wift shared via Instagram that “my tears ricochet” is about an “embittered tormentor showing up at the funeral of his fallen object of obsession.”
On “mirrorball,” the sixth track off of Taylor Swift’s surprise eighth studio album, folklore, she compares herself to a reflective disco ball:
This song is about one of Taylor’s childhood friends who seemed to have had an unhappy life at home.
“august” is another folklore track produced with Swift’s frequent collaborator and friend Jack Antonoff, who called the song one of his “favorite things [they’ve] done together.”
Much like Swift’s August 2019 track “Afterglow,” “this is me trying” sees her accepting fault for relationship issues and making an effort to repair them.
“illicit affairs” tackles the idea of infidelity, which she first discussed on 2006’s “Should’ve Said No.”