BY LISA MARIE BASILE
When evermore came out, it built on a shared language that folklore offered us first. The albums were released during a time when we deeply needed permission to grieve, to go inward, and to bond over the blanket of soft sorrow that covered us all in 2020. Although these albums are beloved by many, they feel intimate, confessional, like a secret whispered between friends. To me they are a small glowing candle on a windowsill, casting light out into a dark night.
Evermore remains a favorite to me — not only because of what it meant culturally but because I’ve spent so much time building worlds within it. One of those worlds is the cosmic.
I hope you enjoy my interpretation of these Taylor Swift songs as astrological signs (although I do believe both evermore and folklore are water and earth element albums). It helped to reshape my relationship to certain signs, for one thing (I had a very hard time with the air signs here, for example).
It’s meant for fun, so don’t take it too seriously! I can feel you Virgos coming for me already. PS: I’m a Scorpio.
ARIES — CLOSURE
Don't treat me like / Some situation that needs to be handled / I'm fine with my spite / And my tears, and my beers and my candles / I can feel you smoothing me over
Closure is probably the fieriest song on the album simply because it’s not consumed with its own heartbreak. It’s more concerned with burning down the past — in a really powerful way. Aries is prone to moodiness and outbursts — and this song definitely evokes that — but Aries will call your ass out (see: Guilty, guilty, reaching out across the sea / That you put between you and me / But it's fake and it's oh so unnecessary). They’ll do fine on their own, thank you very much. They’re stubborn and they’re strong and they will take the initiative to create a new life without you. Even if it really, really hurts.
TAURUS — IVY
Oh, I can't / Stop you putting roots in my dreamland / My house of stone, your ivy grows / And now I'm covered in you
This Venusian Taurus is strong-willed and romantic and determined — and this song is very much that: It’s a love story that they just can’t shake. And like Taurus’ earthy energy, it’s a love covered in ivy, taking over, growing over the whole heart. Taurus is also the King of the home — a place of sanctuary and beauty and comfort. Is love like this — a love worth fighting for (So yeah, it's a fire / It's a goddamn blaze in the dark / And you started it) — not the ultimate palace?
GEMINI — CONEY ISLAND
Break my soul in two looking for you / But you're right here / If I can't relate to you anymore / Then who am I related to?
This duet gets right to the heart of Gemini — not only due to the fact that it is a duet (with a sort of chattery back and forth) — but because of its very story. Gemini gets a bad rap for being flighty, unable to stick around, always flitting about. They can be impulsive in their duality, being both this and that at once. I think this song showcases a Gemini-faces-their-own-duality story, which may leave them looking out toward their own destruction. But that’s not to say Gemini is all bad. In fact, Gemini is a great listener and can learn. Perhaps they learned some important lesson in Coney Island?
CANCER — CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
And hold your hand while dancing / Never leave you standing / Crestfallen on the landing / With champagne problems
This is a song of romance and sorrow, yes, but ultimately it is a song of memory, of moving through time, of images swirling past the heart like daggers. It looks back, as Cancer does, with nostalgia, and a certain gravitas, at the altar of the past. Of course, there are also tears and alcohol and balconies, which are Cancerian in their own right. But more than all of that, it’s the Cancer’s unique ability toward empathy, humanity, and vulnerability that this song conjures. No other sign holds pain — and with such tenderness — quite like Cancer does.
I’d be remiss not to mention the endlessly loving, semi-self-pitying (sorry) Cancerian energy of Tolerate it.
LEO — Gold Rush
What must it be like / To grow up that beautiful?
Hear me out, Leo. Yes, this is a song brimming with jealousy (I don't like that anyone would die to feel your touch / Everybody wants you / Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you). It’s also speckled with a dash of narcissism with its I-can-be-the-only-one-who-loves-you vibes. You can almost feel the Leo seething, watching their lover’s perfect hair fall into place. But Leo is sometimes reduced. It’s not only about wanting all the attention and love for yourself. It’s about you being the King of Romance. It’s about being feisty enough to “call you out on your contrarian shit.” It’s about wearing the crown of loyalty. It’s about all that you can give and show and dedicate yourself to. It’s about devotion and all that madness that is born of it — a sort of obsessive, romantic roar.
VIRGO — NO BODY, NO CRIME
Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was fifteen / And I've cleaned enough houses to know how to cover up a scene
Let’s be honest: a Virgo would absolutely pull off this type of clean criminal masterpiece. Have you seen the stats for serial killers? Boating license at 15? Check. Can cover up a scene? Check. Has an alibi? (She was with me dude)? Duped everyone? Virgo’s got that on lock.
