{academic}
Singer and songwriter Taylor Swift’s folklore is an accoladed feat of musical storytelling (“Taylor Swift Wins Album Of The Year For 'Folklore' | 2021 GRAMMY Awards Show” 2021).
Singer and songwriter Taylor Swift’s folklore is an accoladed feat of musical storytelling (“Taylor Swift Wins Album Of The Year For 'Folklore' | 2021 GRAMMY Awards Show” 2021). Three of folklore’s songs tell one interconnected story from three different perspectives; those songs are “cardigan” (the album’s second track), “august” (folklore’s eight track), and “betty” (folklore’s fourteenth track). Such a trio comprise the album’s “Teenage Love Triangle Storyline” – a narrative which covers “James” and “Betty’s” high-school love-story, the affair that James has with another woman, and the fallout of James’ affair (Huff, 2020). In the chapter, “The Hero and the God,” from his The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell proposes a list of historical approaches to folkloric hero stories. The author predominantly focuses on two structures of a hero story: that exemplified by Buddhism’s myth of Siddhartha Gautama, and the Old Testament’s telling of the legend of Moses.
In this paper, I set out to plot the characters of Swift’s folklore’s “Teenage Love Triangle” according to Campbell’s structure of the hero’s journey. My subject of analysis, the “Teenage Love Triangle,” can be examined in three separate discourses: it can be studied as a piece of music, as a piece of poetry, and as a novel (or as a “story”). As the objective of this paper pertains to the story that Swift and her co-writers, two of her producers, Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, and Swift’s then-boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, credited under the pseudonym of “William Bowery,” have aimed to communicate through the three songs’ lyrics, I will be conducting a literary analysis of “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty”. The arena, so to speak, that the “Teenage Love Triangle’s” characters – Betty, James, and the woman that James has cheated on Betty with – inhabit, is the arena of romance, of sex, of love, and of marital union. Therefore, Campbell’s ultimate boon (23) will be an illumination of a previously unknowable aspect of romantic and intimate relationships between men (folklore’s James) and women (folklore’s Betty, and the other woman). “cardigan” details the reasons why Betty loves James; “august” discloses the other woman’s desires for a committed relationship with James; and “betty” is James’ apologetic confession for fooling around on Betty. Joseph Campbell outlines the universal and ahistorical structure of the hero’s journey to heroism as the traversal from home, to the underworld, to back into the world of the living and to the place that the hero calls home (23-24). The hero’s hometown is Point X, where they venture to in the underworld is Point Y, and to whence they decide to plant themselves after they have returned from the underworld is Point Z (23). According to Campbell, by the time the hero has made themselves a home for themselves, they possess an ultimate boon that they are compelled to share with humanity (23-26).
At the end of his chapter, “The Hero and the God,” Campbell juxtaposes two mythical figures: the hero who sets out to gain something and who, in the process of this quest for some treasure, learns of an ultimate boon but does not share it with humanity, and the god, who begins as a hero on a quest for something butthat does not know what that thing is, and who, upon gaining his ultimate boon, shares it with as many people as he can (29-31). Campbell illustrates this binarization of the two figure types by explaining how Gautama Buddha is an exemplar of the latter type, and Moses is an exemplar of the former type. While Campbell goes on to further deconstruct the hero’s journey into the identifiable stages contained within the broader stages of “separation,” (from Point X to Point Y) “initiation,” (from Point Y to Point Z) and “return” (from Point Z to Point X or to somewhere that is the hero’s new home), I will be measuring the “Teenage Love Triangle” in relation to this original outlining. Joseph Campbell first lays out the mythical structure of how Gautama Buddha came to the state of nirvana.
