Evermore. 1. Willow

I, like most of the world (or at least what I see on social media), am listening to Taylor Swift’s new album Evermore and decided to give my opinion one song at a time.

Off the bat, I like it way more than I liked Folklore though I’m thinking I should go back and listen again more in depth. 

I won’t go through every song- just the ones that stick out to me which is about 5/6.

First up, we have willow. I actually like the Elvira remix more than the original but that’s just a question of style. The reason behind my liking the song is the same. 

In this song melody is king. 

The chorus has been stuck in my head for 2 days straight. 

Her verses are 2 chords, Em to D back and forth. And then for the chorus, off she goes to G which allows for the melody to go to a different place and the ear to be introduced to new chords. It’s a really satisfying change and has been an ear worm, like I said, since I heard it.

As far as lyrics go, she’s really good at metaphors but sometimes I’m not sure what she’s actually saying. But who cares? I sometimes wish we heard her cover topics we haven’t heard from her before but being a songwriter myself I know we can’t really control what inspires us or where the songs take us. 

She also uses the verse line “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind”  in the 2nd verse and then again in the bridge. Taylor’s actually really good at bridges which I’ll get into in another post. Just food for thought for any songwriters trying to come up with a bridge: repeat a line you used in a verse (make sure it’s a strong one though). 

So there’s my short and sweet initial thoughts on willow. Great opening song! What say you? Favorites from the album so far? 

in music and love,
Dana