the lakes
Bonus Track | Promotional Single | folklore (2020)
Table of Contents
Background and Release
«I thought it would be the perfect way to slot the last puzzle piece in. Right when people were least expecting it. Because ‘hoax’ is the ending song for the record which I thought was interesting for a couple of weeks but then I actually wanted to come in with the real last song of the record, which is ‘the lakes’. It shows you the overarching theme of the whole album of trying to escape, having something you wanna protect, trying to protect your own sanity and saying ‘Look, they did this hundreds of years ago. I’m not the first person who’s felt this way.’»
Taylor Swift
Lyrical Theme
«We’d gone to the Lake District in England a couple years ago. In the 19th century you had a lot of poets like William Wordsworth and John Keats who’d spend a lot of time there. And there was a poet district, these artists that moved there. They were heckled for it and made fun of for being these eccentrics and kind of odd artists who decided that they just wanted to live there. I remember thinking, ‘I could see this.’ You live in a cottage and you got wisteria growing up the outside of it…of course they escaped like that. And they had their own community of other artists who’d done the same thing. I’ve always, in my career since I was probably about twenty, written about this cottage backup plan that I have. I have been writing about that forever.»
Taylor Swift
«I went to William Wordsworth’s grave and just sat there and I was like, ‘Wow. He went and did it.’ And you kept writing but you didn’t subscribe to the things that were killing you. And that’s really the overarching thing that I felt when I was writing folklore: I may not be able to go to The Lakes right now – or to go anywhere – but I’m going there in my head. The escape plan is working.»
Taylor Swift
Production
«On one of my favorite songs on folklore, 'the lakes,' there was this big orchestral version, and Taylor was like, 'Eh, make it small.' I had gotten lost in the string arrangements and all this stuff and I took everything out. I was just like, 'Oh, my God!' We were not together because that record was made [remotely], but I remember being in the studio alone like, 'Holy shit, this is so perfect.'»
Jack Antonoff
Live Performances
Critical Reception
Commercial Performance
Lyrics
[Verse 1]
Is it romantic how all my elegies
Eulogize me?
I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones
These hunters with cell phones
[Chorus]
Take me to the Lakes
Where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong
And, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks
Look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off
But not without my muse
[Verse 2]
What should be over
Burrowed under my skin
In heart-stopping waves of hurt
I’ve come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze tell me what are my words worth
[Chorus]
Take me to the Lakes
Where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong
And, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks
Look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off
But not without my muse
[Bridge]
I want auroras and sad prose
I want to watch wisteria grow
Right over my bare feet
‘Cause I haven’t moved in years
And I want you right here
A red rose grew up
Out of ice frozen ground
With no one around to tweet it
While I bathe in cliffside pools
With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief
[Final Chorus]
Take me to the Lakes
Where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong
And, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks
Look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off
But not without my muse
No, not without you
[Verse 1]
Is it romantic how all my elegies
Eulogize me?
I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones
These hunters with cell phones
[Chorus]
Take me to the Lakes
Where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong
And, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks
Look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off
But not without my muse
[Verse 2]
What should be over
Burrowed under my skin
In heart-stopping waves of hurt
I’ve come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze tell me what are my wordsworth
[Chorus]
Take me to the Lakes
Where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong
And, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks
Look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off
But not without my muse
[Bridge]
I want auroras and sad prose
I want to watch wisteria grow
Right over my bare feet
‘Cause I haven’t moved in years
And I want you right here
A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground
With no one around to tweet it
While I bathe in cliffside pools
With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief
[Chorus]
Take me to the Lakes
Where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong
And, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks
Look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off
But not without my muse
Not without you
[Final Chorus]
Take me to the Lakes
Where all the poets went to die
I don’t belong
And, my beloved, neither do you
Those Windermere peaks
Look like a perfect place to cry
I’m setting off
But not without my muse
No, not without you
Artist | Taylor Swift | ||
---|---|---|---|
Album | folklore | ||
Released | August 7, 2020 (Album Version) July 24, 2021 (Original Version) | ||
Recorded | May–July 2020 | ||
Studios | Kitty Committee (Los Angeles) Rough Customer (New York) | ||
Genre | Indie Folk Orchestral | ||
Length | 3:41 (Album Version) 3:47 (Original Version) | ||
Label | Republic Records | ||
Songwriters | Taylor Swift Jack Antonoff | ||
Producers | Jack Antonoff Taylor Swift | ||
FOLKLORE CHRONOLOGY | |||
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