The prince, Siddhartha Gautama, stole away from his palace and surrendered up all of which he had had in his life as a prince. He became a beggar, and transcended the, “…eight stages of medication. (24)” Thinking his body is on the brink of death, Gautama secludes himself in a hermitage, yet his life force is regained, and he enters into a lifestyle of, “ascetic wander[ing]. (24)” While in contemplation under a tree, he consumes milk-rice given to him by the girl, “Sujata,” and upon tossing his emptied bowl into a nearby river, the utensil floats upstream: a sign that his attainment of nirvana was incoming (25). As he travels – using instinct alone – towards the “Tree of Enlightenment,” the local flora and fauna become enlivened (26). The thousand-handed god of both love and death, “Kama-Mara,” launches at Gautama with the god’s massive army upon the to-be religious figure’s submission to the “Bo Tree’s” knowledge (26). Kamara-Mara (or “the Antagonist”) threw, “Whirlwind, rocks, thunder and flame, smoking weapons with keen edges, burning coals, hot ashes, boiling mud, blistering sands and fourfold darkness, (26)” but such were turned into, “flowers and ointments (26),” by Gautama’s powerful mind (26). The Antagonist attempted to lure Gautama to the female flesh of his daughters, “Desire, Pining, and Lust,” (26) but failed. Gautama petted the earth when the Antagonist threw his divine discus at the religious figure, and this act of selflessness and trust drew out, “…the goddess Earth [who let out] hundred[s of] thousand[s of] roars, (26)” and the Antagonist was defeated (26). The man, Siddhartha Gautama, then came to three realizations: “…the first [being] his pre-vious existences,…the second [being] the divine eye of omniscient vision, and…the last [being] the understanding of the chain of causation. (26)” As spurred on by Brahma, the now-Buddha, traveled across the world and taught the realizations he had come to, to as many men as he could (26-27).
“Betty” would be Campbell’s figure of the first Buddha. “cardigan” opens up the “Teenage Love Triangle”: over its course, Betty establishes the kind of relationship that she and her seventeen-year-old boyfriend, James, share. The refrain of the song’s verses, “When you are young, they assume you know nothing, (0:14-0:17)” is dialogic with the refrain of its choruses, “And when I felt like I was an old cardigan / Under someone’s bed / You put me on and said I was your favourite (0:51-1:01). Because of James’ ability to heal Betty from past scars – whatever in her personal history had made her feel like an “old cardigan” – she feels like he is the one partner that she is meant to be with; regardless of if outside voices express that she is too young to know such a thing, Betty is confident in her and James’ perfection as a romantic pairing. Taylor Swift and Aaron Dessner (the songwriters on “cardigan”) communicate this theme of Betty feeling as though she has been healed by James with a later and more straightforward line: “You drew stars around my scars (2:10-2:13).” This last line is followed by the lyric, “But now I’m bleedin’, (2:14-2:17)” to make a couplet. This couplet from 2:10-2:17 in the song, is connected to the song’s second verse: “A friend to all is a friend to none / Chase two girls, lose the one / When you are young, they assume you know nothing (1:06-1:18).” Despite James ghosting Betty in an attempt to hide firstly, his dissatisfaction with their relationship and secondly, his affair, and despite her young-age, Betty has put together both of these pieces of information.
Where Betty is writing “cardigan” from resembles Siddhartha Gautama’s state of emptiness and absolution. Rather than speaking to James, she writes this song (according to the diegesis of the “Teenage Love Triangle” narrative) (Huff, 2020). The couplet, “You drew stars around my scars / But now I’m bleedin’, (2:10-2:17)” encapsulates this same emotional beat that is found at the top of the Buddha’s story – a saddened, despondent, and hopeless beat. Rather than consuming an outside resource for one’s health, and learning about the future vis-à-vis that resource (in the way that Gautama’s upstream-floating bowl is the aftermath of the milk-rice that he eats), Betty feeds her own hope that James will come back to her. The final verse to “cardigan” opens with the tercet, “‘Cause I knew you / Steppin’ on the last train / Marked me like a bloodstain, (2:19-2:26).” This tercet makes two linguistic turns: the first, is how “‘Cause I knew you” connects to “Steppin’ on the last train,” and the second, how the tercet’s first line connects to “Marked me like a bloodstain”. Betty knows that James is the kind of person who will come home at the end of his extra-domestic ventures (the first linguistic turn). Betty also knows that James has, “Marked [her] like a bloodstain, (2:26)” (the second linguistic turn). The version of Betty that is writing “cardigan,” hopes that James will come back from where he is currently – both physically, and emotionally –, that she is not. Betty’s doubt is her own “Kamara-Mara” figure.
