🤍 The Tortured Poets Department 🤍

I have been heavily anticipating this album since February. First of all, it’s a new Taylor Swift album which will always be exciting, and the fact that it was being described as poetry just made it even more thrilling. And now it’s a double album. 

Taylor has always been poetic but this takes it up many notches. Also, this is the most referential she has ever been about herself and damn I’m living for it all. She has an incredible voice and her writing style is impeccable.

What I was most surprised about this album were the bits of humor throughout. I caught myself laughing many times even though these are some very depressing topics. She has put so much of herself into these songs, even the parts you would not expect to see or hear.  I’m looking forward to what I find as I continue to listen to them.

Also, the literary references are galore, especially in the 2am second album. We have references to The Great Gatsby, Shakespeare, Peter Pan again, Cassandra and Sisyphus from Greek Mythology, Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Wizard of Oz, The Secret Garden, and many more. This is an allusion and metaphor heavy album which I know will not be for everyone. Personally, I am obsessed with it. Makes me want analyze the lyrics and pick out every single one. I think I might do a post on here sometime with each of them. Definitely, an album for my literature loving heart. 

The title of this album fits so well with every song. She has let us into her world in a way we haven’t quite been before and each piece of these songs adds to that. They are personal, vulnerable, and so damn smart. It shows the imperfections and doesn’t pretty anything up for anyone. She turns phrases like some of the best poets out there. Below, I am going to talk about each of the songs. I’ll give my opinions, anything that stuck out to me on my listens, and my ratings (out of five) at the moment. 

1. “Fortnight”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 

~ What a beautiful sounding song. I was excited to hear her sing this with Post Malone and they did a good job. I think she could have used him a bit more. Their voices sound absolutely stunning together. Her melodic vocals are stunning and this continues throughout the entire album. I love the upbeat production along with the sad lyrics. 

~ Though, I will say that many of these lyrics make me wonder about why they are in the song. I figured this would be the first single because of Post being a feature in it but I think there are others that could have been better picks. 

~ Taylor’s music video for this song was pretty great. I love the cinematography and the chemistry between Post and Taylor was perfection. It felt like a movie. Also, it was great to have the little nod to Dead Poets Society with Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles. One of my favorite Robin Williams movies. My poetry loving heart is ecstatic. 

“And I love you, it’s ruining my life.”

2. “The Tortured Poets Department”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ The titular song is perfect. Love the details she is giving us in this song to tell her story. The typewriter, the references to poets (Dylan Thomas, Pattie Smith, and the Chelsea Hotel), and the domestic scenes. I was surprised by how upbeat this song was but it is so pretty. This should have been the first single if I’m going to be honest. 

“And who’s gonna hold you like me?

And who’s gonna know you, if not me?

I laughed in your face and said,

‘You’re not Dylan Thomas.

I’m not Patti Smith.

This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel.

We’re modern idiots.’ 

And who’s gonna hold you like me?”

3. “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ The metaphor she uses in this song is quite clever to show toxic relationships. It’s not the first time she uses toys as a metaphor. She has used kens in “Hit Different” and toy in “Cruel Summer.” 

4. “Down Bad”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ I gotta say I relate to this song. Definitely, don’t want to though. Another that is surprisingly upbeat. 

5. “So Long, London”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ We all knew this was going to be a sad song. The connections to her previous songs from other albums stand out quite a bit in this. Also, the religious and boat imagery is heavy. Damn, this is a hard one. Probably, the one that feels the most like a poem at this point in the tracklist. 

6. “But Daddy I Love Him”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ This was the song I have been the most anticipating ever since I first saw the track list. Stood out right away because of the reference to The Little Mermaid (1989), my favorite Disney movie. And it did not disappoint. It makes me think of a more mature version of “Love Story” and damn it is great! The melodrama is incredible. 

