Complete Literary Analysis Of “the 1” Meaning, Line By Line
The 1 is the first song on Taylor Swift’s folklore album, and it literally and symbolically kicks off a new era for the songwriter.
This track reminisces about a lost love, and wonders if anything could have turned out differently. The themes of fate, destiny, mistakes, and memory are prominent, which sets the tone for the rest of the album.
What do the lyrics mean, and how should we interpret this first track on folklore?
Here’s my complete English teacher’s analysis of the 1 meaning, line by line.

The 1 by Taylor Swift
- Title: The 1
- Written by: Aaron Dessner, Taylor Swift
- Track: 1, Folklore
- Pen: Fountain
- Lyrics from Genius
The 1 Song Analysis: Narrative Summary
- Setting: In the present, looking back at a love lost.
- Characters: Narrator (possibly Taylor, possibly another’s perspective), Subject (“you”, ex-lover).
- Mood: Nostalgic, jealous, ruminating.
- Conflict: It didn’t work out between them.
- Inciting Incident: “One thing”, but we aren’t clued into what exactly happened to break them apart.
- Quest: Go to the dark place of rumination, and don’t go to the dark place of rumination.
- Symbols & Metaphors: “the one”, “on some new shit,” “greatest films of all time”, bleeding/wounding, “roaring twenties”, “tossing pennies in the pool”, “painted by the numbers,” “making it count,” “greatest loves of all time”, “leaving well enough alone,” “digging up the grave”, “wishes”.
- Theme: Bittersweet nostalgia.
- Imagery: “I hit the ground running each night,” “Roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool,” “if you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow”, “We never painted by the numbers, baby,” “Rosé flowing with your chosen family,” “digging up the grave.”
- Lesson: You can’t go back and change the past, no matter how much you might want to.
What is The 1 About?
The 1 is about a lost love, and filling in an ex-lover on what you’re up to these days.
But symbolically, it represented Taylor in her present moment: hunkered down due to the pandemic, her tour canceled, and her creative direction now that the world has come to a standstill.
In the Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions documentary, she described the song to her co-writer Aaron Dessner:
“I think it has a double meaning. Opening the album with those words, it applies to the situation that the song is written about, where you’re updating a former lover on what your life is like now and trying to be positive about it.
But it was also where I am creatively, where it’s, like, “i’m just saying yes, I’m just putting an album out in the worst time you could put one out, i’m just making stuff with someone who i always wanted to make stuff with as long as I’ve been a fan of The National, i’m just gonna say yes to stuff, and it worked out.”
-Taylor Swift, Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions
Who is The 1 About?
Taylor has never revealed if the subject of the 1 is a real person in her life, or if it’s an imagined narrative like other songs on the folklore album.
The 1 Meaning: Line by Line

The first verse begins with Swift speaking directly to a lost lover, updating them on what she’s been up to.
“I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit,” she says. This opening lyric is more than just updating a lost love on what’s new: it’s emblematic of the new era she’s stepping into.
After Lover, her masters were sold to her arch-nemesis, and a global pandemic locked the world down.
“On some new shit” means she’s embracing this change and moving on, both in life and on this new folk-influenced album sound.
She’s embracing change and opening herself up to new possibilities: “been saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’.” But she’s still haunted by this lost love.
“I thought I saw you at the bus stop,” she says, “I didn’t though.” She sees her ex’s face as a hallucination or mirage, then quickly comes to.
This “bus stop” could be a physical bus stop in any city, but The Bus Stop Cafe is a diner-style spot in New York’s West Village, where Taylor used to live in her Cornelia Street era (she also names the West Village specifically in False God).
Did she hallucinate her ex in the cafe they used to go to together? Are her memories haunting her?
“I hit the ground running each night,” she says, meaning she never stops: she keeps herself busy. Is this to distract herself from the loss of this person?
“I hit the Sunday matinée”, she says, going to a film on a lazy, bored afternoon. This is another distraction. But in the movie, she realizes something: “you know the greatest films of all time were never made.”
This feels like acknowledging the devastating loss of what could have been. Could their lives be one of the greatest stories of all time “if you would have been the one?”
Pre-Chorus: “If You Never Bleed, You’re Never Gonna Grow”

After acknowledging they were not the “greatest film of all time,” she shrugs. “I guess you never know,” she says. You don’t know what will work out, and what won’t.
“If you wanted me you really should’ve showed” ends mid-thought. “Showed” what?
I think this is an intentional fill-in-the-blank. This person didn’t show they loved her, but it also alludes to something else that Taylor isn’t going to clue us in on.
It also feels like a nod to Exile, in which Taylor says she gave “so many signs,” only for her partner to ignore them.
“If you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow” also feels like a nod to another song – Death by a Thousand Cuts. It references bleeding and healing, like “paper cut stings from our paper thin plans.” Bleeding is falling apart, and healing is the growth that comes afterwards.
“It’s alright now,” reassuring herself that she’s okay now – she’s stopped bleeding. It’s in the past, and only the scars remain.
🩶 Can you pass my tricky folklore Lyrics Quiz? 🩶
Chorus: “Roaring Twenties Tossing Pennies in the Pool”