Betty’s usage of the metaphor device, illustrates that she feels herself, like a bloodstain left by James. As I have already discussed, James has the ability to make Betty feel the emotions at both ends of the emotional spectrum – worthy of his love, and undeserving of love altogether. Thus, James himself can also be read as a figure of both love and death; Swift and Dessner’s usage of the “bloodstain” symbol (“cardigan” 2:26) tethers those two ideas together. The rest of “cardigan’s” chorus, its final verse, and its final refrain, resemble Gautama’s battle with “Kamara-Mara”. In the chorus’ lines, “Tried to change the ending / Peter losing Wendy, (2:29-2:33)” that same emotional beat found within the Buddha story’s concept of, “Whirlwind[s of dangerous elements of nature and]…weapons with…edges…[transforming into]…flowers and ointments (26),” is hit upon. Betty is hoping that by writing “cardigan,” and then showing it to James (whom the words are addressed to in the “Teenage Love Triangle”), she can move him to come back to her. By taking all of her pain (such that feels like, “Whirlwind, rocks, thunder and flame, smoking weapons with keen edges, burning coals, hot ashes, boiling mud, blistering sands and fourfold darkness, (Campbell, 26)”) and making a love-song from it, she hopes that James will be moved. The septet that closes the final verse of “cardigan,” resembles the Buddha’s petting of the Earth. The septet reads, “Chasin’ shadows in the grocery line / I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired / And you’d be standin’ in my front porch light / And I knew you’d come back to me / You’d come back to me / And you’d come back to me / You’d come back to me, (3:05-3:30)”. Betty wants James back, but she will settle for chasing his shadow. Like Siddhartha Gautama trusts that the Earth will protect him against Kamara-Mara, Betty trusts that James will return home, and that the Betty-James pairing will put itself back together again, as the lines, “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired / And you’d be standin’ in my front porch light, (3:08-3:14)” state.
In contrast with this story of a hero’s journey, Campbell presents the following story of another hero’s journey; the latter’s structure making the man into just a “hero” according to Campbell, and the former’s structure, making him into a “universal hero,” or a god-like figure (30). In the Old Testament, God calls to Moses from Mount Sinai and the leader of the Israelites goes up to meet with God. God, “…ben[ds] the heavens, move[s] the earth, and sh[akes] the bounds of the world, so that the depths trembled, and the heavens [became] frightened (27).” Eventually Moses gains access to the heavens and Mount Sinai rises off of the ground (27). Myriads of angels bestow a “crown of fire” to each of the Israelites because like the Levites, they worshipped God and not the “Golden Calf,” but unlike the Levites, the Israelites were God’s chosen tribe (27). God appears to Moses, and the latter narrates the Ten Commandments to the Israelites. “James,” falls into Campbell’s model for Moses. James is dissatisfied with the stability of his life with Betty – a life that is constituted of both, a peaceful home-life (as is expressed in the lyrics, “I knew you / Hand under my sweater / Baby, kiss it better, (“cardigan” 0:45-0:49)” and, “You drew stars around my scars, (2:10-2:18)”), and a relationship that Betty attempts to keep sufficiently lively (“Dancin’ in your Levi’s / Drunk under a streetlight, (0:38-0:40)” and, “To kiss in cars and downtown bars / Was all we needed (2:03-2:09)”). James is called, like the biblical Moses, to cheat on Betty with the woman who narrates “august”.
