Taylor Swift — "exile," "seven," and the weight of biblical words

What the work does

Taylor Swift released folklore on 24 July 2020 and evermore on 11 December 2020 — both written and recorded during the early COVID-19 pandemic, both produced largely with Aaron Dessner (of The National) and Jack Antonoff, both shifting away from the pop register that had characterised Swift’s previous albums. The two albums share a quieter, more literary indie-folk register and a willingness to write in character — songs voiced from the perspectives of fictional characters as well as autobiographical voices.

The album titles and song titles draw on a particular literary vocabulary — folklore, evermore, willow, exile, marjorie, epiphany, seven, cardigan, august — that carries weight in part because the words have long-developed associations across English literary and religious tradition.

This entry documents the biblical and liturgical weight of three of these words — exile, seven, and epiphany — without claiming that Swift’s use of them is intended to invoke specific theological content. The albums are not religious works; the entry is documenting word backgrounds, not making a source claim.

The lyrics are under copyright. This entry mentions song titles and describes themes without reproducing lyric lines.

”Exile” — Babylon, Lamentations, and the long literary tradition

Exile is the fifth track of folklore. The song is voiced as a duet (Swift with Bon Iver) between two former lovers; the title’s exile is a relationship-state, not a geopolitical condition.

The English word exile carries weight from several traditions:

The Babylonian exile. The principal biblical event the word evokes is the Babylonian captivity of Judah (586-539 BCE). When the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed Jerusalem and deported the population to Babylonia, the resulting half-century of dislocation produced some of the most important literature in the Hebrew Bible. Lamentations, much of the prophet Ezekiel, the second half of Isaiah, parts of Jeremiah, and Psalm 137 all sit within the exile or its memory.

Psalm 137 opens:

“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.” (Psalm 137:1, BSB)

The psalm continues with the famous question: how can we sing the songs of the LORD in a strange land? (137:4). The Hebrew for strange land is ʾadmat nekār — land of the foreigner. The image — singing the songs of one place from the territory of another, where the songs no longer have a home — is the canonical biblical image of exile.

Lamentations opens:

“How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow.” (Lamentations 1:1, BSB)

The Hebrew structure of the book — five chapters, four of them in acrostic form, mourning the destruction of Jerusalem — is sustained at the pitch of grief throughout.

The word exile in English picks up resonance from this material whenever it is used. Swift’s use is a relationship-exile; the word’s biblical heritage is part of why it carries weight.

The Latin-tradition exile. Beyond the Hebrew Bible, the English word exile (from Latin exilium) carries weight from Roman political-poetic tradition (Ovid’s Tristia, written from exile on the Black Sea), from the long medieval tradition of the religious-exile poem, and from Dante’s Commedia (written from Dante’s exile from Florence). The word is one of the load-bearing words of Western literary tradition.

”Seven”

Seven is the seventh track of folklore. The song is voiced from a child’s perspective, addressing a friend from age seven.

The number seven has substantial biblical and liturgical weight:

Genesis 1-2. The seven days of creation establish the seven-day week. Genesis 2:2:

“By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work.” (Genesis 2:2, BSB)

The seven-day week is one of the longest-running social institutions traceable directly to a biblical source. The Sabbath, the seventh day, is the canonical day of rest in Jewish tradition (and in Christian tradition’s adapted Sunday observance).

The seven-fold pattern in Hebrew Bible legal and ritual material. Seven feasts of YHWH (Leviticus 23). Seven days of the Passover (Exodus 12). Seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot. Seven sabbatical years culminating in the Jubilee year (Leviticus 25). The seven-fold sprinkling of blood (Leviticus 4:6; 14:7). Seven branches of the menorah (Exodus 25:31-40).

The seven-fold pattern in apocalyptic literature. The Book of Revelation is structured around seven-fold series: seven churches (Rev 1-3), seven seals (Rev 5-8), seven trumpets (Rev 8-11), seven bowls (Rev 16). The number is the structuring device of the book.

Liturgical tradition. Seven sacraments in Catholic and Eastern theology; seven canonical hours of the Divine Office; seven traditional Western capital sins (the “seven deadly sins” of medieval Catholic theology — see our entry on the seven-deadly-sins-medieval-not-biblical for the historical detail).

The number’s saturation in religious and cultural use makes it impossible to use the word seven as a song title without some of this register being available. Swift’s song is about childhood friendship; the title operates as the age the song is set at, but the choice of seven (rather than, say, eight) carries weight independent of the song’s narrative.

”Epiphany”

Epiphany is the thirteenth track of folklore. The song was widely understood on release as addressing both Swift’s grandfather’s service in World War II and the experience of healthcare workers in the early COVID-19 pandemic.

The English word epiphany is from the Greek epiphaneia (ἐπιφάνεια) — appearance, manifestation, sudden becoming-visible. BDAG s.v. epiphaneia: “appearance, especially of God or of God’s representatives.”

The word’s biblical and liturgical lineage:

New Testament use. Epiphaneia appears six times in the New Testament (2 Thessalonians 2:8; 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy 1:10; 4:1, 8; Titus 2:13). The word is used of Christ’s appearance — both his first coming (2 Timothy 1:10: but now revealed through the appearance of our Savior Christ Jesus) and his second coming (Titus 2:13: the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ).

The festival of Epiphany. The Christian festival of Epiphany is observed on 6 January (or, in Orthodox tradition with Julian calendar, 19 January Gregorian). In Western Christianity it commemorates the visit of the Magi to the child Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12) — the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. In Eastern Christianity (Theophany) it commemorates Jesus’s baptism — the manifestation of Christ as the Son at the descent of the Spirit (Matthew 3:13-17 and parallels).

The festival has been observed since at least the 4th century CE. It is one of the principal feast days of Western and Eastern Christianity; the twelve days of Christmas run from Christmas Day to Epiphany Eve.

Literary-secular use. From the 19th century, the English word epiphany takes on a literary-secular sense — a sudden moment of understanding, particularly associated with James Joyce’s use of the term in Stephen Hero (written 1905-06, published posthumously) and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). Joyce’s epiphany is a sudden manifestation of meaning within ordinary experience — a literary-aesthetic version of the religious term.

Swift’s song uses the word in the literary-secular Joycean sense — a sudden recognition or shift in understanding — while carrying the religious-festival background as resonance.

What this entry does not claim

This entry does not argue that Swift intended biblical or liturgical content in any specific song. It does not argue that folklore or evermore is a religious work. It documents that the words Swift chose for several song titles have long developed histories in biblical and liturgical English, and that the weight those words carry in song titles comes in part from those histories.

The same point applies to other albums and other writers; this is not a Swift-specific claim. Exile, seven, and epiphany are words that carry their tradition with them whoever uses them.

For the related treatment of biblical idioms in popular use, see How many times does the Bible say “fear not”?.

To read the relevant biblical passages in other translations:

• Psalm 137 — NIV →
• Genesis 1-2 — NIV →
• Matthew 2 — NIV →