Posted by The Tortured Poets Department is the new album by Taylor Swift: let’s discover its meaning through the most significant lyrics.
When Taylor Swift releases a new album, the whole world stops. The music charts are conquered by her name, the streaming platforms get suddenly overwhelmed, and all talks are centered on what the singer is trying to communicate. The Tortured Poets Department was officially released on April 19, 2024, and you already had some time to read the lyrics: every track has a different perspective, and we now have a clear idea of the meaning behind this new album.
With 16 official songs and many bonus tracks, Taylor Swift’s 11th album covers surely many topics, but the central perspective covered is now clear: The Tortured Poets Department is a fascinating descent into the singer’s thoughts and feelings about the two most important love relationships she had in the last couple of years. She started writing this album shortly after Midnights, her 2022 records, and two significant events have changed her life since then: the end of her relationship with Joe Alwyn and the (very!) short story with Matty Healy, the frontman of The 1975.
Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn have been in a relationship for six years, since 2016. When Taylor’s last album, Midnights, came out, nobody would have imagined the relationship was close to an end: fans were even wondering if the two were going to get married, and we even wrote this article dedicated to that. Nevertheless, in April 2023, six months after the album’s release, Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn broke up due to “differences in their personalities.” Rumors say the two stopped being together in February, which is where this line in the leading single Fortnight comes from:
All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February
I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary
Right after that, rumors arose on social networks about the fresh story between Taylor Swift and Matty Healy: people started talking about it in May 2023, just one month after her breakup, but already in June, everybody knew the two had stopped dating. A short relationship lasted about a month. For that reason, one may think the new album would mainly focus on her story with Joe Alwyn, which lasted much longer. Surprisingly, the references to Matty Healy are much more present, revealing the strong impact that the short story had on her thoughts.
Songs like the title track, Down Bad, or Fresh Out The Slammer seem a direct reference to Taylor Swift’s short-lived relationship with Matty Healy. In Fresh Out The Slammer, a line even makes us think Healy was the first one who came to her mind after the breakup:
Now pretty baby
I’m running back home to you
Fresh out the slammer, I know who my first call will be to
Taylor Swift and Matty Healy first met in 2014: they were already close before Taylor’s breakup with Joe Alwyn. And reading some of the lyrics in The Tortured Poets Department, the love story that exploded in 2023 seemed like a promising burning flame. However, it ended up too soon, probably not in the best terms, and some of the album lyrics want to convey a precise meaning. From The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived:
And I don’t even want you back, I just want to know
If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal
And I don’t miss what we had, but could someone give
A message to the smallest man who ever lived?
You hung me on your wall
Stabbed me with your push pins
In public, showed me off
Then sank in stoned oblivion
‘Cause once your queen had come
You’d treat her likе an also-ran
You didn’t measure up
In any measure of a man
It seems clear that Healy stayed in Taylor Swift’s life for such a short time that it feels like something that was done just to annoy her. Spoiling her summer. In Lolm, Taylor Swift seems to describe him pretty straightforwardly:
A con man sells a fool a “get love quick” scheme
On the other hand, songs like Fortnight and So Long, London seem a clear reference to Joe Alwyn. And the tone isn’t nice, even for him. The lines below are from So Long, London (the British capital is where Alwyn grew up):
You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues?
I died on the altar waitin’ for the proof
We can assume months have passed since Taylor Swift wrote the lyrics we hear in The Tortured Poets Department: her two breakups occurred in the first half of 2023, and she must feel better today. Nevertheless, with this album, we can have a clear idea of the state of mind she was in: from I Can Do It With A Broken Heart…
I’m so depressed, I act like it’s my birthday, every day
I’m so obsessed with him, but he avoids me, like the plague
I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it’s an art
This could be one of the most painful records Taylor Swift ever released, at least if we consider the emotions involved, but we can safely assume the singer is fighting back. Neither Joe Alwyn nor Matty Healy comes out in good condition from the lyrics in The Tortured Poets Department, and if there is a unique meaning you want to extract from this album, it is that Taylor Swift is nothing like a woman who gets stuck in some hopeless emotion.
I stopped CPR, after all, it’s no use
Read other popular song lyrics and their meaning on Auralcrave
