Like many other readers, I am also an avid Swiftie. I love seeing bookish posts that encapsulate how people relate certain Taylor songs/albums/eras to certain books, so I thought I would share some of my Taylor Swift/book correlations, one album at a time. These were all comparisons from my own mind, but as I have seen many of these posts throughout the years, it is possible I subconsciously thought of someone else’s comparison (fully accidentally, of course). Rather than try to capture the vibe of the album as a whole, I picked three songs from each and made bookish comparisons to those. Safe to say there will be some spoilers in this post to make my points, so proceed with caution! Let’s get into book recommendations based on evermore. :)
Oh, evermore. I remember the excitement over this album announcement so soon after the release of folklore, and I adore how these albums are practically sisters. I once heard someone say that folklore is a better album than evermore, but that evermore’s highs were higher and lows were lower. While I do agree that folklore is a better cohesive album, I disagree that evermore has many lows. While folklore is the better album as a whole, my favorite songs from evermore blow most songs from folklore out of the water. My last entry explained that the 1 is one of my top 3 Taylor songs, but the other two are on this album: happiness and ‘tis the damn season. I don’t often listen to this album during the warmer months, but it feels sacrilegious to skip those tracks any time of year.
As I read Lucky by Marissa Stanley I couldn’t stop thinking of cowboy like me from this album. This track is, in my opinion, the most underrated on this album. It depicts the story of two con artists who fall in love. The novel follows the title character, Lucky as she lives a life of swindling alongside her boyfriend, Carly. Lucky’s life was always surrounded by cons, as she was taken in by a conman when left on the steps of a church. Others are told that Lucky has a rare disease, causing donations to be made for treatment (very “telling all the rich folks anything they wanna hear”). This led Lucky to find Carly in the future. Their relationship is textbook “I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve / Takes one to know one.” Unfortunately, as one may expect out of a swindler, Carly may be keeping some secrets. I’ll try to keep this relatively spoiler free, but “forever is the greatest con.”
Though I fear my gold rush comparison may be predictable, I feel like I had no choice but to choose The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This seems to be the favorite classic among teenagers and early twentysomethings, as its glitz and glamour is romanticized (it’s all about the aesthetic nowadays, it seems). Though I do adore this novel, I find it to be the slightest bit overrated. That being said, that exact aesthetic is why I picture this novel as gold rush in my mind. While the song and novel may not fully line up in terms of plot, they line up in terms of vibes and attitude. At its core, the song is about simultaneously being jealous and intrigued by someone that everyone else adores. Jay Gatsby, an extremely wealthy and popular socialite, is a theatrical man that feels larger than life to those who attend his sprawling parties. I picture Gatsby’s parties and hear Taylor’s falsetto singing “gleaming, twinkling.” I feel like readers of this novel that romanticize Gatsby’s life (though let’s be honest, it’s not quite a living to be jealous of) do what Taylor sings in this song: they turn his life into folklore. The character has becoming larger than the page, becoming a metaphor and a status. The lyric “I don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch” makes me ponder Gatsby’s love for Daisy and the fact that, in a way, he died while trying to become the person that Daisy would love. I feel like the song and novel are both reminders that there are flaws and hidden negativities behind the walls of allure, money, and beauty. That being said, I’ll definitely still fall into the camp of one of those individuals that romanizes the aesthetic of The Great Gatsby. It’s a classic for a reason.
Finishing off with another recommendation that is, again, based on vibes more than similar plot lines: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and no body, no crime. As a true crime podcast junkie, I was immediately hooked by this song when I first heard it. The song no body, no crime tells the story about a woman named Este who disappears after realizing her husband is cheating. It is insinuated that Este’s husband murdered her, leading to the husband being murdered by one of Este’s friends (a girl’s girl if I’ve ever seen one). Gone Girl follows the couple Amy and Nick. After Amy finds out that Nick has been unfaithful, she disappears. Her husband was acting different and it smelled like infidelity, you know? Like Este’s friends, the community where Nick and Amy live seem to immediately assume that Nick was behind Amy’s disappearance. With no evidence of what happened to Amy, it was very “I think he did it but I just can’t prove it.” It is difficult to prove a crime at Nick’s hands because, as they say, where there’s no body, there’s no crime. While the ending of the novel is very different than the ending of the song, both of these pieces of art have a strong emphasis on female revenge after infidelity. They are both twisty, shocking, and absolutely amazing.
This album may have been the hardest for me in terms of coming up with the comparisons, but I actually feel like these have been the most solid pairings yet. Writing this reignited my love for an album that holds such a special place in my heart, and though I love Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department, I’m saddened that my favorite albums are behind me.
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