The chorus is also a bittersweet looking back. “We were something, don’t you think so?” recalls the good times of their “roaring twenties, tossing pennies in the pool.”
This iconic line is a sort of double entendre: the first meaning being the actual “roaring twenties” – the great jazz age of flappers and prohibition (like “feelin’ so Gatsby that whole year”).
The second is a reference to her age at the time of this relationship: the incredible experience of being carefree in your 20s.
If her “wishes came true” – the pennies tossed in the pool – “it would’ve been you.” She wanted this person to be the one.
“In my defense,” she says, “I have none.” She has no excuse for what happened, or why she’s not “leaving well enough alone” by ruminating now. Was she looking for something better? For greener grass? Would staying with this person have been settling?
Still, “it would’ve been fun if you would’ve been the one,” she concludes.
Would they have been “the one” to marry? Or “the one” to something else? Maybe the one to stay? The one that’s strong enough to stay?
Verse 2: “You Meet Some Woman On The Internet And Take Her Home”

The second verse is bittersweet encapsulated: she’s looking back over this past relationship and the good times, and imagining what her ex is doing now.
“I have this dream you’re doing cool shit,” she says, “having adventures on your own.” But he’s not really doing it alone. He will “meet some woman on the internet and take her home.”
In her imagination running wild, he’s with another girl, and it’s not “cool shit” at all – it pains her.
You get the sense that she’s both looking back fondly AND simultaneously grieving this loss, and not entirely cool with what her ex must be up to without her. She’s jealous.
“We never painted by the numbers, baby” means they didn’t follow the traditional rules of relationships or rules of love. “But we were making it count” means that even though they weren’t traditional, they were real. They made the most of their time.
“You know the greatest loves of all time are over now” is such a blunt and heavy end to this dreamy memory. It’s as if she has surrendered to pessimism: everything ends always, so why try?
Pre-Chorus & Bridge: “I Persist And Resist The Temptation To Ask You”

In the pre-chorus she’s reminding herself that it’s all over and done, and no one knows what would have happened if the end hadn’t come. She’s now stuck in the monotony and loneliness of “another day waking up alone.”
The chorus repeats, then she battles mentally for where she’s going next. She doesn’t want to ask this question, but she has to.
“I persist and resist the temptation to ask you” is her internal battle, but then she finally spits it out: “If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?”
We’re not clued in on what the “one thing” is specifically, but it ties in with the theme of the song (and the album as a whole): can you go back and change the past to edit your present?
Is the act of going back into your past memories – both the bad and the good – harmful in itself, or is it your mind’s way of just trying to sort everything out?
Chorus: “Rosé Flowing With Your Chosen Family”

She reflects again on the good times: “We were something, don’t you think so? / “Rosé flowing with your chosen family.” They used to drink together with friends who were close as family.
“Chosen family” often has LGBTQ connotations, and it’s entirely possible that it does in these lyrics. Does it mean their core group of friends? Their inner circle? Or does it mean that this ex was “exiled” from their real family?
Are they – the two of them together – “chosen family”? She also uses this phrase in peace, where it refers to their coupledom.
She circles back around, trying to change the past, if only in her memory. She has no excuse for what she’s doing – it’s harmful to her mental health, but she can’t help but ask: ‘why wasn’t it me?’
The last three lines encapsulate the song so well: she has no defense for “digging up the grave another time.” “Digging up the grave” is exactly what she’s doing: unburying her dead, and trying to resurrect it, if only for a fleeting moment.
Digging up the past is painful, but it’s also a reminder that what they had was real and good at one time.
“It would have been fun” is half truth, half irony. It would have been more than fun – it would have been “the greatest film” and “the greatest love”. The irony is that their ending was the opposite of fun. It was the end of a tragedy, not a romantic comedy.
She’s downplaying how hurt she is with satire – it wouldn’t have just been “fun.” It would have been everything.
🩶 Can you pass my tricky folklore Lyrics Quiz? 🩶
The 1 Lyrics Meaning: Final Thoughts
The 1 is rumination personified. If you’ve ever looked back on a lost love and wanted to change the past, or wondered what your life would be now if you hadn’t lost them, this song is your anthem.
Aaron Dessner chimed in on the meaning of The 1 by giving us a small clue: “It’s clear that ‘the 1’ is not written from her perspective. It’s written from another friend’s perspective.”
So whose perspective is it? August, Betty, James? Or did Taylor see what a friend was going through, and write this from their point of view?
Or – hear me out – what if the song is from the perspective of the lost love, looking at Taylor and wishing they hadn’t let her go?
That changes its meaning altogether, but it also doesn’t: it’s still about pining, and wanting to change the past, and digging up the grave of their memory, over and over.
Who pines for Taylor like that? I have a few ideas. What about you?
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