The Tortured Poets Department: Taylor Swift's Latest Album Under the Microscope
By Katie Mayer
At midnight on April 19, Taylor Swift released her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD). Included on the album, Swift incorporates 16 songs about her own heartbreak, emotional rupture and grief. Three hours later at 2 a.m., Swift surprised fans with a double album, dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology containing 15 extra songs. Known for her lyrical prowess and ability to capture raw emotion, it is no surprise that Swift turned her heavy tortured poetry into a melodious soundtrack, exhibiting the depths of human emotion and the complexities of love and loss.
Swift took to Instagram to write that the album was an “anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time”. She proceeds to note that the feelings of hurt and sorrow “turned out to be self-inflicted”, leading fans to wonder who or what the songs could possibly be about.
Trading in the synth-pop melodies of 1989 (2014), Lover’s (2019) pop rock love ballads, or even her early country-pop tune of Fearless (2008), Swift chose to go with a completely different route. She explored a more simplistic, mid-tempo beat, fixating on illustrative balladry instead.
Since its release, fans have taken to social media to share their own thoughts, seemingly endless and controversial; some were upset with the genre change and her straying away from her typical pop-worthy choruses, and others were thrilled with the investigative analysis needed to understand the full depth of the lyrics.
The album opens with the first single, “Fortnight”, featuring Post Malone, containing lyrics of “I love you, it’s ruining my life”. In an Amazon Music Commentary, Swift comments that both statements are very profound and dramatic things to say, but “it’s just that kind of album- it’s about a dramatic, artistic, tragic kind of take on love and loss.” Similarly, “So Long, London”, “loml” and “The Black Dog” all speak about a tearful goodbye to a past lover. All three songs tell the story of a promising romance that ended unexpectedly and sent the poet into a spiral of madness.
In the track “loml”, Swift sings “You talked me under the table/ Talking rings and talking cradles/ I wish I could un-recall/ How we almost had it all” and devastatingly closing out the song with “You’re the loss of my life”. She tells the story of a couple making plans for the future, dreaming about marriage and children but it all ends in anguish and ruin.
Tragically, Swift continues to add in the track “The Black Dog” that after her earth-shattering breakup, “ I move through the world with the heartbroken/ My longings stay unspoken/And I may never open up the way I did for you”, questioning how she is expected to go on with ease with the burden of her pain and grief. Swift writes that this character feels stunted, worried they are unable to form another connection on a level with such profound intensity.
In “So Long, London”, Swift portrays more anger among her heartache, expressing that she endured an ample amount of distress, fighting tooth and nail to save the doomed relationship, even when encouraged to ditch the toxic relationship, singing:
“And you say I abandoned the ship/ But I was going down with it/ My white knuckle dying grip/ Holding tight to your quiet resentment and/ My friends said it isn't right to be scared/ Every day of a love affair”
Swift has always been under intense scrutiny and pressure since her claim to fame in her teens regarding her work, image and even her dating life. Swift explains her frustrations with this in the song “Clara Bow”. Titled after the American actress of the silent film era, Clara Bow was often considered the first “it girl” and was later institutionalized during a depressive and schizophrenic episode due to the pressure of the spotlight, subsequently never returning to society and spending her final years alone.
Swift also name drops Stevie Nicks, another “it girl” of the 1970s, along with herself in the song. She criticized the damaging trend of hyper fixation on female megastars as a botched form of entertainment, only to forget them for the next promising star with the lyrics “You’re the new god we’re worshiping/Promise to be…dazzling”. The trend also includes bashing the fallen and forgotten, which Swift exposes by singing:
"Beauty is a beast that roars/ Down on all fours/ Demanding "more"/ Only when your girlish glow/ Flickers just so/ Do they let you know/It's hell on earth to be heavenly/ Them's the breaks/ They don't come gently”
Critics comment that the lyrics are too much, even taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, to say that Swift messily overshared, especially due to the sheer volume of songs released in such little time.
Since its release, TTPD has broken numerous records, including Spotify and Apple Music with over one billion streams, making it the most streamed song of all time in just five days on Spotify alone. Swift has also sold over 700,000 LPs in vinyl records in just three days, according to Variety.