Swift and her collaborator Jack Antonoff write the narrator of “august” in opposition to Betty; if the latter is defined by the refrain of the song that she narrates, “And when I felt like I was an old cardigan / Under someone’s bed / You put me on and said I was your favorite, (1:35-1:45)” the opposite is true for the “august” narrator as well, “August slipped away into a moment in time / Cause it was never mine / And I can see us twisted in bedsheets / August slipped away like a bottle of wine / Cause you were never mine (0:29-0:47).” Betty-James is characterized by its domestication, familiarity and comfort, where the James-other woman relationship is characterized by its ephemerality, intoxication and physicality. Like Moses with access to God’s word, James thinks that he has heretofore been lacking this second set of qualities. In the “Teenage Love Triangle” narrative, James has left Betty by the beginning of “cardigan” because he believes that he will be bestowed some prize (like the crown of fire, or the Ten Commandments) if he, “twist[s] in bedsheets,” with the “august” narrator. In “betty,” James apologizes for this lapse in judgment: “I was walking home… / Just thinking of you when she pulled up like / A figment of my worst intentions / She said ‘James, get in, let’s drive’ / Those days turned into nights / Slept next to her, but / I dreamt of you all summer long (2:36-2:57)”. Where Moses perceives his boon as a gift that has been gained, according to the aforementioned song-bridge, James does not regard the lesson that he has learned from spending his summer driving in the other woman’s car, and sharing the same woman’s bed, as something positive. Rather, he comes away from the events of “august,” with the realization that even when he was physically with the “august” narrator, his heart (“I dreamt of you all summer long” (“betty” 2:54-2:57) and his thoughts (“I was walking home on broken cobblestones / Just thinking of you” (2:36-241)) were with Betty. Moreover, what Moses regards in the biblical Moses story as listening to the voice of God, James regards as his, “worst intentions” (2:44-2:46).
In the “Teenage Love Triangle” narrative, listening to outside voices that tempt away from what is “home” is framed as a test, rather than as a heeding of a divine order. James’ extra-monogamous seasonal migratory activities (his and the other woman’s travelling by car) and non-monogamy (his simply, “Sle[eping] next to” the other woman, as he recounts it to the listener, and to Betty, who the song is addressed to in the diegesis of the “Teenage Love Triangle,” or alternatively, their more sexual-sounding, “twist[ing] in bedsheets,” as in the “august” narrator’s recounting), are what differentiate him, from Betty. Though “cardigan” is full of intense sadness, the listener is lead along a path of different beats of sadness over the course of the song, rather than the song itself containing lyrics that voice how sad Betty is truly feeling. In other words, the listener can feel how much Betty misses James, without her explicitly telling the listener about her unfavourable romantic-situation. Betty is being the bigger person, by refraining from ordering James around: based on the type of song that she writes (a bittersweet love-song that nonetheless expresses her acute sadness), her “universal god” status is displayed. The listener does not hear from James until the affair is over, after he has gone and cheated on Betty, and he is asking Betty for forgiveness after-the-fact. That he is unwilling to even talk to Betty about what he feels is lacking from their relationship, and that Betty has to put the pieces together herself about what is going on behind her back, is revealing of his comparative status as simply Campbell’s figure of the “hero”. James has to become a “universal god”.
Campbell reproaches the hero that, “…dart[s] to his goal (by violence, quick device, or luck) and pluck[s] the boon for the world,” that he initially desired (29). The author states that as a rule of nature, depending on the acute selfishness with which this heroic figure uses the boon he has collected through morally-imperfect strategies (or that he has been given because of chance or luck), “…the [supernatural] powers that he has unbalanced,” will react in a manner which punishes this model of a hero (29). Campbell gives the example of Prometheus, who stole the power of fire from the Olympians, and was cursed with his liver regrowing and being partly eaten by an eagle every day, for all of eternity (29). James’ selfishness is acute: in spite of how stable his relationship with Betty is, in the face of how safe and secure he has thus far made Betty feel, not just about their relationship, but about her place in the world that the characters live in, and at the risk of not just Betty-James breaking apart as a pairing, but Betty possibly falling apart from losing faith in someone that she views as a saviour-figure, he goes with the “august” narrator. If James’ boon is the lesson that Betty was the one who was his perfect match before he had cheated on her, then it would be correct to say that he did come to such a realization through chance. As the “betty” lines, “I was walking home on broken cobblestones / Just thinking of you when she pulled up like / A figment… / [and] said ‘James, get in, let’s drive, (2:36-2:47),” describe, James and the “august” narrator’s meeting was a chance encounter. While the authors of the “Teenage Love Triangle,” Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff,, Joe Alwyn and Aaron Dessner, do not subject James to as fatal a punishment as Prometheus, in the time between the beginning of “august” and the final lines of “betty,” he has been moved to a self-reflection of his affair, and the acute selfishness that compelled him to act on the other woman’s, “‘James, get in, let’s drive,’ (2:47-2:49).”
