Taylor Swift has kept things fairly lowkey for her first “folklore” music video.
It’s pretty much just her, her trusty piano, and a few magical worlds thrown in for good measure.
In the official video for “cardigan” above, Swift is singing in a firelit room when the top of her piano begins to glow golden. She climbs inside it and reappears in a fairytale world, before reappearing in the middle of a choppy ocean and then finally finding her way back home. again.
Is it an extended metaphor for how music can transport us to new places? Or simply a product of the limited filming opportunities created by social distancing?
Either way, it works.