As the title suggests, The Tortured Poets Department is a breakup album that doesn’t disappoint in the deconstruction of Taylor Swift’s failed relationships and her old boyfriends gone bad.
We hear about a chain-smoking man who tells jokes that are “revolting and way too loud” in I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can); a “coward” who pretends to be a “lion” in Loml; and we discover a ghostly Swift in I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, as she sings “I’m so obsessed with him but he avoids me like the plague.”
We’ve all been there, and that’s the thing about Fastthe broad appeal of .
The not-so-subtle title The Littlest Man Ever paints a portrait of a drug-addicted partner who: “In public he showed me, then faded into oblivion,” tried “to buy pills to a friend of friends.” ” and “was in no way a match for a man.”
Amidst these space-wasting men, we learn that a Swift – who, unlike her bubbly and strong public persona – is “depressed”, “cries at the gym”, eats “kids cereal”, “unstable…on my knees” and truly the owner of a “broken heart”.
Of course, not all of her songs are purely confessional – she also adopts different personas (for example in But Daddy I Love Him which shares the basic storyline of Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach), but in each track we return firmly to Swift. and parallels in his very publicly dissected “private” life.
With a history of writing about her exes (past examples include Joe Jonas, Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal and John Mayer), Swift didn’t disappoint with apparent allusions to former British boyfriends Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy, and also pitches in the current NFL beau. star Travis Kelce.
So Long, London – placed fifth on the tracklist, a place Swift reserves for her most meaningful songs – is a choral ballad and appears to be on the tail end of her six-year relationship with The Favorite star Alwyn.
Her lyrics – “I left everything I knew, you left me at home near Heath” – refer to Hampstead Heath, north London, where she lived with the star in the early 2020s.
As much a breakup song from the city as the man, it tells us “I’m just angry because I loved this place.”
In this song, we also get one of many references to marriage throughout the album – a theme that might be at the forefront of Swift’s mind?
Wedding bells and babies
So Long, London’s moving lyrics – “You swore you loved me but where were the clues, I died at the altar waiting for the proof” – resonates loud and clear.
The song that gave the album its title – The Tortured Poets Department – describes a moment that paints a vivid picture: “At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on , and it’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding.”
In loml (an acronym meaning Love Of My Life), she sings: “You and I go from a kiss to a marriage…you told me I was the love of your life.”
In But Daddy I Love Him – a country-tinged ballad – she sings: “No, you can’t come to the wedding.”
And in imgonnagetyouback she says: “Whether I’m your wife or I break your bike, I haven’t decided yet.”
There’s even a reference to future family in The Manuscript – the album’s final song – with the lyrics: “He said if sex was half as good as talk, they’d soon be pushing strollers. But soon it was.” on.”
In Florida!!! (with Florence + The Machine) the subject of children returns, with Swift running away to the Everglades, running away from friends who “all smell like weed or little babies.”
Love the old and the new
1975 singer Healy, who Swift reportedly briefly dated following her split from Alwyn, appears to be alluded to in Fortnight – a song featuring Post Malone that will be the album’s first single.
She sings: “I only touched you for two weeks… I love you, it ruins my life.”
In Guilty As Sin, a slow, drum-accompanied track, Swift describes “fatal fantasies”, “remembering things we never did” and thinking about a past relationship – “how I long for our dates …How can I be guilty as sin.” ?”
And in But Daddy, I Love Him, Swift may respond to criticism of her never-officially-confirmed relationship with Healy, telling naysayers, “I’ll tell you something about my reputation, it’s up to me alone to dishonor.”
The penultimate track from the initial album, The Alchemy, contains a host of American football-related terms – appearing to mark the introduction of his latest relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce.
A whirlwind of “chemicals” – including “white wine” and “heroin” – are used as metaphors to describe the rush of first attraction amid a multitude of sporting analogies.
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“Self-harm” and “injuries”
Swift told her social media followers that the album was a reflection of “events, opinions and feelings of a fleeting and fatalistic moment,” calling them “both sensational and painful in equal measure.” measure “.
And for Swift, the album itself appears as a form of closure – in her words: “This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter is closed and doomed. There is nothing to avenge , no score to settle once the wounds are healed.”
She also references personal injuries in the album cover, calling the period of her life “self-harm” and “cardiac arrest”. And of her love battle wounds, she told her fans: “A lot of them turned out to be self-inflicted.”
It’s a reflection on herself that she shares in Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me, calling herself “fearsome”, “miserable” and “bad”, singing in the chorus “I was tame, I was gentle , until circus life made me naughty.” .
After more than two decades in the music industry — a notoriously difficult industry to survive, let alone thrive in — we may be seeing a glimpse into Swift’s psyche in I Can Do It With A Broken Heart. She sings: “They said, ‘Baby, you gotta fake it till you make it’. And I did. Lights, camera, slutty smile. Even when you want to die.”
The original It Girl
And in Clara Bow (the name of a 1920s American actress for whom the term “It Girl” was coined), the final track on the original album, she gives us a self-referential dig that touches both at the fickleness of the music industry and mocks his own ever-increasing success.
A young hopeful is heard being congratulated by “suits in LA”, telling her: “You look like Taylor Swift from this angle, we love it. You have an edge she never had.”
Always looking toward the future, toward her next era, perhaps when her “girl shine sparkles,” Swift, now 30, is still one step ahead of the industry she currently dominates .
As she tells us: “The future is bright… Dazzling”.
The Department of Tortured Poets: The Anthology, comprising 31 titles, is now available.