Yes, I’m on record as being a huge fan of Taylor Swift‘s new album, folklore. Not normally any kind of Swiftie, I discovered the music thanks to the kind algo-bots on Youtube (Hi!), who blessed my feed with the lyric videos when the album first “dropped,” as the kids and marketers say. Intrigued, then hooked, I quickly bought both the digital files and physical CD, and I’ve been listening nonstop since. It’s a good record to do the dishes by.

But then a new Youtube rabbit hole appeared: Insistent, ardent folklore cover versions. As with the 300-plus fan versions of Shallow that I found shortly after A Star Is Born was released, there is no shortage of reverential performances by happy Taylor fans. More intriguing are the many, many rewrites and answer songs. These are not attempts at Weird Al japery, these are deeply felt, sincere efforts to make Swift’s music even more resonant than it already is.

Most are based on the “teenage love triangle” of tunes on the album, cardigan, august, and betty, a mysterious triptych of angst, regret, and remembrance, which Ms. Swift is known for and excels at.

So here’s some of the more interesting videos I found. As usual, they come from people with thousands of subscribers and views to those who barely register double digits. But numbers belie talent; so many of these ladies could be the next Taylor Swift. All of their efforts are heartbreakingly wonderful.

Betty seemed to provoke the most response, with many gals leaping to provide Betty’s point of view:

And a ukulele version, but gender-swapped:

Speaking of gender-swapping, there’s a fair amount of reworking Swift’s songs to be explicitly LGBT-centric. Here’s betty, again, reworked to that effect:

And illicit affairs:

august from Jame’s POV:

This mashup combines the trilogy into one:

As does this:

This person seems to be rewriting the whole album!

cardigan

the 1

this is me trying:

Finally, here’s an amazingly deep analysis about the whole Betty/James relationship that is positively Sherlockian!