ELLE Editors Step Into Taylor Swift's ‘The Tortured Poets Department'
It’s time to grab your reading glasses and hit the books, because Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department has arrived. When Swift surprise-announced her eleventh studio album while accepting the gramophone for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, the internet was set ablaze with questions on what this album would sound like and whom it would be about. After a very public breakup with actor Joe Alwyn, a quick blip with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy, and a love story with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, there seemed to be a lot of fodder Swift could pull from. However, with her red lips as zipped as ever, Swift left most to the imagination, dropping a few hints here and there, and completely building overwhelming anticipation for what is set to be the biggest album release of the year (it quickly became the most-streamed album in a single day n Spotify history).
Now, some of the speculation has been put to rest. And yes, the Easter eggs did lead fans in the right direction: it was a double album. An additional 15 tracks arrived at 2 A.M. on release night, bringing the grand total to 31 tracks and 2 hours and five minutes of Swiftian lore. Here, two editors and Taylor Swift fans head into The Tortured Poets Department to discuss the album.
First Impressions
Selena Schorken: My immediate first thought was just, I’m devastated for her. It is so heartbreaking and so sad. She’s willing to go there, she’s willing to pull back the curtain and show us the rawest most vulnerable moments in her life. That’s why we love Taylor. Even though she feels like she’s talking about something so specific in her life, there’s so many people that have related to that exact thing. I’m still processing all of the melodies, but there were lyrics that made me go, “Oh!” right off the bat.
Samuel Maude: One of my biggest fears is that an artist I adore drops an album I don’t like, and I don’t really love “Fortnight” with Post Malone. I think it is a fine song, but it wasn’t 100 percent for me. So to start, I was very nervous. When we got to “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” I was finally in and got it. It feels like a project for her. There are songs that are really relatable, but these songs feel very unique to her experience, in a way that we haven’t heard from Taylor before. This is possibly her most personal album ever.
“Fortnight (featuring Post Malone)”
Sam: So to be clear, we’re talking before the music video has been released. Do you think this is the right lead single?
Selena: No.
Sam: I agree.
Selena: I don’t hate it, but I don’t find it to be the standout on the record.
Sam: I think Taylor Swift picks singles for herself. Sometimes, it really works. Sometimes, it really doesn’t. I think “Anti-Hero” was the perfect lead single for Midnights. I think “Cardigan” was a great lead single for Folklore, and “Willow” was a great lead single for Evermore. Then for Lover I think she picked “ME!” for her. In Miss Americana, [the documentary about Swift] it looked like she had the most fun writing that song in the studio. She wanted the first song to be a celebration.
[“Fortnight”] is not my favorite song at all on this album, but she is making a Frankenstein reference, and I think she’s trying to position herself as this well-versed literary human who knows about classics. I think it makes sense to pick a song that has very intense allusions and has Post Malone on it, who people love.
Selena: What would you have picked?
Sam: I think “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.” What would you have picked?
Selena: Probably the title track.
The 2 A.M. Drop
Selena: I was up at midnight to listen to the whole first chunk. Right around 1 A.M., a friend texted me about the countdown [on Taylor’s Instagram]. I thought, I might as well stay up if it’s another 30 minutes or so, I can make it. I was so tired. She had us up until 2:30 in the morning. Insanity.
Sam: I wasn’t actually going to stay up, but I was texting two Swiftie friends, and they started to give me hell for not staying up until midnight. So I somehow stayed awake. My roommate, who did a listening session with a few friends, knocked on my door at 2:05 A.M. He was like, “There’s 15 more songs.” I went to bed. I feel geriatric. Can we please move album releases to 8 P.M.?
Selena: The thing is, though, I do feel like the collective experience is part of a Taylor drop. The reason why it’s so fun to be a Swiftie is because all of us are unhinged, and so we are all willing to jump. We’re going to stay up until 2:30 in the morning to listen, because this is our Super Bowl.
Sam: I totally agree. Taylor Swift has created this community of fans who really love to celebrate together. I think of all of the YouTube channels or TikToks I see of people listening to an album for the first time together. It’s special. People love to dissect the lyrics with their friends. They love to get lost in a song together. I was alone last night, but I know a lot of people who weren’t. That’s cool.
I do think she could have done kind of a Folklore/Evermore moment. She could have released part two down the line. Thinking as a business person, she could have sold a whole other string of vinyls and merch. They could have been sister albums again. So, I’ve been really racking my brain on this drop. It didn’t feel like the Midnights 3 A.M. drop, where it was seven extra songs. This was a whole other album that felt a little different to me.
