If you're not deeply versed in Swiftian Lore, you probably think this was her first album, and understandably so. It's the album that Love Story and You Belong With Me are on, the album she first one the aoty grammy for, the album that gave rise to That VMA Incident- in other words, although it's her sophmore album, it's the one that broke out of the country music charts and into the Pop Sphere. Even if you've never listened to the album, you know it, at least to some degree. (Sound familiar?)
Yes, I've been trying to avoid making these analyses about the meta status of these works in pop culture, and instead about the contents and themes of the works themselves, but it's hard to talk about Ocarina without acknowledging its colossal footprint on games as a medium. While Fearless wasn't quite as pioneering as, say, inventing lock-on targeting, it did have a massive impact on the music industry, not only from a commercial perspective (revitalizing the country music market from its death throes), but from an important artistic perspective: she was a teenage girl who wrote her own songs, and in the last few years we've been seeing how significant an impact that had in the number of young female songwriters who cite Swift and this album as what made them realize they, too, could pick up a guitar and write their own stories.
(Also, this album includes the lyric "I don't know how it gets better than this", which is exactly what everyone said when Ocarina first came out xD )
Okay, onto the real analysis!
Fearless is an album about growing up, and reconciling the idealized vision of adulthood (or late adolescence) you've dreamed of all your life - the pastiche made up of images from teen movies and tv and magazines - with the uncomfortable and often disappointing reality you find upon your arrival. it's about making a beeline for adulthood and then looking back and wishing you could tell your younger self to stop and breathe (literally - there's a lyric on the album that goes "count to ten, take it in / this is life before you know who you're gonna be"). OOT is also, obviously and devastatingly, about growing up, and specifically about wanting to grow up and then getting there and realizing it's nothing like you thought it would be, and it cost you something you can never get back.
Fearless starts out with the title track, an ode to the excitement at the beginning of a first relationship, the siren call of young love; the whole world is wide open before you, and even the most mundane of things ("there's something 'bout the way / the street looks when it's just rained / there's a glow off the pavement) can seem magical. you want to bask in the moment and to hightail it to happily ever after all at once. taylor describes this feeling as "fearless", and one of the examples she gives of this fearlessness is "with you i'd dance / in a storm, in my best dress / fearless". it's kind of a perfect encapsulation of the exact brand of fearlessness that comes with youth: you can be that fearless in large part because you don't yet know what there is to fear out there. there are much scarier things in adult life and relationships than ruining your clothes in a storm, and there are much scarier things in hyrule than the stalchildren in hyrule field at night; and by the end of their respective album and game, both taylor and link will have learned that, however much they might wish they could go back to a time they'd not yet had to learn those lessons.
one of the oft-discussed kind of metanarrative features of OOT is that kids spend the opening section desperate to reach Adult Link. You'll hear people (mostly younger people, and people who haven't played since they were much younger) talk about the jump to Adult Link as "where the game really starts", or something along those lines. It's kind of trite to even point out how well this maps onto being a kid who can't wait to grow up, who sees adulthood as "when life really starts", and how central the difference between a child and adult's perspective on childhood is to the game and its themes. everyone somersaults and sidesteps across hyrule field as they try to book it to hyrule castle, and yeah, part of that is because hyrule field is so damn big and empty, but it makes for a nice little microcosm of what OOT is saying about growing up, as you hightail towards a destination you might not like once you get there.
even amidst the lows of growing up, there are always highs, too; both fearless and OOT let you bask in moments of triumph. there's a reason "love story" and "you belong with me" are still hailed among the best of pop music (fittingly enough, the former sees Taylor "sneak out to the garden to see you", just like Link sneaks into the castle garden to meet with Zelda; yes, I've been giggling about that since it occured to me.) but you can't freeze time in one, perfect moment, and even the cutesiest love songs start to develop a bit of a sad undertone: "hey stephen, why are people always leaving? / i think you and i should stay the same." while link's big "coming of age" moment obviously happens when he blinks and finds himself seven years older, his actual coming of age story starts at the very beginning of the game, as the darkness of the larger world encroaches on the idyllic kokori forest, poisoning and killing the deku tree; and in his child link travels, he encounters more of this darkness, be it darunia's depression or princess rutaâs deceased mother. notably, the darkest dungeon (pun not intended) of the whole game can only be accessed by child link. it's also likely the last extended bit of time you'll spend as child link in this game; some things you can't come back from knowing.
fearless charts a number of losses that come with growing up. on âwhite horseâ, taylor laments the loss of the fantasies that come with childhood naĂŻvetĂŠ (ânow i know / that iâm not a princess, this ainât a fairytaleâ). this bears some similarity to the transition between acts one and two of OOT, as link and zeldaâs grand plan to save the kingdom crashes down around them and they discover theyâve been outwitted since the very start; they fail, something stories and prophecies never prepared them for, and the consequences are more horrifying than they could have imagined (hyrule castle town post-time jump, anyone?) another fearless track, âbreatheâ, mourns the end of a friendship - not because you moved away or changed schools and lost touch, as with countless childhood friendships, but because the people youâve grown into are just too different. itâs one of the less common elements of coming of age narratives, but one of the most heartbreaking parts of growing up: ânever a clean break, no one here to save me / youâre the only thing i know like the back of my handâ. while link doesnât lose a friend quite in the same way, thereâs a similar kind of heartache in his friendship with saria, both in the realization that she hasnât grown up and never will, and the discovery that they both have destinies that lead them apart, and must say goodbye.
