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Taylor Swift fans have been speculating that there might be a third surprise album called woodvale on the way. Swift herself appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on December 14 and addressed the rumors.
Sorry, Swifties. She says that woodvale Easter egg isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Rumors about a third album started swirling after fans spotted the word ‘woodvale’ hidden in the cover art for folklore. If you look closely, you’ll see it among the trees.
Fans thought the name could refer to a location Swift references in the track “The Lakes.”
The rumors snowballed, with fans thinking that Swift was trying to tell them something.
While speculating about a third album in the works, one fan also pointed out that Swift’s merchandise suspiciously came in sets of three. Some even pointed out that two of the three correspond with visual aesthetics of folklore and evermore, leaving the third to the supposed third album.
On top of that, one fan pointed out that when she searched “woodvale” on Spotify, Taylor Swift came up as a result.
For the record, T-Swift is pretty good at dropping Easter eggs for fans to pick up. She frequently drops these little surprises in her music videos and social media postings. She even gave some very subtle clues that evermore was coming, though most people didn’t put them together until after Swift surprised everyone with the album.
In any case, T-Swift says that the woodvale rumors are just that — rumors. Sorry, y’all.
The pop star appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, December 14 to chat about turning 31 on December 13. Oh, and to squash the speculation about the alleged album in the works.
Swift told Kimmel that the whole “woodvale” thing “takes a bit of explanation.”
“I tend to be sort of annoyingly secret agent-y about dropping clues and hints and Easter eggs and it’s very annoying. But it’s fun for fans and it’s fun for me because they like to pick up on things,” Swift explained. “And they’ll notice lots of things in music videos or photos or whatever. And then sometimes I take it too far and I make a mistake.”
The mistake, here, was leaving “woodvale” on folklore’s cover art. It wasn’t intentional.
Swift explained that while making folklore, she “was too afraid to even unveil the title to even my closest teammates and management.”
“I didn’t tell anybody the album title until right before it came out,” she admitted. “And so I came up with a fake code name that had the same amount of letters as folklore.”
According to her, she used the word “woodvale” for the mockup of the cover to see what it would look like. Once she decided she didn’t want to put the title on the album cover, she forgot to remove the code name.
Understandably, Kimmel was hesitant to accept her explanation, and questioned whether or not she was telling the truth. After all, we’ve all grown pretty accustomed to her subtle hints and clues. And, well, that’s a pretty big error to make.
“Jimmy, I’m so tired. I’m just so exhausted. I’ve tired myself out, I have nothing left,” she told the talk show host.
That’s okay, T-Swift. You’ve given us so much to get through 2020, already.
If you need a little more Taylor Swift in your life, check out our Definitive Ranking of Taylor Swift’s Albums here.