Of course, I’d be remiss not to mention Scorpio here. Revenge? Relentless loyalty to a friend? Meticulous obsession with covering their tracks? Some people even speculate that Virgo and Scorpio used to be the same sign (I loathe to accept this theory, but there’s some overlap that can’t be denied).
LIBRA — HAPPINESS
There'll be happiness after me / But there was happiness because of me
What a diplomatic thing to say! These Venusian souls adore love, and they want to be loved, and they want to bestow love upon others. And Happiness is a romantic — if not deeply sorrowful — ode to love that lives and dies. But when Libran hearts are broken, their diplomacy and balance can help them find their way toward clarity. That airy opener — Honey, when I'm above the trees — is also oh so Libran.
SCORPIO - MARJORIE
What died didn’t stay dead; you’re alive, you’re alive in my head. / What died didn’t stay dead, you’re alive — so alive
I may be biased (as a Scorpio) but I think Marjorie is the most honest and vulnerable song on the album. With the majority of songs being about others, Marjorie is one of the only songs on folklore and evermore that are about Taylor Swift. This song calling on the dead — even using her late grandmother’s voice as a track — is as Scorpio as it gets. Contemplation of death and afterlife? Scorpio. The willingness to go so deep into grief (You'd always go past where our feet could touch)? Scorpio. And the idea that what is dead remains? It’s too perfect.
I think Willow is also the perfect Scorpio song, with its proclivity toward darkness and secrecy (Wait for the signal and I'll meet you after dark /Show me the places where the others gave you scars) and its resurrectionist nature (But I come back stronger than a 90's trend). Not to mention, this Scorpio affirmation: I'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night / Rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife.
I will die on this hill.
SAGITTARIUS — DOROTHEA
You got shiny friends since you left town / A tiny screen's the only place I see you now / And I got nothing but well wishes for ya
Dorothea is the ultimate Sagittarius song, but it took me some time to notice it. Yes, the narrator is saying, in a way, “come back to me, to this tiny town,” but ultimately it’s about someone who got away, who got out, who is drifting through a beautiful, big, glamorous world. And like any true Sag, it’s brimming with questions around the philosophy of the self and identity: And damn, Dorothea / They all wanna be ya / But are you still the same soul / I met under the bleachers? How much expansiveness is too much? How much can we travel before we lose ourselves? Or, is the beauty in the ever-changing reality of life?
CAPRICORN — COWBOY LIKE ME
You're a bandit like me / Eyes full of stars / Hustling for the good life / Never thought I'd meet you here / It could be love / We could be the way forward / And I know I'll pay for it
This heart-sick cowboy swindles folks and hustles hard and will offer love — if properly paid. Sure, that’s all very Capricorn, but this earthy Cowboy has made their choice: Now you hang from my lips / Like the Gardens of Babylon, and we all know they’re going to get what they want. They want what’s real, what’s beautiful, what’s meant to be — even if it means wading through the bullshit to get there.
AQUARIUS — LONG STORY SHORT
I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things / Your nemeses / Will defeat themselves before you get the chance to swing / And he's passing by / Rare as the glimmer of a comet in the sky
Aquarius might not be as recklessly romantic as this song is, but it’s full of Aquarian magic. The water bearer, Aquarius may seem aloof, but they are the holder of all that feeling. They just transmute and express it in expansive ways.
They don’t want to do things in the conformist or traditional ways (No more keepin' score now / I just keep you warm) and they’re willing to explore new ways of feeling, doing, and creating (Cause I fell from the pedestal / Right down the rabbit hole). I think this song evokes Aquarius’ ability to transcend the small, silly things that hold us back — and to love gloriously in ways that require rethinking what we know to be ‘normal’ or ‘safe.’ Once you soar into the heights, you can truly feel the love.
PISCES — EVERMORE
And when I was shipwrecked (can't think of all the cost) / I thought of you (all the things that will be lost now) / In the cracks of light (can we just get a pause?) / I dreamed of you
When a Pisces is heartbroken, or when they love you, they’re in it — really, deeply, maddeningly in it. These tortured souls feel a tidal wave of emotion. Evermore is the song that brings you out to sea and deposits you right in the center of all that depth. And what could be more Piscean than this line, full of psychic intuition: I had a feeling so peculiar / This pain wouldn't be for / Evermore.
You’re going to be okay. Someday.