âtell me whyâ and âyouâre not sorryâ both document the loss of blind trust, from a place of anger and of sadness respectively; then âthe way i loved youâ and âforever & alwaysâ each grapple with memories, how they can hold you back and how they can betray you. the former sees taylor unable to emotionally invest in a new relationship because of the intensity of a former one, which she misses in spite of herself: âmy heart's not breaking /
'cause I'm not feeling anything at all.â in the latter, taylor is dismayed and angry to find that promises she and her partner made to each other meant less to him than they did to her. whatâs particularly interesting about the latter song with regards to OOT is how it frames an emotional imbalance in a relationship in terms of memory: âback up, baby, back up / did you forget everything?â one of the most horrifying implications of everything link goes through in OOT is that, at the end, no one remembers but him, and none of the people he forged friendships with have any recollection of it at all; even navi leaves him. so much of OOT maps onto real parts of growing up, albeit in a fantastical and exaggerated fashion, and this has always evoked to me the experience of learning that someone you cherish your memories of doesnât feel the same way, or remember nearly as much of your time together in childhood.
as we can see, the second half of the album is pretty much all sad or angry, until the very last two songs, but even those have caveats. "the best day" is a heartwarming tribute to her mother, but with a bittersweet twinge, as her recollections go from her mother taking her to a pumpkin patch to her mother consoling her as she cries about school bullies, and while her mother manages to cheer her up, taylor still notes that she âdon't know how long it's gonna take to feel okayâ; growing up means your problems arenât as easily fixable, and your hurts last much longer. the final song, change, takes the inevitability of change, responsible for so much of the heartbreak throughout the album, and frames it as a source of hope, that if things can change, they will change again. itâs an anthem against giving up, but the song is premised on being stuck in a present that makes you want to give up (âyou know it's all the same, another time and place / repeating history and you're getting sick of itâ). in the final verse of the song, taylor goes from future tense (âthese things will changeâ) to past tense (âit was the night things changedâ). the music quiets down, and then the instruments kick back in more triumphant than ever (cue OOT end credits.) and yet the triumph here doesnât hold a candle to the highs of âlove storyâ and âyou belong with meâ. itâs the end of the album, and yet thereâs less resolution here than there is on earlier tracks. real life doesnât really have happily ever afters, not because happiness doesnât exist but because life carries on where a movie would roll credits; all we can look forward to is the inexorable approach of change.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
if youâre up on your taylor swift lore, you know folklore and evermore are considered âsister albumsâ - both written and recorded during the pandemic, released five months apart, with a shared âcinematic universeâ of sorts, and both characterized by taylor as getting lost in the woods (artistically) and staying there for a while. all of that is true, but if folklore is a lush forest in summer or high fall, evermore is a forest in late winter - the trees are bare, the world is quieter, and all around are signs of death and decay; yet even still, peeking out from the snow are hints of life returning, of nature in all its persistence gearing up to bloom again.
like MM, BOTW is a game about dealing with the apocalypse, but while in MM that apocalypse is imminent, in BOTW itâs a few generations past, still in living memory for some (like the zora) but for the most part the formative shadow under which the people of the world were raised and which society is just starting to emerge from. (this is a real sidebar, but iâve always thought MM and BOTW were the zelda games most visibly influenced by ff7; in MM, with the moon hanging over the world, akin to meteor in disc 3; in BOTW, i see the final shot of midgarâs ruins overtaken by nature in every corner of hyrule.) but botw isnât evermore just because itâs a sister to mm/folklore. evermore is an album of aching grief, not just for things lost but for potentials never realized, for âcould-have-beensâ that never were, for longing after that which was once in your reach but no longer is; âwe could just ride around / and the road not taken looks real good now.â i think the championsâ fates are among the most haunting of any zelda characters; they were all brilliant and talented, in their primes, leaders in their communities, brave and true with full lives ahead of them, and they all died horribly, trapped and alone. whether or not miphaâs feelings for link were requited or not, sheâll never know, and link will never have the chance to respond one way or another; âi guess iâll never know / and youâll go on with the showâ.