“betty” opens with the lyrics, “Betty, I won’t make assumptions about why you switched your homeroom / But I think it’s cause of me (0:12-0:18).” In “cardigan”, which is addressed to James, Betty confesses how he had put her back together after feeling like someone else had reduced her to feeling useless (“And when I felt like I was an old cardigan / Under someone’s bed / You put me on and said I was your favourite (0:51-1:01)”); “betty’s” first two lines are dialogic with this sentiment that Betty expresses at the beginning of Swift’s “Teenage Love Triangle”. James has power over Betty – he has the power to make her feel both, shiny and beautiful, (as the chorus to “cardigan” affirms and reaffirms) and unwanted and undesirable (so significantly, that she switches homerooms to put what she believes is a sufficient distance of space between them). To make things right with Betty (Swift and Alwyn’s equivalent to Campbell’s re-balancing of the “powers that [the hero] has unbalanced” (29)), James performs – within the diegesis of the narrative – “betty” to his former-girlfriend. Rather than an external punishment like that which Prometheus is condemned to, James undergoes an internal conflict. The first quatrain of “betty’s” choruses is: “But if I just showed up at your party / Would you have me? Would you want me? / Would you tell me to go fuck myself / Or lead me to the garden? (0:52-1:02).” Up until the final verse, this quatrain is preceded by the lyrics, “The worst thing that I ever did / Was what I did to you, (0:41-0:50).” This second couplet is dialogic with a line from “cardigan” that I have already briefly discussed – “Chase two girls, lose the one, (1:09-1:13).” James is besought by internal conflictions regarding whether he can have back the life that he stepped out on as the lines, “Would you have me? / Would you want me? (0:55-1:00),” in particular express.
(Most of) the final verse of “betty” reads as follows, “Yeah, I showed up at your party / Will you have me? Will you love me? / Will you kiss me on the porch / In front of all your stupid friends / If you kiss me,… / Will it patch your broken wings? (4:05-4:21).” Where James is a saviour-figure to Betty, James has come to see Betty – at the end of the “Teenage Love Triangle” – as an angel-figure: “Will [this apology] patch your broken wings? (4:19-4:21).” The name of Swift, Dessner, Antonoff, and Alywn’s narrative is the final puzzle piece to its story: because the narrative is a triangle, Betty will forgive James. Three of the final lines in the “Teenage Love Triangle,” “But I know I miss you / Standing in your cardigan / Kissin’ in my car again, (“betty” 4:25-4:37)” provide the summation of James’ feelings regarding the situation that has taken place over Swift, Dessner, Antonoff, and Alwyn’s folklore narrative. If the “Teenage Love Triangle” was mapped, “cardigan” would be its apex, “august,” its first acute angle, and “betty,” its second acute angle. In the topos of folklore, the album, “cardigan” is at the top of the album (its second song), “august” falls in its middle (as its eighth song), and “betty” is in its third act (as its fourteenth song). As a triadic narrative, the end of “betty,” is the beginning of “cardigan.”
Campbell presents the Old Testament’s story of the “Deluge” as an alternative model for thinking about the mythical structure of a hero story (29). In Campbell’s words, flood stories are found in a variety of ancient civilizations and global cultures (27-28). According to the Deluge structure, “…the hero [does] not go…to[wards] power, but [it is] the power that rises against the hero, and again subsides (29).” The triangularity of folklore’s “Teenage Love Triangle” ultimately follows the Deluge’s model of a “hero story”. James’ desire is tempted (he leaves “home,” or Campbell’s “Point X”), he cheats on Betty (Point Y), and he returns to Betty with the boon that he has learned (Point Z) (Campbell, 23). Throughout the “Teenage Love Triangle” Betty has satisfied Campbell’s “universal hero”: all she desires is the life that she had with James before his affair, and that the title of the narrative suggests that they will have again. Betty resembles Campbell’s universal hero before the “Teenage Love Triangle” has even begun: as can be extrapolated from the chorus of “cardigan,” Betty is on a quest to be healed from what in her past had made her feel unloved and undeserving of being the love of someone’s life. Her boon that she has found, that enables her to feel good about herself again, is James (someone that is able to heal her scars). Furthermore, her patience to let James have an affair with the “august” narrator, and her faith in the hope that he would find his way back to her, is additional evidence that she is the Triangle’s first universal hero: she is willing to share her boon, with whomever (the “august” narrator) that requires him. folklore’s James is on a similar quest to his on-and-off-again girlfriend Betty – he is likewise searching to find his one true match. Unlike Betty, however, James sees love as one prize, in the game that is life.
