The Tortured Poets Department is an album that nobody expected and per usual, has inspired an insane amount of discourse, good and bad. Fans and foes alike have listened and dissected each song, fighting about who each song is about and looking for connections to Taylor’s life and previous work.
Personally, I love the album. I do think it is a piece that grows on you and gets better with each listen. Two months out, I am still finding new musical moments to obsess over throughout this album. Is it a perfect album? No, but not every Taylor Swift album has to be perfect or has to be better than her previous albums. Say it louder for the people in the back!
General Thoughts
TTPD is clearly meant to be listened to as an album. That may seem obvious, but these days it seems like albums are just a collection of singles that have little to connect them and are written solely to go viral. Tortured Poets in contrast is a cohesive cluster of songs that tell a single story that has overarching themes, lyrically and musically.
Whether the whole album or each song is about Joe or Matty, the true subject of the album is a woman who is aching for a great, long-lasting love. In her pursuit of this dream she does anything to make it work, is judged by her peers and the public, has hope, has doubts, and has desires. It is incredibly introspective. I think many of these songs, and the feelings they talk about, lived solely in Taylor’s head until they spilled out into the page. Because of this, TTPD is devastating, confusing, and hopeful. It gives the album a soul.
I believe people have a hard time with this album because it is not what they expected. Many hoped this would be another sister to folklore and evermore and were disappointed when it was in a category all its own (which is crazy because that is actually what she did with those COVID albums). To show you how TTPD is just as literarily genius as its predecessors, let’s dive into some aspects of the album.
Themes & Motifs
Some running lyrical themes that I see in Tortured Poets, and some of which Taylor herself has talked about are fatalism, grief, betrayal, chaos, depression, desire, escapism, hope, passion, tragedy, and over all of these is a layer of anger that covers every song and stands behind the curtain of every lyric.
To explore some of these further, we can look at individual songs. Fatalism is the idea that feelings or situations are so big that they feel like life or death. This is common in poetry, especially the Victorian poets that Taylor is drawing inspiration from (see “the lakes”). It can be seen in the title track’s bridge, “Down Bad,” “loml,” and more.
There is also a running theme of hope in the story of this album, whether misguided or not. There is hope in “Fresh Out the Slammer” when Taylor sings about thinking about the subject while locked away. There is a hope in escaping to Florida, maybe it will fix her problems? Taylor hopes for change in “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” and finally seems to have a pure and surprising hope in “The Alchemy.”
Grief and depression are evident in the somberness of many of the songs. There is a lot of reflection on these feelings in “So Long, London,” “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” and “loml.”
There is another through line that is not necessarily a theme but is a piece of what makes TTPD so cohesive and that is the vintage references. Taylor creates a new world for this album to live in with her lyrics that has western elements and Victorian aspects that make such new work and production feel timeless. She references typewriters, pistols, freight trains, gallows, asylums, etc. These mentions paired with the musical themes combine to paint this creative picture.
Musical Themes & Moments
Many of the songs on this album share a subtle electronic production that is pretty characteristic of recent Jack Antonoff/Taylor Swift collabs. This is one of the weakest points of the album as there is not as much musical resolution and may be too understated, but it may be purposeful in a tension filled album such as TTPD. Also, many of the songs end in odd places, as maybe the relationships Taylor is discussing did. Several songs like “Fortnight ft. Post Malone” and “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” end after the bridge and “Fresh Out the Slammer” goes through an interesting tempo change that never gets back to the original sound. It can be strange on first listen but ultimately it adds to the story of the album.
One of my favorite musical aspects that goes hand in hand with some of the old-timey references mentioned above is the western sound of many of the songs. It is most evident in “Fresh Out the Slammer” and “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” with the slow, twangy guitars.
All in all, the album is a strong one that will be on repeat for years to come, and its excellence is only added to with the Anthology and the live performances of these songs.
Favs, etc!
Favorite Song: “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me”
Least Favorite song: “The Tortured Poets Department”
Favorite Lyrics: “Kept calm and carried the weight of the rift”, “So Long, London”
Favorite Musical Moment: THE DRUMS IN “GUILTY AS SIN?”
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