When Taylor Swift announced the surprise release of her latest album, evermore, she referred to it as folklore's "sister record." The album's lead single, "willow," feels similarly related to "cardigan," the
first song off of folklore. It describes the experience of yearning for someone and the twists that life takes on your way to finding the right person. As a signal that the two hits are connected, Swift wears the star-adorned cardigan from that song's music video at the start of the "willow" video. From there, easter eggs whirl in like the wind, from golden string imagery to Swift's reputation era snakes.
If there's anything we learned from Swift, it's that when she says "not a lot going on at the moment," that couldn't be further from the truth. That's also the case with the "willow" music video and its many references and metaphors. Ahead, everything we can hypothesize about the time-traveling video for the song.