Taylor Swifts “Folklore” album was released in 2020 and explores a love triangle from all 3 perspectives. Each song in the album explores the emotions and experiences from one of the people in the love triangle, and truly explores how each person is both a victim and a wrong doer. The album was made to show the beauty and tragedy of young romance, and that is where I see the parallel between the album and The Great Gatsby. The tragedy behind the beauty.
The novel largely follows the love triangle of Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby. Daisy Buchanan is unhappily married to Tom, who is also unfaithful. The marriage is superficial and shallow, and I argue that both characters are in most relationships in their lives as well.
The specific song I want to pull parallels from for todays blog post is “Illicit Affairs”, is from the perspective of the person being cheated with, in the narrative this would be Gatsby. The song states in the first verse,
“What started in beautiful rooms
Ends with meetings in parking lots”
This verse almost exactly describes Daisy and Gatsby’s love affair. Gatsby would throw luxurious parties to catch Daisy’s eye, while the two were having to sneak around during her affair with him. The final verse of the song is, and read this in Gatsby’s perspective,
“And you know damn well
For you, I would ruin myself
A million little times”
Gatsby did ruin himself for Daisy. He jumped through numerous hoops just to have her back in his life. From buying a house in the west egg, throwing parties with celebrities, being willing to be an affair. His desire to have Daisy in his life causes him to lose all sense of morality for his own benefit, and as the narrative progresses he literally takes a bullet for her. The narrative also describes Daisy as selfish, which is tragic. As Taylor said the album illicit affairs is on describes both the beauty and tragedy of romance, as does TGG.