Where Betty is looking for salvation from somewhere and happens to be healed by James, James has set out to find the ultimate romantic partner that will enhance his life. When he is tempted by the “august” narrator, he jumps ship because he is a selfish character: even though he has a beautiful life with Betty, he would rather find what Betty has been unable to thusly give to him, with the first woman he sees that he thinks could fulfill that lack. While lyrics in “cardigan” point to Betty trying to provide James with the excitement and sensuality that he desires (and that which is not in her nature to desire herself) – such as, “Drunk under a streetlight, (0:39-0:40)” and, “To kiss in cars and downtown bars, (2:03-2:06)” – James chooses to spend his summer in the car, and in bed, with another woman. As “betty” reveals, however, James has learnt that there is no replacing Betty. His boon, is therefore: infidelity is one method of determining how wholly perfect a relationship is, or can be, but that infidelity greatly hurts the person that is being cheated on (as “cardigan” vocalizes), and can threaten to destroy a relationship (as James expresses worry about on “betty”). “august” is the outcome of James teaching this boon to the woman that he has fooled around on Betty with. While James passes on his boon to “Betty” through the words of “betty,” the seventeen-year-old teaches this lesson to the “august” narrator either off-the-page (in the time between “august” and “betty”), or sometime during the affair.
“august’s” first verse, “Salt air, and the rust on your door / I never needed anything more / Whispers of ‘Are you sure?’ / ‘Never have I ever before’, (0:07-0:26)” suggests that Betty and the song’s narrator are in comparable situations, when it comes to their romantic-lives. The verse’s second couplet lends itself to the interpretation that the other woman, like James, is betraying her own romantic partner. James and the narrator are hesitant to fool around on their partners as the dialectic lines, “‘Are you sure?’” and “‘Never have I ever before’,” point to. However, as the song’s choruses reaffirm, “August slipped away like a bottle of wine / ‘Cause you were never mine, (0:40-0:47)” the “august” narrator learns that she is not meant for James. It is possible to conjecture that her partner is the one that is a better fit for her than James is, in a comparable way to the boon that Betty is more suitable for James than she is. The other woman therefore, could be said to have collected her own boon: that splitting up couples is an action that will disturb the supernatural balance that Campbell speaks of (26). While she did not necessarily ask, “James, get in, let’s drive, (“betty” 2:45-2:48)” while knowing that he was in a committed relationship with Betty, who is to say that she has the same chances of mending her and her partner’s relationship, as the chances that James has with Betty?
Works Cited
Alwyn, Joe, and Taylor Swift. “Taylor Swift – betty (Official Lyric Video).” YouTube, 24 Jul. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TAPqXkZW_I&list=PLmU8B4gZ41icKdheg4d2KZBgDR1wSWfbH&index=14.
Antonoff, Jack, and Taylor Swift. “Taylor Swift – august (Official Lyric Video).” YouTube, 24 Jul. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn_0zPAfyo8&list=PLmU8B4gZ41icKdheg4d2KZBgDR1wSWfbH&index=8.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books, 1949.
Dessner, Aaron, and Taylor Swift. “Taylor Swift - cardigan (Official Lyric Video).” YouTube, 24 Jul. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLSUp53y-HQ.
Huff, Lauren. “Taylor Swift's teenage love triangle songs on Folklore explained.” Entertainment Weekly, 29 July 2020, ew.com/music/taylor-swifts-teenage-love-triangle-songs-folklore-explained/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2023.
Yglesias, Ana Monroy. “Taylor Swift Wins Album Of The Year For 'Folklore' | 2021 GRAMMY Awards Show.” Recording Academy Grammy Awards, 15 Mar. 2021, www.grammy.com/news/taylor-swift-wins-album-year-folklore-2021-grammys. Accessed 14 Mar. 2023.