Dorothea (song)

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Taylor Swift wrote and produced her eighth studio album, Folklore, with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff.

[4][5] In September 2020, Swift, Antonoff, and Dessner assembled at Long Pond Studio in Hudson Valley to film Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, a documentary that features Swift performing all of the seventeen the tracks of Folklore and discussing the creative process and inspirations behind the album.

[31][32] NME's Hannah Mylrea thought that the vocal melodies were reminiscent of her debut studio album, Taylor Swift (2006).

[33] Lyrically, "Dorothea" and the fellow album track "'Tis the Damn Season" revolve around a fictional story set in Tupelo, Mississippi.

[29] In the refrain, the narrator convinces herself that Dorothea was happier in the small town and she might return one day ("It's never too late to come back to my side/ The stars in your eyes shined brighter in Tupelo/ And if you're ever tired of being known for who you know/ You know, you'll always know me").

Brodie Lancaster of The Sydney Morning Herald dubbed it a "masterwork of a character study",[35] and Deborah Krieger of PopMatters considered it the highlight of Evermore and an "immediate classic".

[31] The latter lauded the soothing nature of the song,[31] and Paste's Ellen Johnson similarly praised the soft electronic composition and the "carefully crafted" lyrical imagery.

[38] The Guardian's Alexis Petridis commended the melody as "luminous" and believed that "Dorothea" succeeded in reversing the "old country cliché" of a celebrity saying that their life of fame pales in comparison to the coziness of their small hometown.

[37] Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield considered it a "hidden sequel" to Swift's 2020 song "The Lakes" and picked "The stars in your eyes shined brighter in Tupelo" as his favorite lyric from the track.