"cardigan" by Taylor Swift // Song Review + Songwriting Voice Memo Exclusive Vinyl Singles Collection

- April 27, 2025

On this day five years ago, Taylor Swift wrote one of the most defining songs of her entire career, "cardigan". This song shapes so much of the underlying storyline of Folklore and lays the foundation for much of the work she created in the years since. Alongside the premiere of the "cardigan" music video in 2020, Taylor wrote, "This song is about a lost romance and why young love is often fixed so permanently within our memories. Why it leaves such an indelible mark." It remains a stunning example of her ability to blend wistful nostalgia with deeply evocative storytelling.

This song, along with the rest of what eventually became Folklore, emerged from the quiet solitude of the early days of the pandemic. Taylor created the entirety of this record alone at home, collaborating virtually with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, a particularly prolific and creatively fulfilling period in which she wrote two albums in close succession. Folklore came together remarkably fast and was surprise-released in July 2020. Taylor began working on it early into lockdown and was fully completed and released in the matter of just a few months. I will never forget the feeling I had when I first heard this song and first saw the music video, it was truly such an emotionally transcending musical experience to listen to it, along with the rest of Folklore that night. I still think about it every time I listen to it and continue to have so many of the same feelings for it all these years later. A song as special as this truly only comes once in twenty lifetimes!

"cardigan" was made remotely with Aaron Dessner, who at the time was a first-time collaborator. Their creative partnership quickly blossomed into one of the most significant of her entire career. In the past five years, they have went on to create some of their best and most celebrated work together.

As the lead single of Folklore, "cardigan" beautifully introduces the themes and moods that define this chapter of Taylor's artistry. It sets the tone for an album that is steeped in nostalgia, storytelling, and longing. For me, "cardigan" and "the 1" are sister songs, intrinsically linked, representing so much of the magic that makes this album the masterpiece it is. They capture different shades of love and loss, each carrying thoughtful reflections on what could have been.

"cardigan" is truly one of the best songs of all time, every lyric holds so much weight and depth. It is so lyrically vivid as she recalls this formative time in her life that inspired the song. The specific details in the opening lines perfectly depict the scene of which she is trying to convey. "Vintage tee, brand new phone, high heels on cobblestones, when you are young, they assume you know nothing," Taylor sings.

"This is a song that's about long lost love, and looking back on it and how special it made you feel, all the good things it made you feel, all the pain that it made you feel," Taylor said in an interview with BBC Radio 1. "And when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed, you put me on and said I was your favorite," she sings in the chorus. The love left an indelible mark on her that she says would go on to "haunt all of my what-ifs".

The echoes of this song are not just throughout Folklore, but across so much Taylor's later work as well. A song like "Peter" immediately comes to mind as one that is directly tied to "cardigan," alongside "Fortnight". The Peter Pan and Wendy symbolism is particularly compelling, a recurring theme that threads through so much of her music. There is a yearning for a past love that was never meant to be, even though she wishes it could have. "To kiss in cars and downtown bars was all we needed, you drew stars around my scars, but now I'm bleedin,'" she sings.

The lingering and unresolved feelings from that time in her life, and the yearning that one day he would come back to her make up so much of not just this album, but also years later with The Tortured Poets Department as well. The release of that album in 2024 gave so much more perspective to a song like "cardigan", and so much of the rest of Folklore. "I knew I'd curse you for the longest time, 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," she sings in the bridge.

For a limited time on her webstore in July 2020, Taylor sold multiple variants of the original voice memo of "cardigan" on vinyl. According to the screenshot Aaron posted, she sent him the memo on April 27, 2020. It is so cool to hear it, as it gives such a rare glimpse into the earliest form of a song that would go on to become one of Folklore's defining moments.

There are no official numbers on how many of the gold 7" and 12" variants were pressed, but they were only made available for 48 hours. They were never sold again or repressed since then. The picture disc was also available for a short time on her store and was limited to 13,000 copies worldwide. All three of these pressings are so beautiful and capture the Folklore aesthetic so perfectly. I especially love the 12" gold pressing, it looks like a liquid molten gold when held up to the light.

The covers of the 7" and 12" variants are the same, which features a photo of Taylor on the front from the album's photoshoot, along with a handwritten note about the creation of this song and the rest of Folklore on the back. The picture disc features a larger version of the photos on the center labels of the gold pressings on side A and B.

She has released several voice memo/demo versions of her songs in the past and it's always so cool to get a glimpse into her writing process in this way. This version of the song was never officially released on streaming, but there are audio rips of the memo reuploaded onto YouTube. This is the first and only time thus far that one of these demos were pressed on vinyl, which is something I would love for her to one day do again with more of her singles.

Much of Folklore began with Aaron sending Taylor an archive of instrumental tracks he had produced, and Taylor writing over them, layering her lyrics onto his compositions and sending them back. His original instrumental was titled "Maple". This was a completely different way of making music for Taylor, but ended up becoming the foundation of all of the early collaborations and an approach that would become essential to much of their future work together.

Listening to the original voice memo she sent to him gives so much insight into her songwriting process. It showcases how much the song has evolved from the earliest draft, but also how much of it was fully formed from the start. There are only a few lyrics that are different than what ultimately ended up becoming the final version of "cardigan", which only further highlights just how naturally her songwriting often comes together from the start.

The second verse is most notably different than the final version. "But I knew you, living in a gold age, sneaking to my bird cage," she sings in the alternate verse. "I knew you, laughing like a damn fool, breaking every damn rule".

The alternate final verse is also equally poetic and devasting, "I knew I'd curse you for the longest time, I knew I'd wish you would've changed your mind, I knew you'd miss me once the moment died, I knew to love would be to lose my mind".

At the end of the voice note, she signs off in the most casual way, "And then, I don't know. You let me know what you think. And, uh, that's just kind of like a rough idea of... something. Let me know if you like it," she says at the end of the memo. Hearing this early version is such a rare glimpse into her creative process of creating songs that feel timeless from the very first draft.

I have written about Taylor Swift's music many times in the past, which are all linked here and below. I have specifically written about the music from Folklore several times - including my 2020 album review, the folklore: the long pond studio sessions vinyl, "the lakes" vinyl + song review, "the 1" song review, and much more all linked here as well. 2025 also marks the fifth anniversary of the rest of Folklore, so be sure to expect even more in the coming months related to this album!