All’s fair in love and poetry: Swift’s new album debuts 30+ songs
TEXARKANA, Texas — Taylor Swift’s 15th album came in with a heavy dose of synth and left listeners questioning what the singer-songwriter was alluding to with her piano-based final track “The Manuscript.”
Recently, Swift has been impossible to avoid, that even my straight-laced father, usually unbothered by pop culture, saying: “I don’t want to hear that name for a while,” while shaking his head with annoyance.
The record breaker and accolade collector has been in multiple recent and unexpected settings, such as popular Los Angeles Sushi eateries known for paparazzi photos, football games with lovelorn eyes as Travis Kelce belts out an ode to Las Vegas, the beach with a drink in hand, hovering awards on top of fellow award winner’s heads at the Grammys, much to social media users’ chagrin.
In between all of that, she managed to write 31 songs and released them at midnight on Friday,.
The singer’s new album, “The Tortured Poet’s Department,” was plagued with fans’ excitement and followers’ doubts, as the public couldn’t seem to get enough of her personal life but was also tired of her existence simultaneously.
I, a longtime fan since 2008, the year “Love Story” sneaked itself onto my ipod Nano, have also felt bothered by her frequent private jet usage but also found myself in a unique position when I received an early snippet of Swift’s lead single “Fortnight (featuring Post Malone)” a whole day before it released.
A college friend, who desired anonymity, received it from a friend’s music producer pal and she immediately sent it over to me.
“A lil treat for you before bed, it is a FORTNIGHT SPOILER, very brief,” my friend texted.
The video my friend sent me showed a group of young teens, girls dressed in flowery dresses, Mary Jane shoes and lacy ankle socks listened to the track as Swift’s low register rumbled: “I wanna kill her.”
Swift’s aforementioned track was the recipient of a music video with a monochrome setting, except for when Swift and Austin Post (Post Malone) forlornly type at parallel typewriters, as plumes of rose gold and blue billow up and twist together from their respective machines.
The two musicians are transported to a multitude of settings: a deserted street surrounded by mountains and a tornado of music sheets where they caress, a lab where a frightened looking Swift undergoes electric shock treatment from “Dead Poets Society” stars Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles as Post saves her, and a mountain top with Post in a singular telephone booth as Swift sits atop the booth in a chainmail-looking dress during a thunderstorm.
Swift’s lyrics describe having to love someone that she only got to spend two weeks with and how it’s ruining her life. Donning a modern version of a Victorian Mourning gown, Swift tears through files frantically as they catch aflame and also sings with rain drenched hair, the imagery is palpably emotional as it’s
easy to tell — she’s fighting for the memories and moments that were gone too soon.
Swift’s new album is shocking in a decent amount of places, as it includes themes of betrayal, lost love, self-examination and coming to terms with flaws. The issue with this is that Swift doesn’t really make an attempt at self-improvement.
In “Down Bad,” Swift describes her listlessness after losing a romantic partner, “Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym, Everything Comes out teenage petulance, ‘F*** it if I can’t have him, I might just die, it would make no difference.’”
Swift makes multiple references to the Sunshine state, particularly in her lead single where she and Post sing about missing each other’s calls, the desire to move to Florida and buy a car together. The state is also mentioned in a bombastic-sounding collaboration with Florence + The Machine.
Florence Welch’s glorious-sounding vibrato easily outshone Swift in “Florida!!!” as the two break the fourth wall while they talk about sinking their past lovers’ bodies in a swamp: “Is that a bad thing to say in a song?”
The burying of regrets is also brought up in the song, it may just be coincidence that Swift’s break-up with thespian Joe Alwyn was initially published while she was performing “The Eras Tour” in Florida in March 2023, one can imagine that six years (the length of Swift and Alwyn’s relationship) can breed lots of regrets.
In “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” Swift embodies a corporeal being — a ghost, a specter, perhaps a siren of sorts, as she imagines terrorizing those who speak derisively of her but also are addicted to her songs. “I was tame, I was gentle ‘til the circus life made me mean. Don’t you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth.”
Swift takes on a new sort of theatricality and takes her vocals to a new and higher octave as she questions who is afraid of her and warns them that they should be.
While I have my admiration and occasionally reservations about some of Swift’ s actions, the track “im gonna get you back” left me speechless due to the similarities it held to Swift’s younger, poppunk counterpart, Olivia Rodrigo’s “get him back!” from her sophomore album “GUTS.”
Swift said “Whether I’m gonna be your wife or Gonna smash up your bike, I haven’t decided yet — But I’m gonna get you back. Whether I’m gonna flip you off or Pull you into the closet, I haven’t decided yet — But I’m gonna get you back.”
Rodrigo’s similar plight of having a love-hate feeling towards a former romantic partner swells as she debates as to whether she wants to “key his car” or “make him lunch” or “break his heart” or “stitch it up.”
The similarity between the two tracks is immediate and startling, it almost made me wonder — did no one during the production process tell her? Has Swift listened to Rodrigo’s recent releases?
It’s one thing to be inspired and another to be derivative and it’s especially interesting that this song happened after Swift’s legal team demanded compensation and credit from Rodrigo after the younger artist shared that her song “deja vu” was inspired by Swift’s “Cruel Summer.”
To Rolling Stone in 2021, Rodrigo said she loved the loud vocals and harmonized yells from Swift’s track and that she wanted to do something like that.
In one of TTPD’S final tracks, “The Bolter,” Swift becomes introspective and details the rush she gets from leaving a relationship, the freedom that it brings her.
In the bridge of the song, she delves into the many men and places she has been, how she always has a chariot waiting and how she finds an escape in escaping.
Quite similar to her album “reputation”’s track “Getaway Car” where she describes leaving someone and chastising them for not being aware of her penchant for abandonment, “The Bolter” is more celebratory of the trait of leaving, rather than mocking the victim of it.
What Swift will do next is often a mystery, but whatever it happens to be, it seems likely that she will attract attention regardless of her actions — and she knows it.
To listen to “The Tortured Poet’s Department,” find it on any music streaming service.