Taylor Swift Honors Her Grandmother With Heart-Wrenching Lyric Video for ‘Marjorie’

When Taylor Swift announced Evermore, her second surprise album of the year, she alluded to some of the subjects in the songs. “[There’s] one starring my grandmother, Marjorie, who still visits me sometimes,” she said. “If only in my dreams.”

Now, Swift has dropped a lyric video for “Marjorie,” featuring vintage photos of her grandmother Marjorie Finlay — a singer in her own right. Footage shows her boarding a plane in a Sixties dress à la Jackie O, walking along ancient ruins, and playing piano with Swift as a toddler.

“And if I didn’t know better/I’d think you were listening to me now,” Swift sings over lush orchestration, with Justin Vernon harmonizing with her at the end. “If I didn’t know better/I’d think you were still around.”

Evermore marks Swift’s ninth album, a “sister record” to last fall’s Folklore. The album features the personnel of its predecessor, including Vernon, the National’s Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, and her boyfriend Joe Alwyn (listed under the pseudonym “William Bowery”). Haim and the National also appear.

“To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs,” Swift said in her announcement yesterday. “To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in.”