Taylor Swift released the album “The Tortured Poets Department” (Photo: press materials)
On her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift sings about heartbreak. But anyone looking for a cheap sensation will be sorely disappointed. The artist bares her soul, only sometimes bashing her ex-boyfriends. Polish fans will hear the songs live during concerts in Warsaw on August 1, 2 and 3, 2024.
What’s the best way to get revenge on your ex-boyfriend? For Taylor Swift, passionate kisses with her new lover in front of millions were not enough. Nor “Era’s Tour”, which will go down in history as the highest-grossing concert tour. Not even a documentary filmed during the tour. The artist stuck the pin into Joe Alwyn deeper, stronger, crueler. The eleventh album in her career – “The Tortured Poets Department” – will break all records. But the most important contemporary songwriter achieved something much more important – this album will be listened to by subsequent generations who need to mend a broken heart.
“The Tortured Poets Department”: All the faces of Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift herself uses music to pick herself up after a breakup. – I’ve never needed songs more – she told fans before the album’s release. And although the 31 songs of “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” (after the premiere of the first part at midnight, two hours later the artist revealed that it was a double album) there is no big hit, and the whole thing does not compare to Swift’s greatest achievement – the pandemic “Folklore ” – Taylor proves once again that there is no bigger star than her. In each song he balances on the fine line between exhibitionism and creation. It opens and at the same time hides behind an invented character. She shows all shades of herself (contrary to the graphic design, not black and white at all) – a cheerleader and a witch, a little girl, a teenager and a mature woman, a showwoman and a nerd. Aware of her own narcissism, Swift draws on it to the fullest to make her fans feel as if they were listening to her idol’s most intimate therapy. On “TTPD”, the star goes through all stages of mourning after a relationship, constantly transforming her feelings into lines and notes. Joe Alwyn ultimately turned out to be necessary – if it weren’t for his attempts to suppress Taylor’s personality, which the artist accuses him of, she might not have recognized a part of herself. And so it becomes a whole – full of contradictions.
The album begins with “Fortnight”. A duet with Post Malone, Swift chose “TTPD” as her first single as a follow-up to her pop album “Midnights,” recorded, of course, with Jack Antonoff, but also with Alwyn’s help. On “Fortnight” Taylor already knows that nothing will come of it, but he still tries. “I love you, it’s ruining my life” she sings, and millions of girls around the world write these words in messages to their former would-be loves. “I was a functioning alcoholic,” Swift adds, leaving her loyal Swifties wondering if this is a metaphor for love addiction or if their beloved TayTay actually struggles with alcohol problems.
Taylor Swift released the album “The Tortured Poets Department” (Photo: press materials)
Did Joe Alwyn cheat on Taylor Swift?
The title track, “The Tortured Poets Department,” is about a boy who types on a typewriter (“Who types anymore,” Taylor asks scathingly). But this is just a prelude – he serves biting malice in subsequent songs. “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” is a story about Swift and her beloved “couldn’t play for keeps” – something that was supposed to last forever turned out to be unstable. “Stole my tortured heart. Left all these broken parts. Told me I’m better off, but I’m not” (“You stole my tortured heart. You left all the broken parts and said it would be better for me, but it’s not”), adds Swift, bluntly accusing her ex of psychological violence. The first bars of “Down Bad” could announce a hip-hop song, but then Swift’s guitar sound smoothly enters. Here, the artist accuses her partner of giving the impression that she was the only one and, in the end, cheating on her. In “So Long, London”, the singer says goodbye to Alwyn’s hometown, where she spent a lot of time during the pandemic. “You say I abandoned the ship, but I was going down with it” explains to herself, to him and to the fans who is to blame for the breakup.
