Songfacts®:

• Here, Taylor Swift describes the struggles she endures in a toxic relationship. The songstress details how she has been broken down by her lover.
  
  My winless fight
  This has frozen my ground
  
  However, Swift is reluctant to walk out of her doomed relationship.
  
  Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in
  Don't want no other shade of blue but you
  No other sadness in the world would do
• Swift has long used film metaphors, dating back to her 2011 track "If This Was a Movie." She uses them throughout Folklore, starting off with the opening track "The 1," where we see her comparing a shelved relationship to a movie never made.
  
  I hit the Sunday matinee
  You know the greatest films of all time were never made
  
  On "Exile," Swift likens a past relationship to a movie she's already seen.
  
  I think I've seen this film before
  And I didn't like the ending
  
  We see the film motif again on "This Is Me Trying," where again she reflects on seeing an ex.
  
  You're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town
  
  Finally, during "Hoax," Swift draws a parallel between the futility of further pursuing a toxic relationship and the pointlessness of watching a film when the hero is killed off at the end.
  
  You knew the hero died, so what's the movie for?
• Swift wrote "The 1" and "Hoax" with collaborator Aaron Dessner after the rest of Folklore was completed. The songstress penned the two tunes in a space of a few hours and sent them to Dessner in the middle of the night. The two agreed that they should be added to the record as the opening and closing tracks.
• Bon Iver violinist Rob Moose arranged and recorded the strings on "Hoax." He also played on "Exile" and "The Last Great American Dynasty." Dessner recruited Moose through his friendship with Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon.