Songfacts®:

• "The 1" is a nostalgic song where Taylor Swift looks back at a lost romance. She addresses her ex in a conversational tone as she contemplates what her life would have been like if they had stayed together.
  
  It would've been fun
  If you would've been the one
  
  Though sad that their union never worked out, Taylor takes the positive from their breakup, explaining it helped her to grow.
• Taylor Swift wrote the song with Aaron Dessner. Swift is a fan of Dessner's band, The National, and she included their tracks "Light Years" and "Rylan" on a May 2019 playlist of Songs I'm Loving Right Now.
  
  Swift texted Dessner the following April, asking if he wanted to collaborate, to which he readily agreed. The pair worked on 11 of the 16 tracks on Folklore over the next several months. "We were pretty much in touch daily for three or four months by text and phone calls," Dessner recalled to Pitchfork. "Some of it was about production and restructuring things but a lot of it was just excitement. We both felt that this was some of the best work we have done."
• "The 1" is the opening track of Folklore. It, along with the record's closing track "Hoax," were the last tunes Swift and Dessner laid down for the set. The National band member told Vulture they thought the record was complete, but then Swift dived back into Dessner's folder of ideas. She wrote "The 1" and "Hoax" in a space of a few hours and sent them to Dessner in the middle of the night. When he woke up in the morning, he told Swift, "These have to be on the record." She agreed adding, "These are the bookends, you know?"
• Aaron Dessner played the keyboards, synth bass and electric guitar on the track. The others who pitched in were:
  
  Synthesizer: Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman).
  
  Percussion: Jason Treuting.
  
  Violin and viola: Yuki Numata Resnick.
  
  Engineer: Kyle Resnick (a regular The National collaborator, he is the husband of Yuki Numata Resnick).
  
  Mixing engineer: Jon Low (Aaron Dessner's National engineer).
  
  Orchestration: Bryce Dessner (Aaron Dessner's The National bandmate and twin brother).
• Though Folklore mainly focuses on fictional perspectives outside of Swift's usual first-person narratives, some Swifties believe she's singing here about former boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal. The lyric, "And if you wanted me, you really should've showed," may be about the incident she recounts on "The Moment I Knew" when the actor missed her 21st birthday party.
• When reports emerged on April 8, 2023 that Taylor Swift and her longtime boyfriend, British actor Joe Alwyn, had broken up after over six years together, it sent shockwaves among the superstar's fans.
  
  Swifties are known for their astute observation skills, so they were quick to pick up on some subtle changes in Taylor's Eras tour setlist. The "Love Story" singer had swapped out "Invisible String" for "The 1" starting at her Arlington, Texas show on March 31. While "Invisible String" reflects on the serendipities that brought Swift and Alwyn together, "The 1" takes on a more melancholic tone, hinting at the possibility of the reported breakup that was to come just over a week later.