Taylor Swift is revealing some behind-the-scenes secrets from the video for her single, ‘Cardigan.’
The superstar, who’s notorious for hiding Easter Eggs and hidden meaning in her work, opened up about the video’s true meaning in the latest episode of Vevo’s series “Footnotes.”
The video confirms several fan theories about the room at the video’s opening, including the reveal that Taylor herself created the painting of a white house featured next to the piano. Taylor also verifies that the photograph in the cabin is indeed of her grandfather, Dean, whose perspective her song “Epiphany” is told from.
Eagle-eyed fans also noticed that the hands on the clock were pointed to 1 and 3, which Taylor confirms is a reference to her favorite number, 13.
The “Shake It Off” singer also opens up about some of the lyrical secrets on the album. “There’s a collection of three songs I refer to as the The Teenage Love Triange (in my head). These three songs explore a summer love triangle from all three people’s perspectives at different times in their lives,” she says. “It’s like this one event happened in their town and affected all of them differently.”
Fans have speculated that the songs “Cardigan,” “August,” and “Betty,” make up the trio, and Taylor herself has previously confirmed that she used her friends’ children as the inspiration for the names featured in the songs.
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In the “Footnotes” video, Taylor continued to explain what stimulated her to write the new album. “I was inspired by the feeling of isolation and how that can be either freeing or terrifying, and how it causes you to reminisce on the past,” she said.
The songstress also opened up about how her collaboration with The National’s Aaron Dessner, who produced the majority of the album, came to be. After meeting at one of The National’s concerts, Taylor picked his brain about music. “I started asking him about what their writing process is. He told me they work remotely a lot because they all live all over the world,” she said. “When quarantine hit and I found myself wanting to write, I reached out and he was really wanting to create too. It’s been one of the most effortless collaborations and I’m very lucky to have met him.”
Dessner wasn’t the only notable artist Taylor worked with on “Cardigan.” When working with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, the singer “was inspired by some of the period pieces and fantasy films she was watching at the time and sent Prieto a number of visual references for each scene, including photographs and drawings as well as a time-coded storyboard shot list.”
The Grammy winner also revealed the meaning behind the three major sets in the “Cardigan” music video: the forest, the open ocean and the cabin. “The forest scene represents the evergreen beginning of a relationship where everything seems magical and full of beauty…” the video reads. “Whereas, this ocean scene represents the isolation and fear involved while a relationship is breaking down.”
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I knew you tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy. The #cardiganMusicVideo is out now.
Finally, when Taylor returns to the cabin at the video’s end, it “signifies returning to a sense of self after experiencing love lost. However, Taylor’s clothes remain soaking wet to represent that she was changed by the journey but has discovered who she always was.”