Taylor Swift Explains the Meaning Behind Several of Her 'Tortured Poets' Songs
Taylor Swift is breaking down her Tortured Poets Department tracks. During iHeartRadio's premiere special in honor of the singer's 11th studio album, Swift herself provided insight into a few of the songs.
According to Swift, "Fortnight," the album's opening song and debut single, "exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album, one of which being fatalism, longing, pining away, lost dreams."
"I think it's a very fatalistic album in that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death and I love you, it’s ruining my life. These are very hyperbolic, dramatic things to say," she noted of the song, on which she teamed up with Post Malone. "But it's that kind of album – it's about a dramatic, artistic, tragic kind of take on love and loss."
Swift noted that she "always imagined" that "Fortnight" took place in this "American town where the American Dream you thought would happen to you didn't."
"You ended up not with the person you loved and now you have to just live with that every day, wondering what would've been, maybe seeing them out," she explained. "And that's a pretty tragic concept, really. So I was just writing from that perspective."
Then, for "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys," Swift said she used a metaphor "from the perspective of a child's toy being somebody's favorite toy until they break you, and then don't want to play with you anymore."
"A lot of us are in relationships where we are so valued by a person in the beginning and then all of a sudden they break us, or they devalue us in their mind, and we're still clinging on to, 'No, no, no, you should've seen them the first time they saw me. They'll come back to that. They'll get back to that,'" she explained. "So it's kind of a song about denial, really, so that you can live in this world where there's still hope for a toxic, broken relationship."
Alongside Florence + The Machine, Swift wrote "Florida!!!" The song, she said, was based on the question, "What happens when your life doesn't fit, or your choices you've made catch up to you, and you're surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgment, and circumstances did not lead you to where you thought you'd be and you just want to escape from everything you've ever known?"
At that point, Swift wondered, "Is there a place you could go?"
"I'm always watching Dateline. People have these crimes that they commit, where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida," she said. "They try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in. And I think when you go through a heartbreak, there's a part of you that thinks: 'I want a new name. I want a new life. I don't want anyone to know where I've been or know me at all.'"
Swift didn't get into details surrounding some of the most buzzworthy songs on the album, many of which appear to take aim at her splits with Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy, and celebrate her new love with Travis Kelce.
Then, on the album's surprise double edition, titled The Anthology, Swift really got fans talking, as they speculated that one track, "thanK you aIMee," was about her infamous feud with Kim Kardashian.
Overall, a source told ET that Swift "is so excited" about her latest release.
"She has put her heart and soul into the music, just like with everything she does," the source said, "and can't wait for her fans to listen to it and to share it with them."
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