long Pond Sessions
Have you watched the film? I'd love to know which performance stayed with you, and whether folklore has become part of your 2020 story too.
xoxo,
Lori
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