For the majority of her career, Taylor Swift’s music has been pretty safe for work and appropriate for people of all sensibilities. That remains mostly true today, although there is one moment on Folklore where kids might want to put on their earmuffs. On “Mad Woman,” she says “f*ck” for the first time in one of her songs, singing, “What do you sing on your drive home? / Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn? / Does she smile? / Or does she mouth, ‘F*ck you forever?'”
Studies have shown that swearing is good for you, and indeed, Taylor says dropping that F-bomb felt awesome. In a new Entertainment Weekly interview, she was asked how it felt, and she responded simply, “F*cking fantastic.”
Got to do this shoot with my folklore co-conspirator Beth Garrabrant & talk to @AlexJSuskind for @EW. Thank you to @StellaMcCartney for the lewks. Mr. Horse told me personally he was stoked knowing no animals were harmed in the making of Stella’s clothes🐴 https://t.co/aKTa5SQC4c pic.twitter.com/N7NT6HZ6MU
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) December 8, 2020
She then elaborated:
“Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven’t done this before, so you can’t ever do this. ‘Well, you’ve never had an explicit sticker, so you can’t ever have an explicit sticker.’ But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn’t adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I’m really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I’m not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I’m glad they picked up on because they’re very intuitive.”
Check out the full interview here and see where Folklore falls on our list of 2020’s best albums here.