Re: The Tortured Poets Department

+ The Anthology. Total of 31 songs, I'm overwhelmed. Let's talk about it, Taylor

Genre: 80s synth-pop

Themes: Grief, Heartbreak, Escapism, Betrayal, & Longing in relationships

To be honest, I initially didn’t love the album because I thought the songs all sounded too similar and each song was like a page out of Swift’s diary. The raw emotions, hyperspecific situations, and blatant connections to her past and present turned me off from several songs, lyrically, upon first listen. After letting the album simmer for quite some time, I’ve come to enjoy this album greatly.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

weekly rankings

thoughts upon first listen

(straight copy-pasted from my notes app)

Fortnight ft. Post Malone

• Interpretation: Romantizing an element from the past simply because the present isn’t satisfying is really unhealthy, but something of a unique human experience

• Thoughts: Lmk why I liked the AI version that was circulating TikTok more. But loved how she brought Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles to cohesively connect the Dead Poets Society (1989) with TTPD for the music video

• Standout lyric: I love you, it’s ruining my life

The Tortured Poets Department

• Interpretation: Really reads as if it’s a page from the M*tty H*aly burn book

• Thoughts: I didn’t like it. Can’t figure out exactly why. Maybe the satirical tone and name-dropping of people like Lucy Dacus and Charlie Puth or lines with specificities like The Chelsea Hotel and tattooed Golden Retriever? The historical accuracy in how it reads makes it feel less like an artistic piece and more like a journal entry…?

• Standout lyric: At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger / And put it on the one people put wedding rings on

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

• Interpretation: Feeling valued and cherished at the beginning of a relationship, then holding onto the worst patches with the belief that the person can go back to treating us the way they did initially. Surefire denial

• Thoughts: I like her voice a lot in this one. And the inflections. Especially the run on the “oh oohohohoh” part when she’s extending the word “toys”

• Standout lyric: Put me back on my shelf

Down Bad

• Interpretation: I love you so much it hurts, why don’t you love me the same?

• Thoughts: The lyrics don’t match the vibe. Super bouncy and almost dismissive of the underlying message. Prob intentional and speaks to the message

• Standout lyric: Starin' at the sky, come back and pick me up // How dare you think it's romantic / Leaving me safe and stranded

So Long, London

• Interpretation: I would have done anything for you, but you didn’t even give me the bare minimum. I’m gracefully bowing out of this relationship, but thank you.

• Thoughts: For a track 5, YOYOK; Delicate; Tolerate It; and The Archer are some of my absolute favorites because of how heavily they speak to personal development but this one’s far more accusatory and devastating in it’s delivery

• Standout lyric: You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? / I died on the altar waitin' for the proof

But Daddy I Love Him

• Interpretation: Feels like a response to the fake fans who were bullying her because of who she was dating¹

• Thoughts: Sardonic and sassy—I kinda like this bc I would for sure would rather burn my whole life down for my convictions than listen to a hater

• Standout lyric: If all you want is gray for me / Then it's just white noise, and it's just my choice

Fresh Out the Slammer

• Interpretation: When your relationship feels like a prison more and more each day, you rejoice when you’ve found the will to escape

• Thoughts: Sounds like the notes that play in an AMC Western film about cowboy outlaws. I don’t like the production, but can appreciate her lyricism and imagery

• Standout lyric: Handcuffed to the spell I was under / For just one hour of sunshine

Florida!!! ft. Florence + The Machine

• Interpretation: Who she’s escaping to after being locked in a Fresh Out the Slammer relationship

• Thoughts: Omg I’m so biased bc I love Florence. This has the same vibes as no body, no crime and omg I love the emphatic 6 drum beats its so dramatic and fun. Also I just love ghosts in art

• Standout lyric: Well, me and my ghosts, wе had a hell of a time / Yes, I'm hauntеd, but I'm feeling just fine

Guilty as Sin?

• Interpretation: Daydreams of a romatic rendezvous with someone else is technically not cheating

• Thoughts: A bouncier version of False God, very smutty

• Standout lyric: I keep recalling things we never did

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

• Interpretation: Like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a story using an unhappy marriage as a microcosm for the imperfect state of America, she uses this song to convey that the media needs to live without illusion because otherwise, with individuals protecting their own versions of reality, they will tear down others’ in the process

• Thoughts: Between the production and the vivid lyrics, oof! I love how this song is so catchy and contradictory where the words pack a punch in a soft song. Might be the circus talk but it reminds me of The Greatest Showman. Again, love the ghost levitating metaphor

• Standout lyric: So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street / Don't you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

• Interpretation: Littered with signs of denial in a relationship

• Thoughts: Similar to Fresh Out the Slammer, Western sound, feels stale after But Daddy I Love Him, put it in the vault

• Standout lyric: I can fix him, no, really, I can

loml

• Interpretation: All those promises and all that love was empty in the end, so I left

• Thoughts: Already one of my favorites, I love her voice in this. Evokes such pure sadness that actually hurts me as the listener. The seamless transition from love to loss of my life hurts!!