Joe Alwyn is not the only man who “gets” from Taylor Swift on the new album
Swift probably devotes the next few songs to another love – a holiday romance with Matty Healy from The 1975. In “But Daddy I Love Him”, with a reference to “The Little Mermaid”, she sings in the voice of a girl who frees herself from parental tutelage. “Fresh Out The Slammer” is a hymn to the freedom that comes from breaking up with someone who has “bewitched” us. “Floirida!!!” – a slightly folk duet with Florence + The Machine reminiscent of “Snow on the Beach” with Lana Del Rey from “Midnights” – this is pure escapism. Don’t you feel comfortable at home? Escape to Florida. “Guily as Sin?” it’s a momentary return of romanticism, but then Swift self-analyzes. “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” with the line “If you wanted me dead, you should’ve just said it” can be considered another incarnation of “Look What You Made Me To” or “Anti-Hero” . “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” may as well be about Alwyn as it is about Matty Healy, who is famous for his “terrible jokes” (in fact, The 1975 singer has repeatedly shocked fans with misogynistic and racist statements). Taylor is speaking out loud about a woman’s fantasy, or rather a red flag. If a man needs to be changed, it’s better not to bother with him at all, Taylor seems to be saying. Especially when dealing with “The Smallest Man Who Ever Loved” – a petty, envious, possessive partner who does not allow a woman to spread her wings. “loml” with a pulsating arrangement bordering on electronic music means a settlement with “they lived happily ever after”, because in her case it was not possible to get from “one kiss to the wedding”. Next on the list, “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” is the closest to a stadium hit, because this is the song where Swift stops self-deprecating. On the contrary, she boasts that even in the deepest depression she can go on stage to transform into the showwoman her fans deserve. She admits that “when she celebrated every day as a birthday,” she felt the worst. Given the growing awareness of mental health, the idol’s confession opens her fans to their own experiences with a nervous breakdown.
Taylor Swift released the album “The Tortured Poets Department” (Photo: press materials)
The second part of “The Tortured Poets Department” is Taylor Swift’s sentimental return to her youth, told through stories and myths
Swift could feel like herself again with her new lover. She probably wrote the song “The Alchemy” about Travis Kelce, which would be indicated by the sports associations she uses in the lyrics. The slightly old-fashioned melody line and dreamy lyrics about a love that happens “once in a lifetime” show that Swift is not losing hope. In “Clarze Bow” (named after the silent film star of the 1920s), which concludes the first part of the album, Taylor distances herself from her own drama, singing “I don’t want to exaggerate, but I think I’m going to die.” “Clara Bow” wasn’t planned to be the end of “TTPD.” Immediately afterwards, the better part of “The Anthology” appears, in which Swift detaches herself from her own experience enough to turn it into fairy tales, myths, and short stories. In this installment of “TTPD” she is known as a storyteller who turns pop culture clichés on their heads to find a contemporary twist in characters from the past.
Already in the first one – “Black Dog” – generational experience comes to the fore. He didn’t turn off geolocation after the breakup, so she follows his path. This inability to break ties caused by social media plagues many of Swift’s peers. In “imgonnagetyoubauk” Taylor recalls her favorite “short skirt”, already known from “Style”. This Taylor still wants to win the boy’s heart again, and a moment later in “How Did It End?” announce that he is writing a song “postmortem”. Jack Antonoff’s greatest influence can be seen in “So High School.” Indie rock vibes like those from the “Życie na wave” soundtrack and lyrics about watching “American Pie” take the artist and us back to high school (but when she was in high school, she was already selling millions of albums). “I Look in People’s Windows” begins with texts worthy of stories from Sylvia Plath or Virginia Woolf’s books. Looking into people’s windows, the heroine behaves like a “crazy widow” wanting to spot her former lover at “someone’s table.” In the fairy tale “The Prophecy”, she admits that she is not a “greater woman”, because she would not beg for mercy. But the prophecy is clear – this love will come to naught. Swift uses myths in “Cassandra”, who was killed for fearing the worst. With this truly last track – “The Manuscript” – he gives his story to others (“The story isn’t mine anymore” is the last verse of “TTPD”). To be useful, to heal them, to carry them further. It was supposed to be so beautiful – “soon they’ll be pushing strollers”. Instead of a happy ending, Swift just got the end. But only this story. Finally, he degrades Alwyn once again, suggesting that they had a deep spiritual understanding, but not necessarily a physical one. He required maturity, modesty and secrecy from her. And she wanted to “be thirty” – to have fun, to dance. Now all that’s left of love is this manuscript, this great album with 50 Shades of Taylor Swift. “Nothing breaks like a heart,” as another brilliant author sang revenge album, Miley Cyrus. Taylor Swift healed her broken heart with art.