Selena: If the first part is 1989/Folklore, the second part felt much more Folklore/Evermore.
Sam: 100 percent. My theory is that it was personal. She wanted to close this chapter, which is so clear with the last song being “The Manuscript,” where she alludes to wanting to stop talking about this. Matt, Joe. It’s done. I’m done. If she split this into two album cycles, that would be tough.
We haven’t had a true Taylor Swift breakup album in so long, because she was with Joe, or at least we thought. Maybe she was like, ‘Okay, let me write the breakup album. Let me write about Matty, too. And then let’s move on to happiness. Let’s move on to me.’ That’s really special.
“Florida!!! (featuring Florence Welch)”
Sam: I think it’s one of the best songs on the album. This song felt very Florence + The Machine. It felt like “King” or “Free” from Dance Fever. I love a moment where I feel like the music is screaming.
Selena: I’m a massive Florence + The Machine fan. I’ve been waiting with bated breath for this one. Honestly, just the drums, that’s probably my favorite little thing about Florence + The Machine, their drum buildup. You just want to be in your car, fist bumping in the air. Is it my favorite Taylor collaboration ever? That might be too bold to say, but I’m very content with it.
“loml”
Selena: She closes it by revealing that the title has the double meaning of, “You’re also the biggest loss of my life.”
Sam: Oh, I didn’t catch that!
Selena: I was so sad. Instant depression, that was my first thought. It’s beautiful though, and the amount of times that she talks about marriage and babies, and all of these hopes and dreams that she had for this relationship, it wrecked me. I can’t imagine that many years with someone and then they either don’t put in the effort or something goes wrong. It is so crushing.
She also said, “It was legendary, it was momentary.” That was really beautiful to me, to acknowledge the weight of a relationship that lasts that many years while also realizing in the grand scheme of life, it’s just a momentary chapter in her larger story.
Sam: I think Taylor’s so good at weaving in these gorgeous piano ballads into sometimes a very produced album. It worked.
“I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
Selena: She gets into the chorus, and I’m just like, “This girl is too funny.” She’s saying what we’re all thinking: “I’m so depressed. I act like it’s my birthday every day.” I just sat there thinking, This is for all of us anxious overachievers that are still very capable at putting on a happy face. There have been so many times in my life in which, behind the scenes, I’m in the trenches. But, I’m also experiencing some of the happiest, most fun times in my life simultaneously. You have to find that balance of grief for your pain and the shiny parts of your life. You’re going to listen to this song on your way to work and think: I can do this. I can face this.
The Eras Tour
Selena: I can’t imagine that she would [add this to the Eras Tour], given that it’s already a three and a half hour show. I would be sad for any fan that has one thing on the Eras Tour that they’re looking forward to, and it gets cut. Maybe I can see her doing some of these as surprise songs or adding two songs to the permanent set list in some capacity. But you know what? I would not be shocked if she did not tour this. It seems like she wants to close this chapter of her life. She needed this emotional release and she needed to get it out of her system. It was a cathartic experience.
Sam: I disagree actually. I think she’s going to cut stuff and add stuff. I don’t think she can make this tour longer. Now that everyone can see the tour film on Disney+, she can change it for Europe. I think she’ll like tour specifically Lover, Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights to their fullest extent because she hasn’t toured those in Europe yet, but I’m curious if something’s going to happen during that first show where there’s this song cut and then at some point, it’s going to be the Tortured Poets Department.
I also think we know Taylor loves a deluxe album, and so I think there are more The Tortured Poets Department songs. I think there’s five more songs or remixes that are going to drop on a deluxe album of this. Like The Called Into the Office version or something.
Selena: Even though I’m a massive Swiftie, I’d love to see her take a momentary break and enjoy her life. I am secondhand exhausted for her. I would love for her to just have the space to be herself.
Sam: But, can she really stop writing music? Is this just a part of her? I really do think of Taylor as a little tortured. She talks about how she has voice notes of things she’s thinking about in the middle of the night. Midnights is about essentially sleepless nights. I think a lot of the best artists in the world have talked about how they feel like a little haunted, and I don’t see a world in which Taylor Swift could actually and realistically take a break.
