How Taylor Swift takes aim at ex Matty Healy in the tortured poets department – The Independent

Taylor Swift’s latest studio album The Department of Tortured Poets dropped today, leaving fans both thrilled and confused.

Many fans expected the album to be heavily inspired by her six-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn. However, Swift took everyone by surprise when it emerged that her songs seemed instead to be about her brief dalliance with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy.

News of Swift and Alwyn’s breakup was first reported in April 2023. A month later, the first rumors of Swift dating Healy emerged, after they first linked in 2014.

However, the relationship reportedly ended after just a few weeks. She is currently dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

Swift and Healy’s relationship has sparked dismay among Swifties (Swift fans) who have objected to Healy’s long string of controversies, including a podcast in which he made a number of disparaging remarks about rapper Ice Spice , as well as on women and the Japanese.

Healy apologized to Ice Spice in April 2023, saying he didn’t want to be “perceived as a little petty.” Shortly after, Swift announced a collaboration with Ice Spice for a remix of her song “Karma,” which some critics and fans said was “damage control” for Healy’s comments.

Fans are now scrambling to dissect the meaning of the songs The Department of Tortured Poets, with the title track, as well as songs such as “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”, “But Daddy I Love Him”, “Fresh Out the Slammer” and “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”, all interpreted as being about Healey. She also appears to reference him on “The Black Dog”, from the extended version of the album.

In a message to fans on social media, Swift wrote: “This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter is closed and closed. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once the wounds have healed. And upon reflection, many of them turned out to be self-inflicted acts. This writer firmly believes that our tears become holy as ink on a page. Once we tell our saddest story, we can free ourselves from it.”

Here are the latest clues that Swift’s songs are about Healy

On “Guilty as Sin?” Swift sings about “fatal fantasies” for someone from her past who sends her the 1989 song “The Downtown Lights” by Scottish band The Blue Nile.

Healy has previously mentioned that The Blue Nile is his “favorite band of all time” and that the 1975 song “Love It If We Made It” was inspired by “The Downtown Lights.”

Fans also wrote an open letter in April urging Swift to “reflect on the impact of your own behavior and that of your associates.”

In “But Daddy, I Love Him,” Swift appears to respond to this criticism of her romance with Healy.

She sings: “I’d rather burn my whole life/ Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and whining/ I’ll tell you something about my reputation/ It’s mine with all the shame/ I Don’t worry about all these vipers dressed as empaths.

Swift continues in the same vein, on “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” singing: “The jokes he told across the bar were revolting and way too loud/They shake their heads and say, ” God help him.” when I tell them he’s my man/But your good Lord doesn’t need to lift a finger, I can fix him, no, really, I can.

She appears to accuse Healy of ghosting her in “The Littlest Man Ever,” singing: “Was it all true?/ Staring at me starry-eyed/ In your Jehovah’s Witness costume/ Who the hell was this guy?/ You tried to buy pills/ From a friend of friends of mine/ They just ghosted you/ Now you know how it feels.

She later sings: “And I don’t even want you back, I just want to know/If rusting my bubbly summer was the point/And I don’t miss what we had but could someone give/A message to the smallest man who ever lived.”

Healy wore black suits with a black tie and white shirt while touring with The 1975.

On “The Black Dog,” she shouts out another of Healy’s favorite bands, the pop-punk band The Starting Line. The 1975 covered their 2002 track “The Best of Me” on tour last year, days before Swift and Healy were first spotted holding hands.

She sings: “I just don’t understand how you don’t miss me/ In The Black Dog when someone plays The Starting Line/ And you jump, but she’s too young/ To know that song/ That was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreams.

Initial reactions from critics and fans seemed positive. However, some Swifties have highlighted their displeasure with the focus on Healy, as opposed to Swift’s relationship with Alwyn.

A line about a “tattooed golden retriever” from the title song “The Tortured Poets Department,” which appears to reference Healy’s obvious ink, also garnered a few stares.

“All this for an album about Matty Healy,” one fan wrote on his Instagram.

Swifties looking for Joe Alwyn references may be reassured by “So Long, London,” as she sings, “I died on the altar waiting for the proof / You sacrificed us to the gods of your days the bluest ones.

The Department of Tortured Poets has been highly anticipated since Swift first announced it at the 2024 Grammy Awards, where she took home top prizes, including Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, for 2022. Midnight.

The independentHelen Brown gave the new album five stars, praising Swift’s storytelling power. “In keeping with the album’s literary (if ungrammatical) title, Swift is here at her most piercing polysyllabic form,” she wrote.

The album features collaborations with rapper Post Malone and Florence Welch, of the English group Florence + the Machine. Physical copies of the album will also include an original poem by Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac.