Epiphany (Taylor Swift song)

Swift wrote the song with its producer Aaron Dessner over an ambient-chamber pop composition consisting of a slow piano line, cinematic strings and howling brass.

Swift empathizes with doctors and nurses on "Epiphany," who serve the affected despite their harrowing work and the mental trauma they have to experience while handling loss of human lives, correlating the modern situation with the emotional anguish and physical exhaustion the soldiers of World War II endured, especially her veteran grandfather Dean.

Upon release, "Epiphany" received favorable comments from music critics, many of whom praised the song's emotion, themes, lyrics, and Swift's vocal ability, though some found its slow-moving pace and production drowsy.

Folklore was conceived by Swift as figments of mythopoeic visuals in her mind, a result of her imagination "running wild" while isolating herself during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[5] To me, it's like a nurse, doctor, or medical professional, where med school doesn't fully prepare you for seeing someone pass away or just the difficult emotional things that you'll encounter in your job.

[16] Maura Johnston of Entertainment Weekly also called it spectral, writing that the song is driven by "Swift's exploration of others' inner worlds", which allows her to "take on new voices".

[17] The Atlantic writer Spencer Kornhaber dubbed Swift's vocals in the song a "translucent beam", with her syllables falling "slowly like ash".

[15] Writing for Slate, Carl Wilson summarized "Epiphany" as a "narratively striking", "topical song" that starts with the image of "an army storming a beach" and then shifts to a modern operating room, where "a woman's vital signs are crashing as someone holds her hand through plastic shielding"; Wilson added that Swift describes these scenes in "warm measured syllables" similar to Kate Bush's 1989 song "This Woman's Work".

She stated that "Epiphany" incorporates "a medical subplot chiming gently with the suffering being wreaked by coronavirus", dotted with Swift's "emphatic yelps", but its music is a "miasma of gingerly fingered piano and consolatory tonalities", resulting in an unmemorable track.

[22] Katie Moulton, writing for Consequence of Sound, said that "Epiphany" seems to try to "connect periods of global and American crisis, from World War II to COVID-19", but felt that the idea is "muddled".