Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department leaked earlier this week, but as it turns out, people were only hearing about half of the album. Taylor gave her fans a heart attack with a “2 am surprise” – TTPD is a “secret double album” full of two years’ worth of “tortured poetry.” From what little I’ve seen, the bulk of the album seems to be about Joe Alwyn and Matt Healy, maybe more songs about Healy than her fans were expecting. Here’s Taylor’s message to her fans:
The Tortured Poets Department. An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.
And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.
THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT is out now.
“There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted.” Well, we can stan a reflective queen! Thank you, Tay, for admitting that so many of your wounds are self-inflicted! Speaking of, the title track is so clearly about Matt Healy, with lyrics like: “You smokеd then ate seven bars of chocolate/We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist/I scratch your head, you fall asleep/Like a tattooed golden retriever.” Swifties are having a really hard time defending this. Healy is not a golden retriever! Charlie Puth has talked sh-t about Selena Gomez! She also references Healy apparently threatening to self-harm: “Sometimes I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me/ But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave.” The “Lucy” in question is likely boygenius’ Lucy Dacus.
And here’s the first single from the album, a collab with Post Malone (who also collab’d with Beyonce on Cowboy Carter’s “Levii’s Jeans”). This is okay?
Like… I’m never the target audience for Taylor’s music, but I agree with some of the Swifties that a lot of this sounds like rejects from Midnights? I’m sure there are some gems on TTPD and there will be some fan-faves. But I wonder if Taylor is sort of in a musical rut with Jack Antonoff producing everything?
Album covers courtesy of Taylor Swift’s Instagram.