• Standout lyric: I wish I could unrecall / How we almost had it all // Oh, what a valiant roar

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart

• Interpretation: Going through life while processing the hardest struggles, and pretending like you’re okay

• Thoughts: Almost exactly how depression feels!! The in-ear monitors that track this song are genius and this song makes me feel the same way YOYOK makes me feel

• Standout lyric: I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it's an art // Cause I’m miserable / And nobody even knows!

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

• Interpretation: You don’t know what happened or why the relationship ended, but assume it’s because addiction got in the way of what could have been beautiful

• Thoughts: The sigh that started the song was beautiful. Loved the melody and song pattern.

• Standout lyric: I would've died for your sins, instead, I just died inside

The Alchemy

• Interpretation: That cheesy, giddy early love feeling

• Thoughts: This one just sounds kinda like an ai version of those Travis-Taylor songs and I just felt like it sounded so juvenile but it’s cute like an amendment of invisible string almost to match the new relationship. Cheesy lyrics but okay

• Standout lyric: Where's the trophy? He just comes runnin' over to me

Clara Bow

• Interpretation: Sounds like Swift’s really optimistic and hopeful for the next generation of singers/songwriters who were inspired by herself. Thinking Olivia Rodrigo, Gracie Abrams, and Sabrina Carpenter

• Thoughts: I liked that she broke the 4th wall on this one and the way she says dazzling

• Standout lyric: It's hell on earth to be heavenly // The future’s bright, dazzling

+ THE ANTHOLOGY (2am release)

The Black Dog

• Interpretation: Made me think of a friendship breakup

• Thoughts: MY FAVORITE SONG. Most def. I loved the production of this, especially the “old habits die screaming” part in the first two times she sings it with the theatrical drum beats in the back

• Standout lyric: I move through the world with the heartbroken / My longings stay unspoken / And I may never open up thе way I did for you // I just don't understand how you don't miss me

imgonnagetyouback

• Interpretation: A clever (thinly-veiled) response to The 1975’s fallingforyou.

• Thoughts: I get it, but kinda still annoyed that she, a woman almost twice Olivia Rodrigo’s age, still chose to release a song exploring the same concept and same name as Rodrigo’s get him back!, the lead single on Guts. Super catchy and fun though

• Standout lyric: Told my friends I hate you, but I love you just the same

• Whether I'm gonna be your wife or / Gonna smash up your bike, I haven't decided yet

The Albatross

• Interpretation: For when you feel like a burden and feel like you’re the worst thing that could ever happen to someone, even when you have the best intentions

• Thoughts: I feel the same way listening to Lorde’s Liability I think. I love the chorus so so much, but also love when she drops the line “wise men, once said”

• Standout lyric: I'm the life you chose / And all this terrible danger

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus

• Interpretation: She changed to be palatable for her partner, and would be most heartbroken if he said he once loved her, because the changes were fruitless. Seems like another song about her coping with her love interest choosing drugs > her love and her looking for that closure by coming up with reasons

• Thoughts: I can’t say this stands out to me, lyrically or sonically

• Standout lyric: I changed into goddesses, villains and fools

How Did It End?

• Interpretation: I can only describe this as that feeling when you know people are gossiping about your personal relationship with someone (or lack thereof) behind your back. Kind of reminds me of a friendship drift where you have no idea what happened but you don’t talk to them anymore

• Thoughts: I love the compelling piano and her soft, pleading vocals. Excellent storytelling and interesting lyric delivery. Also, obviously love the ghost metaphor

• Standout lyric: My beloved ghost and me / Sitting in a tree / D-Y-I-N-G

So High School

• Interpretation: Diary entry of how she loves her relationship with Travis

• Thoughts: Like The Alchemy, this song feels so much like the ai versions floating around about her and Travis Kelce’s love story but it’s all just so obvious and unrelatable because of the hyperspecific details that pertain to their public persona. Suuuuuuuper cheesy but sooooooooo much fun, you can just tell how giddy she seems to be while in love with Travis

