The fingerpicking of Swift’s teenaged eponymous and “Fearless” country albums, the barely-there strings sections of “Speak Now,” the synth-heavy pop production of “reputation” and the dreamy, retro-inspired soundscapes of “Lover,” all reunite to tell the story of “invisible string.” The chorus pushes Swift’s well-established talent for earworm hooks into new atmospheric, electro-folk territory. Like the lyrics, the song’s instrumentation evokes pieces of Swift’s past as an artist. Rochester says he and Jane are tethered by a cord knotted to their respective left rib cages.įrom the green grass of Nashville’s Centennial Park where Swift used to read and hope to meet boys in high school, to the teal shirt that a 16-year-old Alwyn wore when he worked at a London yogurt shop, the verses usher us through color-filled snapshots of the couple’s separate lives before they knew the other existed. The invisible string could be a nod to the red thread of fate from Chinese mythology - the unseeable red string said to connect two people who are destined to be together - or it could be an allusion to the line in “Jane Eyre” when Mr. The lyrics center on the image of an “invisible string” that, unbeknownst to the two of them, has connected Swift to her current boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, their entire lives, long before they ever met. “Oh, this song is really going to be something,” I thought.

A rubberized bridge modification on the guitar deadens the string vibration and produces that old school, mystical, Sufjan Stevens-esque sound that always makes me feel very in love and very lonely all at the same time. The song kicks off with a fingerpicking intro - pizzicato, like cherry pits plinking into a porcelain bowl, one by one.

Last week, I was walking on my hometown’s beach - the one where, four years ago, I found out I got into Yale - when I heard “invisible string” for the first time, a song from Taylor Swift’s surprise quarantine album, “folklore.”

Invisible string for magic