“Too high a horse for a simple girl to rise above it

They slammed the door on my whole world

The one thing I wanted

Now, I’m running with my dress unbuttoned

Screamin’ ‘But daddy, I love him’

I’m having his baby, no I’m not

But you should see your faces

I’m telling him to floor it through the fences

No, I’m not coming to my senses

I know it’s crazy

But he’s the one I want”

~ I was surprised by the sound of it and the story we received. The message is one I think many fans need to hear and I’m glad Taylor is letting them know how she feels.  It was not at all what I believed it would be like and oh my god it’s so damn incredible. Maybe it’s too early to say it is my favorite song from the album, but I would be surprised if any of them ever overpass it. This song is crazy and absolutely a masterpiece. I could gush about this song for a million years. Never thought we would get a song like this from Taylor again and I’m beyond glad we got it. Hope she has more numbers like this in the future. 

7. “Fresh Out The Slammer”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ I think the music at the beginning of the song is interesting. Makes it sound like a western. Lots of metaphors in this album to represent the situations in this previous chapter of her life. Very poetic. Marriage is a big topic throughout a lot of these songs. 

8. “Florida!!!”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 

~ I don’t know what to think about this song to be honest. There is so much going on. It’s a strange one but the vocals are beautiful. There are so many great lines in this song but I wish they were in another song. Like for instance: 

“Is that a bad thing to put in a song?” 

~ Florence Welch is so incredible! God, her voice is just so damn stunning. 

9. “Guilty As Sin?”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 

~ All of these songs have wonderful productions. 

10. “Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ Oh my…this song is haunting and everything I was hoping it would be when I saw the title. The imagery of her as a witch levitating through a town and the screaming of “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” is phenomenal. God, I hope we get a music video for this beauty and I love the breaking of the fourth wall throughout the entire time. She really is addressing so much of the drama and comments people have made about her.  

11. “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”- 🤍 🤍 

~ An okay song, but it is one of my least favorite songs on the album. I do enjoy the ending though. 

12. “loml”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ This song is really hard to listen to. One of the saddest that Taylor has ever written and it hits me super hard. I can feel every emotion she is conveying. 

“You’re the lose of my life.” 

~ Knew it was going to be lose of my life instead of love of my life. 

13. “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ Feels like a sequel to “Bejeweled.” The juxtaposition of the lyrics in this song to the beat is incredible. It shows the entire point of the song in such an obvious way and it makes you want to dance along with her. If you don’t pay attention to what she is saying you could mistake this for an upbeat track, but damn this is a sad one. I think the placement of this song after “loml” was brilliant. 

“Breaking down I hit the floor

All the pieces of me shattered 

As the crowd was chanting, ‘MORE!’” 

14. “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ Well, this was surprising and it is a scathing take on “the smallest man” we have all been waiting for. This is not who I’d thought this would be about and she definitely let him have it with this one. The bridge is chilling. 

“And I don’t miss what we had, but could someone give

A message to the smallest man who ever lived?

Were you sent by someone 

Who wanted me dead?

Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?

We’re you writing a book?

We’re you a sleeper cell spy?

In fifty years will this be declassified?”

15. “The Alchemy”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ This is such a cute song. I know I keep saying I love the beats, but damn, it sounds great. I like this song a lot. 

16. “Clara Bow”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ I love when Taylor writes songs like this where she explores her career in the industry. It’s always interesting to see her take on people’s thoughts on her as a person and where she takes them. The use of Clara Bow, Stevie Nicks, and then finally herself at the end was hard hitting. Talking about pitting women against each other and how they are always compared. Great ending to the first part of “The Tortured Poets Department Anthology.”

17. “The Black Dog”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ This song sounds so damn beautiful. Her vocals are great in this entire album but this is one of the best. Heartbreaking. I love her story songs. 

“Old habits die screaming!”

18. “imgonnagetyouback”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ I love this song! The beat is infectious and just everything to me. 

19. “The Albatross” 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ Makes me think of the beat of many of the songs on evermore. Feels a bit like “Ivy.” 

20. “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus” 🤍 🤍 

~ Not really a fan of this song. It’s okay. 

21. “How Did It End?”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 

~ I love her vocals at the beginning before she starts the first verse. They feel ethereal. Interesting idea of a relationship autopsy to see what caused the relationship to fall apart. She really shows her writing ability on this project. 