• Standout lyric: You know how to ball / I know Aristotle / It's true, swear, scout's honor

I Hate It Here

• Interpretation: The safety of a home only exists in the secret fantasies in my mind

• Thoughts: Heartbreakingly, I hate that I can fully understand and relate to this song and hate that this is one of my favorite bridges bc of how it speaks to the inner workings of my mind “I'm bitter, but I swear I'm fine”

• Standout lyric: I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life and I'll get lost on purpose / This place made me feel worthless // And in my fantasies, I rise above it / And way up there, I actually love it // 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

thanK you aIMee

• Interpretation: Seems like a song thanking her haters² for propelling her to write and perform her hardest to achieve in her career.

• Thoughts: I love the upbeat sparkliness of this song hehe and how intentional she was in creating a red herring for her listeners

• Standout lyric: And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel // But I can’t forget the way you made me heal

I Look in People’s Windows

• Interpretation: Seeing the bits and pieces of someone you loved everywhere or looking for love in every little thing. Either way, spiralling about the “if only”

• Thoughts: The “I look in people's windows” parallels the "I look through the windows of this love” on Death By a Thousand Cuts. I don’t know if I’ve really sat with the song because it just feels heartbreaking

• Standout lyric: Does it feel alright to not know me? I'm addicted to the "if only"

The Prophecy

• Interpretation: Begging the higher power for better outcomes in love

• Thoughts: Another heartbreaking favorite. I wonder if I’m simply unstable in love right now to be having these thoughts. I’m so addicted to the “please” part of the song, it makes me want to cry

• Standout lyric: I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope / A greater woman wouldn't beg // But even statues crumble if they're made to wait

Cassandra

• Interpretation: About Cassandra of Troy, the Trojan priestess dedicated and cursed by Apollo (Greek God) to utter true prophecies but never to be believed

• Thoughts: I love the piano on this and how she sings this song. Reminds me of the way she sings Eyes Open. I also like the lyrical emphasis on the first part of any bar, the same way she did in The Albatross

• Standout lyric: They say, "What doesn't kill you makes you aware" / What happens if it becomes who you are?

Peter

• Interpretation: Story of Peter Pan and how boys don’t grow up, despite a decade-long break. Now she’s done waiting and will move on, but isn’t going to beat either party because growth mindset—love isn’t lost, just redistributed

• Thoughts: Again, I love the piano. Feels a little self-victimizing and blaming him when you chose to wait for the him to be ready. But okay I get it, a girl can’t wait forever

• Standout lyric: 'Cause love's never lost when perspective is earned

The Bolter

• Interpretation: Running away from relationships for either good reason or when things get hard, but either way, it’s freeing

• Thoughts: I love how fun this song is, especially in the chorus!!! Very fitting for describing flitting flings

• Standout lyric: Hearts are hers for the breakin' / There's escape in escaping

Robin

• Interpretation: Protecting that childhood innocence by any means

• Thoughts: My immediate thought is Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin bc this reminds me of a children’s storybook and the wistfulness for childhood innocence

• Standout lyric: You have no room in your dreams for regrets // But now we'll curtail your curiosity / In sweetness

The Manuscript

• Interpretation: Some form of an autobiography or memoir weaving threads from songs on Red to Dear Reader where she’s coping with the fact that her art is no longer solely her’s after it’s been published and a compelling argument for how she’s not the same person she was 10 years ago and deserves evolution in how she’s seen

• Thoughts: Good conclusion to this album and gives me excitement to see how her growth over the past decade serves as a mirror for understanding and recognizing my own progress. Def highlights the importance of reflection but too somber for me to relisten anytime soon

• Standout lyric: Lookin' backwards / Might be the only way to move forward

Her tour resumes next week and I’m curious to find out whether how she’ll incorporate TTPD into her setlist. I definitely anticipate seeing a Fortnight performance, but I’m unsure whether songs like I Can Do It With A Broken Heart and But Daddy I Love Him will make an appearance, considering I was wrong in assuming that her debut album would have a spot on her set and that You’re On You’re Own, Kid would make the Midnights section.

1. This song had to have been a result of touring with Sabrina Carpenter because it has the same (more angsty) vibe as because i liked a boy

2. Unpopular opinion, but idk if this song is actually about Kim K! I think it has to be about someone from her hometown or high school, maybe someone who was friends with Aimee at the time? The intentional capitalization of Kim’s name seems to be a red herring intended to throw her fans off because she specifically sings “And so I changed your name and any real defining clues”