"Marjorie" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her ninth studio album, Evermore (2020). A tribute to Swift's late maternal grandmother, the opera singer Marjorie Finlay, the song features bits of advice that Finlay offered to Swift and touches on her guilt over not knowing Finlay to the fullest. It incorporates slow-burning synthesizers, strings, and samples of Finlay's operatic vocals.
Upon release of Evermore, "Marjorie" was met with widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its emotion, lyricism, and production. Many critics selected the song as a highlight on Evermore and dubbed it one of Swift's most poignant songs. "Marjorie" reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart and entered various other charts globally. Swift included the song on the set list of the Eras Tour (2023–2024).
Background and composition
Marjorie Finlay, Taylor Swift's maternal grandmother, in 1949
Prior to releasing her ninth studio album, Evermore, Swift mentioned that one of its songs would be about her maternal grandmother.[1] The song and its lyric video were both released on December 11, 2020, as the thirteenth track on the album.[2] The song is a tribute to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on October 5, 1928, and died on June 1, 2003, in Reading, Pennsylvania.[3] Finlay inspired Swift to pursue a musical career.[3]
The song's lyrics are structured like chants,[4] composed of life lessons Swift learned from Finlay, including: "Never be so kind, you forget to be clever/ Never be so clever, you forget to be kind".[2] The song also depicts the grief and guilt Swift felt over the memory of her grandmother.[5] The song's production is characterized by buzzing synths, strings,[6][7]drone, pulse, cello,[8] and pulsing keyboard arrangement,[4] ending with an elegant outro.[9] "Marjorie" also samples Finlay's soprano as backing vocals[6] and is a sister song to "Epiphany", the thirteenth track on Swift's eighth studio album Folklore about Swift's paternal grandfather, Dean.[10]
A lyric video was released along with the song on December 11, 2020, that includes photos and video clips of Finlay. In one scene, she is seen at a colonial bungalow in Singapore (where the Finlay family lived for around 10 years in the 1960s), getting into a Ford Galaxie car whose license plate is visible, and has a distinctively Singaporean number.[11] In another scene, she is wearing a Jackie O-style dress while boarding a plane. She is also seen exploring Cambodian ruins and playing the piano with Swift.[12]
Writing and production
"Marjorie" was the precursor to "Peace", the fifteenth track on Folklore; the drone in "Peace" is a sample of the drone in the bridge of "Marjorie". The backing rhythm of "Marjorie" was composed from an "Allovers Hi-Hat Generator", a software created by Minnesotan producer Ryan Olson that takes any sound and splits them into identifiable samples, reorganizing the samples in randomized musical patterns. Aaron Dessner, who co-wrote and produced the song, picked his favorite patterns, looped them, and developed them into an instrumental track. Swift wrote "Marjorie" to Dessner's track, and Swift provided Dessner with Finlay's old opera recordings, which he sampled on the final portion of the song.[13][14]
Reception
"Marjorie" received critical acclaim.[15]The A.V. Club critic Annie Zaleski lauded "Marjorie" for its heart-wrenching lyricism and "anguished" production, and named it one of Swift's best songs to date.[8]NME writer Hannah Mylrea thought that the song effectively depicts the grief and the complex guilt that is tied with it.[16] Madeline Crone of American Songwriter praised the "lofty" lyrics paying tribute to Finlay and the "vivid imagery" it evokes. She found its outro "ethereal", aided by Finlay's operatic vocals.[9]Maura Johnston, writing for Entertainment Weekly, opined that the song's whirring synthesizers, strings, and Finlay's "fluttery" soprano add life to Swift's emotional vocals.[7] Chris Willman of Variety claimed that "Marjorie" will "leave a dry eye only in houses that have never known death", and the faint audio samples of Finlay's vocals is the "pièce de résistance" of the song's poignancy.[17]
Paste's Ellen Johnson commended the song as one of Swift's all-time best songs, and she wrote that her "hard-won wisdom" in the song makes it the most representing track of what Evermore is—"a peacefully intimate record".[18] In his review of Evermore, Patrick Ryan of USA Today highlighted "Marjorie" as a "heart-rending tribute".[19]Rolling Stone writer Claire Shaffer dubbed "Marjorie" the centerpiece of Evermore—a "brilliant and devastating piece of songcraft, an instant classic in the Swift canon"—and compared it to Swift's 2012 single "Ronan", praising the singer's skills in writing a eulogy. Shaffer added that she could not think of another song that "so perfectly captures the delayed tragedy of losing a loved one when you're too young to see their full worth."[20]
Stephen Erlwine of AllMusic opined that Evermore reaches its crescendo on "Marjorie", where the "delicately shifting arrangement —more electronic than acoustic", "underscores" Swift's grief instead of heightening it.[21]Stereogum's Tom Breihan commented that Swift ruminates on "Marjorie" the type of loss and regret that "you can only really feel when someone dies", over a soft, thumping synthesizer.[22]Jon Pareles of The New York Times praised the song's instrumentation—"glimmering" electronic production enriched by subtle pizzicato strings.[23] Punch Liwanag of the Manila Bulletin called the song a "beautifully emotional ballad."[24] Music journalist Rob Sheffield placed it ninth on his 2021 ranking of all the 199 songs in Swift's discography.[25]
Swift included "Marjorie" on her Eras Tour set list.[34] At the Atlanta concert on April 29, 2023, fans turned on their cell phone flashlights to honor Finlay while Swift sang the song. Swift was so touched that she broke down in tears, thanking her fans. "How are you going to go and do that to me on a song about my grandmother who passed away? I just completely—like, my knees went weak, genuinely, like that physically- I physically felt them. That was so beautiful of you to do that," Swift said, following the song's performance.[35]