Selena: Yeah, I don’t know if she’d want to take a break. That’s what makes her such an excellent artist. Whether she was getting paid millions of dollars to do it or not, she would always be writing music on her phone, jotting down notes. She would always be putting pieces together and writing a story. She has so much space to explore writing in other capacities. Whether she trickles into writing scripts or writing books, whatever that looks like, I think she’s a true artist to her core. Stopping that flow of writing would never really happen for someone like her.
“The Alchemy”
Selena: The second I heard “touch down,” I was like…girl.
Sam: I mean come on. My family is huge Kansas City Chiefs fans, and my dad is historically a Taylor Swift hater. But in this moment, the Chiefs, Travis Kelce, and Taylor Swift have actually brought my family together. My dad thinks Taylor might be their good luck charm. He’s like, “As long as the Chiefs are winning, I have to be a fan.” It’s united my family. I will always be a fan of the Kelce-Swift relationship; it softens our family dynamics.
Selena: What that relationship has done for America…
Sam: It’s the unity ticket.
Selena: I love listening to these ones about Travis because for as serious as she is and as sad as the album is, she just reminds us that those giddy feelings are also important and not too girlish.
Album Rankings
Selena: I feel like this era doesn’t necessarily feel aesthetically or sonically catered to my personal music taste. In terms of lyricism, this ranks really high for me due to her vulnerability and the access that she’s giving. The rawness, the emotions. Lyrically, I feel like I have to put it slightly above Folklore only because it’s more personal. This isn’t some story about a high schooler or some made-up thing. This is her. It’s the craftsmanship of Folklore, but the personal Taylor Swift that we’ve always known in that.
Sam: This is going to rank in the middle of my Taylor album rankings. I like this album, I can jam out, but, it is very long, even the songs. In this age of music, where songs are sometimes two minutes, which I also think is a little rotted, it’s unheard of to have an album where most of the songs are four minutes plus. You were sitting in a song for a while, so when she added 15 more songs and the album became a two-hour album, I got a little lost in the middle. I’m very excited we’re having long albums and songs, because a two minute song is sometimes very upsetting, but this felt a little muddy. In the second part, all of the songs began blending together.
This album feels almost so personal to her that I haven’t fully related so much to it yet. There are songs I do want to put on repeat. But, I didn’t have the same reaction to it that I had when I first listened to Reputation or Midnights.
Selena: Maybe I’m just too tired to process, but it did feel like there’s maybe five songs in the first chunk that this morning I thought: Let me go listen to these again, because I really liked those. Then in the second chunk, for 50 percent I was like, “Which song was that?”
Sam: I think it’s just a symptom of it being long. When you release an album that’s this big and don’t edit it down, it can be overwhelming. It’s going to take me months to be able to identify all of the songs.
Confidence and Lyrics
Sam: Those capital letters on “thanK you aIMee” are…interesting.
Perhaps one of Taylor’s strongest themes throughout all of her music is revenge. She’s not afraid to call people out or make music that makes people probably go into a bunker. That said, the capitalization of the three letters with this song was a big “Whoa!” to me. It’s one of the most direct call-outs we’ve seen from Taylor.
She is unafraid. She’s taking risks with her lyrics on this record. People on the internet have thought some of the lyrics were bad, that they’re a little try-hard. She’s labeling herself the chairman of the Tortured Poets Department. She’s opening herself up to that criticism. I think the best artists have the harshest critics, especially poets.
What she’s doing here that’s really cool is that she’s saying screw you all. She’s not afraid to be cheesy or weird or have a lyric that’s just a miss. She says her own name in “Clara Bow.” She calls out her fans a little bit in “But Daddy, I Love Him.” We haven’t seen that before. Also calling her fans daddy? As a gay man, I was like, “Yes, thank you.” Anyway, she wasn’t afraid to go there. She wasn’t afraid to take risks. It’s hot.
Selena: I agree. In her earlier albums, she used to capitalize letters to send secret messages. With “thanK you alMee,” for her to spell it out in a song title? It’s fearless and unapologetic. She didn’t want speculating or some ambiguous headline. She was like, “I’m telling you, it is about K-I-M.”
Sam: Spelling really is fun.
Selena: She’s shedding a lot of expectations and a lot of layers. There’s this release through all of the stages of heartbreak, devastation, and grief. We are experiencing this Taylor Swift as what she feels is her true self. She’s gotten to this age where she feels secure enough that she doesn’t have to hide. She can be sad, excited, giddy, all of these things, and share them all with us.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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