Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

The holidays linger like bad perfume
You can run, but only so far
I escaped it too, remember how you watched me leave
But if it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me

Before knowing exactly how much more often I’d be traveling home these past few weeks, I’d scheduled some fortuitous Fridays off from work, as much to make use of accumulated vacation time (unused from these previous months of non-travel) as for holiday errands and deliveries. This past Friday was one such day of minor running about, as I made my way to Amsterdam to drop off some food for my parents. The timing worked out beautifully, as the new Taylor Swift album had been released the midnight prior, and there’s nothing better than listening to good music while driving on a sunny day. This particular album was perfect for a drive on the verge of winter.

Dropping off some adobo and banana bread I’d made that morning, I stayed a safe distance from Mom and Dad in the garage as we talked of family and friends, of the sun that was still shining in December, of the changed holiday plans for this strange year and season. Yet it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t sorrowful – it was actually nice. The idea of a pared-down and simple Christmas hewed closer to home, held closer to our Christmases as children. Maybe that’s part of the lesson the universe wants us to learn right now. When the pupil is ready, the teacher always appears. 

Who’ll write books about me, if I ever make it and wonder about the only soul
Who can tell which smiles I’m faking’ and the heart I know I’m breakin’ is my own
To leave the warmest bed I’ve ever known

There have been a lot of people who have tried to supplant Madonna in my heart. A couple of them were quickly and easily dismissed ~ Britney and Christina, for example. A couple were definite contenders ~ Beyonce and Lady Gaga ~ still both possible contenders given their talent and shape-shifting durability. Now, Taylor Swift is making her move with the surprise release of a second album in a single year. It’s a bold endeavor of genius and brilliance, backed up by a collection of songcraft that is just as strong and compelling as its precursor. (Madonna should take a lesson and put down the Instagram and tattoo excursions for a bit.)

Back in the summer of 2020, Swift surprised everyone with a new album, ‘folklore’, created during everyone’s lockdown, and its indie-like feel and subdued atmosphere was the summer album we didn’t know we needed. While the season began with the necessary dance extravaganza of Dua Lipa’s instantly-iconic ‘Future Nostalgia’, it was ‘folklore’ that resonated with the quiet somberness so many of us were experiencing.

Swift’s second surprise drop, the companion/continuation of ‘folklore’ titled ‘evermore’ carries on where ‘folklore’ ended, apparently a little too soon. This is its winter sister, and she may be slightly better than the original. If I had one tiny little criticism of ‘folklore’ it was that its atmosphere felt too winter-like for such a summery release and themes; ‘evermore’ confirms this opinion, for me (others may feel quite differently) and with that it succeeds on absolutely every level, with its seasonal references to November and December, decking the halls, and titles like ’tis the damn season’.

There is holiday sparkle in a song titled ‘champagne problems’ but the underlying story is a deeper and more complex one that makes these latest albums such powerful vehicles for a mature and artistically-challenging evolution. The music behind it remains the driving force of Swift’s magic, and she has once again conjured a cohesive sonic adventure, a journey of emotional fables and modern-day folklore such as in the opening ‘willow’, continuing stories with fictional (or not?) figures like ‘dorothea’ and ‘marjorie’; those story songs paint vivid portraits, while leaving enough room for varied interpretation, which is the trick to lasting art.

Swift delves into a wiser and more blunt examination of love and romance and relationships ~ more ambivalent, more unsettling, as evidenced by the heartbreaking ‘tolerate it’ or the devastating ‘happiness’ ~ both of which posit questions of how much we are willing to take, how much we might deserve, and how undeserving we might also be. The best stories ~ the ones that reflect our own ~ are not always easily reconciled with happy endings or definitive destruction. Our hearts spill messier than that, they want things that aren’t always noble, they grasp for things that might not make sense… yet they beat on, wanting what they want, destroying when they get hurt, crying out to be understood even when they know none of it makes sense.

Swift has made another prescient album, revealing our hearts at a time when an apocalyptic year comes to its welcome close, when winter is at our doorstep and darker days haunt future corridors. These are songs to see us through such desolation, a gauzy musical mood in which the heart nestles, comforted and acknowledged, even as its restlessness and longing goes unresolved. May such music see us through to the spring.