Dorothea (song)
"Dorothea" (stylized in all lowercase) is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her ninth studio album, Evermore (2020). Swift wrote the song with its producer, Aaron Dessner. The lyrics are from the perspective of an unnamed character reminiscing an old friendship with the titular fictional character, when they were in their adolescence. It tells the story of how the two reconcile when Dorothea returns from Hollywood to their hometown Tupelo for the holiday season. The narrator confesses to Dorothea that they still love her despite the change and hope to reconcile the long lost friendship. The narrator later convinces her to abandon an acting career for a simplistic life in their hometown.
"Dorothea"
Musically, "Dorothea" is an Americana and country folk song driven by a honky-tonk piano, guitars, and drums. In reviews of Evermore, music critics complimented Swift's songwriting in "Dorothea" for its character study with rich lyrical details. Commercially, the song charted in Australia, Canada, Portugal, and the United States. It peaked at number 47 on the Billboard Global 200.
Background and release[edit]
Taylor Swift conceived her eighth studio album, Folklore, as a set of mythopoeic visuals in her mind, a result of her imagination "running wild" while isolating herself during the COVID-19 pandemic.[1][2] She surprised with the album's announcement on July 23, 2020, and released it the next day. To satiate her craving to explore more of the "folklorian woods" she visualized in her mind, Swift immediately developed another album as a conclusive counterpart to Folklore, titled Evermore.[3] "Dorothea" was one of the two songs Swift had written for Big Red Machine, a band consisting of her Folklore personnel Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon, the other being "Closure"; however, the two songs were eventually included on Evermore's track-listing, where "Dorothea" placed eighth.[4] Identical to Folklore's launch, Swift made a surprise announcement of Evermore on December 10, 2020, and released it the next day.[3] After Evermore's release, she performed "Dorothea" as a "surprise song" at the July 8, 2023, show in Kansas City, Missouri, as part of the Eras Tour (2023–2024).[5]
Reception[edit]
Brodie Lancaster of The Sydney Morning Herald called "Dorothea" a "masterwork of a character study".[20] NME critic Hannah Mylrea opined that "Dorothea", over "dancing piano lines", portrays the story of a lovelorn man "whose high-school sweetheart left to try and make it in Hollywood", incorporating vocal melodies reminiscent of Swift's self-titled debut studio album, Taylor Swift (2006).[21] Annie Zaleski of The A.V. Club wrote that the song is for those "who struggle with feeling left behind by glamorous old friends".[22] Writing for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis called the song "a particularly luminous tune" that eschews "the old country cliche in which a star tells you their life of fame and luxury is nothing compared to the warm comfort of their old small-town life", instead has a protagonist look at a now-famous friend and attempt to convince their return to the simpler life.[23] The Independent writer Helen Brown said that "Dorothea" has Swift slip "into the mind of a celebrity's hometown pal.[24] Variety critic Chris Willman described the song's narrator as "a honey in Tupelo who is telling a childhood friend who moved away and became famous that she's always welcome back in her hometown", and praised Swift's "empathic wondering"–"how it feels to be at the other end of the telescope".[25]
Commercial performance[edit]
Upon Evermore's release, all of the album's tracks debuted on both the US Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and the all-genre Hot 100 charts; "Dorothea" entered at number 13 on the former, and at number 67 on the latter.[26] Elsewhere, it further reached number 47 on Australia's ARIA Singles Chart and number 34 on the Canadian Hot 100. The song debuted at number 47 on the Billboard Global 200 chart.