evermore is also an album about figuring out who you are (or are going to be) after a loss: âand in the disbelief / i canât face reinvention/ i havenât met the new me yet.â in botw, this theme is prevalent on both an individual and a societal level; link spends the game both learning who he was before and who he is now, through finding old memories and through making new ones, and likewise hyrule is rebuilding itself, trying to figure out what itâs going to become, but that future kingdom hasnât quite taken shape yet (nor have itâs tears- sorry for the pun, iâll stop now). âthere is happiness / past the blood and bruise / past the curses and cries / beyond the terror in the nightfall.â yet people are relentless in their persistence, their determination to keep going, to create life out of a wasteland of death; and through the tarreytown quests the game makes you a party to this, makes you and link engage with the way humanity refuses to be stamped out. âoh, i canât / stop you putting roots in my dreamland / my house of stone, your ivy grows / and now iâm covered in you.â
hereâs the part where i say, full disclosure: i played BOTW in the weeks before and months after my grandmotherâs death, and for me that game is inextricably tied to my grief. on evermore, taylor has a song grieving her grandmother (see âmarjorieâ, pack tissues). i donât believe thatâs why i think evermore is BOTW, and i think iâve proven that here, but itâs be naive of me to think thereâs no connection going on in my subconscious because of that.
another difference between MM/folklore and BOTW/evermore is in the pacing; even though both albums are roughly the same length, folklore feels very tightly paced, extremely sonically coherent, with one clear central vision. evermore is a bit more meandering, more experimental, more willing to sit in silence and sadness and watch the frozen landscape for a while. it still plays with different characters and fictional storylines (and like in MM, link/the player spends a lot of BOTW in the role of observer), but theyâre not as interwoven as those on folklore; likewise, in BOTW the characters are spread far and wide across hyrule instead of largely gathered in clocktown, their lives are far less intertwined, and while the NPCs do all have scheduled trajectories of sorts theyâre far less strict or significant than those of MM. (also of note; while in folklore, the âteenage love triangleâ of songs - cardigan, august, and betty, each from the point of view of a different character from the same love triangle - has resolution, a degree of closure, and some real catharsis on âbettyâ, the evermore equivalent, âtis the damn season and dorothea, have no resolution or closure or catharsis of any kind. unfulfilled, just like the championsâ lives and potential.)
all of these themes and ideas are also summed up within one BOTW character: zelda. unfulfilled potential is the name of the game with her, as sheâs constantly told sheâs a failure for her inability to unlock her powers, while also being shut off from all her research, her potential as a scholar and any potential discoveries her passion could have led her to, and any lives that knowledge might have saved. (in age of calamity, we learn that zeldaâs research into technology could and would have been able to save at least some lives, but the canon of that game is questionable, and regardless BOTW zelda doesnât know any of that because it never happened; sheâs just left with the possibility that maybe she could have uncovered something, but no certainty.) zeldaâs grief goes without saying, as we see her breaking down in flashbacks, and her longing - for her powers, to be a scholar, to not be a princess, to be free of the burden of prophecy - is everywhere. (not to mention, the game opens with link hearing zeldaâs voice but unable to reach her; whether you interpret their relationship as romantic or not, the whole game is framed with a longing for something you canât reach). and the persistence of hyrule in surviving and rebuilding despite the calamity is reflected in zeldaâs persistence in holding ganon at bay for a whole century; and, in the âtrue endingâ scene you get for unlocking all the memories, we see her already making plans for hyrule, for where to go next and how to move forward.
thereâs a lot more i could say, but iâll end with the final track of evermore, fittingly named âevermoreâ, which i think sums up the themes of this game so well: âand i couldnât be sure / but i had a feeling so peculiar / this pain wouldnât be for / evermore.â
addendum: ah, crap, i meant to write something about the championâs abilities as representation for still feeling the presence of loved ones after theyâve passed, and âif i didnât know better / iâd think you were still around / i know better / but i still feel you all aroundâ⌠ah well, itâs long enough as it is
[background: this was written in response to an @intothecast bonus episode about Majora's Mask, which i highly recommend!]
the isolation, the moodiness, itâs a covid lockdown album and that atmosphere translates weirdly well to majora. more than that, though, itâs the focus on observation and the narrator in the role of the observer- this is the album where swift shifted to writing about fictional characters, historical figures, and the like, and casts herself as an observer mapping these interweaving lives, kind of like how the player/link is put in the role of observer in clocktown, watching how itâs residents lives intersect and move around each other. taylor doesnât just write about these characters from a third person POV, however, but embodies them to write from their perspectives, just as link embodies characters through the masks, experiencing their different realities as something of a vessel.
folklore is also an album with an underlying sense of grief and loss, and some of its tracks remind me a lot of the conversations brendan and stephen were having during the episode. the song seven - where taylor recalls how as a child, she believed her friendâs house was haunted because it was the only way her child-mind could understand the reality of an abusive household - reminded me of the discussions of the âaliensâ possibly being romaniâs way of understanding bandit attacks, or whether the little girl with the gibdo father was an allegory for losing a parent to their own grief.
finally, the conversations about linkâs own psyche and trauma after ocarina have echoes in some of the lyrics on the album - âi can go anywhere i want, just not homeâ, for instance, or âyou dream of some epiphany / just a single glimpse of relief to make some sense of what youâve seenâ.