“My beloved ghost and me

Sitting in a tree

D-Y-I-N-G”

22. “So High School”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 

~ This song makes me think of another song and I don’t know what it is. The sound especially at the beginning. I love the tune of it. Her voice sounds so beautiful. Makes me think of a song that would have been in a 90s or early 2000s rom-com. 

23. “I Hate it Here”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ I really love the story here. The details she gives bring you right into the moments she is describing. Her creativity shines through in this beauty. I relate to this song so much with the escapism in your own writing or in literature. There are so many great songs on this album. 

“I hate it here so I will go to 

Secret gardens in my mind

People need a key to get to 

The only one is mine”

24. “thanK you aIMee”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 

~ The metaphor of a mean girl in town is so telling. I cannot believe this song and what she’s so blatantly stating at this point. Gosh. The amount of murder, death, and jail in these songs is much more than expected. I love the fourth-wall break at the end. Such a fun song. I don’t think she should have capitalized the letters in the title at all. She should have let the song speak for what she was talking about. Maybe some people would not have realized what she was talking about but many would. 

“I pushed each boulder up the hill

Your words are still just ringing in my head, ringing in my head…”

“All that time you were throwin’ punches, it was all for nothin’

And our town, it looks so small, from way up here

Screamed ‘Thank you, Aimee’ to the night sky, and the stars are stunnin’ 

Cause I can’t forget the way you make me heal.”

25. “I Look in People’s Windows”- 🤍🤍 🤍 🤍

~ I really like this song quite a lot. 

26. “The Prophecy”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ I think this album was perfectly laid out with the songs’ placements. The overall message of this song is about how Taylor feels like there has been a prophecy that has destined her not to succeed in love/relationships. To have that before a song based on the Greek Mythology character, Cassandra, is so damn clever. 

~ This is a song for the hopeless romantics.

27. “Cassandra”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ As soon as I saw the title for this track, I got excited. I hoped it was about Cassandra from Greek Mythology and I was very right. Gotta say, I’m a sucker for a literary allusion in songs. This one fits well with the story she is telling, especially nobody listening to her. So haunting. 

28. “Peter”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ Peter Pan is a character who is drawn upon in many pieces of writing. Many of us have met our own example of Peter in our lives. He is an allusion I will never get sick of. I love this song.

29. “The Bolter”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 

~ Pretty good song. 

30. “Robin”- 🤍 🤍 

~ My least favorite song on the album. 

31. “The Manuscript”- 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍

~ The metaphor of the manuscript being her old music that she has been revisiting is great. Perfect closer for The Tortured Poets Department. 

Closing Thoughts

The perfect release for National Poetry Month. 

This album feels like part poetry and story. Taylor is giving such specific lyrics that give us a look into the last couple of years. I enjoyed almost every single one of the songs and feel like they all fit well together to tell a cohesive story. She clearly thought about the placement of these songs, many going perfectly right after the previous track. This is an emotional rollercoaster that feels vulnerable and heartbreaking. 

I never really care the subject of Taylor’s breakup songs. There are many people who like or dislike songs based on who they believe they are about when I don’t believe that is what is important. Sure many of the songs on this album are obviously about certain people in Taylor’s life, but that doesn’t affect my enjoyment of them. I love the story she is telling. No matter the subject. There is so much in this album that far surpasses those types of ideas. This is a Taylor Swift album and the subject of the album is Taylor and this chapter of her life. The muses don’t matter as much as what she is trying to say.

This album brings a new perspective to folklore and evermore. I always knew the songs on those two albums were more than just stories and this proves that. So many lyrics are reminiscent of them. It also does the same for Midnights which is definitely a start of a breakup album. 

Overall, I loved most of this album. It's not my favorite of hers but many of the songs are. I know my opinions will change with time and I might enjoy some of these more. Taylor has created a beautiful collection here. I love the experience of listening to new music from her and am looking forward to what will come next. 

Favorite songs:

~ “But Daddy I Love Him”

~ “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me”

~ “I Hate It Here”

~ “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”

~ “The Tortured Poets Department”