Taylor Swift Should Make ‘Folklore’ Style Docs For All Her Albums

If there’s a Taylor Swift doc on streaming, I will watch it.

I have lifted a champagne flute and toasted the new year with the reputation Stadium Tour and watched Miss Americana with baited, gossipy interest. I even watched the Lover: Live from Paris concert when it was on ABC, beating it to Disney+ But truly, the greatest of all Ms. Taylor Alison Swift’s documentaries has to be the most recent one. Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is an intimate look at the creation of Swift’s celebrated quarantine-era album. It’s so good because it reveals Swift’s true area of genius: songwriting. And it’s so good that I need her to do similar documentaries for all of her other albums ASAP.

I knew that Taylor Swift was a brilliant songwriter the moment I first heard her music. I caught early single “Our Song” playing in a Boston gym and immediately downloaded it on iTunes. What captivated me more than anything else was her ability to seamlessly blend storytelling, ear worm-inducing hooks, and breathlessly clever lyrics into a single seductive package. Oh, and the fact that she was a teenager. While it took me a few more years to become a super devoted fan, I knew then she was talented. There’s no way you can craft something like “Our Song” at that age and not have the creative backbone of a songwriting genius.

Which is why Taylor Swift thrills me the most when she’s explaining her songwriting process. I love hearing how she stumbled out of bed with the chords for “Lover” and then matched the song’s vibe to a professional wish to have a sway-inducing slow dance song. I obsess over her obsession with bridges. I’m fascinated by how she marries the initial spark of inspiration with a dogged pursuit of carefully-crafted pop perfection.

So naturally, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is exactly the shit I want from Ms. Swift. The documentary shot at Folklore collaborator Aaron Dessner’s Long Pond Studios marks the first time Swift was able to work in the same geographic space as Dessner and producer/songwriter Jack Antonoff. The three passed tracks back and forth online while isolating during the first huge wave of COVID-19. Here, the trio not only gets to perform the album together, but they also reflect on each track’s inspiration. It’s all cat nip for this Swift fan.

The trouble is…I want more. I want to know the backstory behind how Swift pulled together the lyrics of “Our Song.” I want to be guided track-by-track through Red. I’m curious how Swift sees some of her early work in the context to her career’s entire trajectory. Most of all, I just want Swift to own how damn good she is at making music. In her concert films, she seems to be chasing the standard of spectacle produced by fellow pop idols like Beyoncé or Lady Gaga. She doesn’t need to. Her musical superpower isn’t producing a mind-blowing concert event, but making music that worms itself into our souls and gets forever intertwined with our most potent memories.

The good news is that Swift might actually be in a position to literally make a Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions-style doc for her entire library. As any Swiftie would tell you, Swift is currently hard at work re-recording all of her pre-Lover masters. And since she’s apparently working in the same studios where she recorded her earlier albums, it stands to reason…Taylor Swift might be making similar documentaries about her entire library. She might!

I solemnly hope that Swift realizes that the passion her fans have for her music isn’t about the clothes she wears or the music videos she makes or even the abundantly fun concerts she puts on. It’s all about the songwriting. Folklore: the Long Pond Studio Sessions put her songwriting genius front and center. You can’t blame fans like me if they want all of Swift’s songs and albums to get the same shine.

Where to stream Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions