Brain Dump

I have so many thoughts about the negative discourse currently surrouding Taylor Swift’s latest album release, The Life of a Showgirl. Maybe I am biased, since I am someone who has been a Swiftie since I was 16 (I am now 35) and was there for the original release of ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’, which made me fall in love with how good she was at storytelling through music. Maybe, I’m not, though.

I have grown up alongside her music and being the same age as her is one of the reasons why I feel so connected to her art. I could relate so strongly to what she was writing during each release because they were such common global experiences for young women, and still are. I genuinely believe there is a Taylor Swift song for everyone, and the right one for you will find you and pierce your soul in a way you don’t expect, you just have to give it a chance. As evidenced by Marc Maron.

Source: clipped by u/rp1105; Reddit.

One of the things that really bothers me is the narrative that this album is tone-deaf, because she’s happy. Wild. What do you mean; how dare she be happy?! I understand there is a plethora of world issues right now and the dialogue surrounding this indicates that should be our only focus, but real life isn’t a meme.

People are multi-dimensional and we are allowed to find joy amongst all the horrific atrocities occurring in the world, whilst still caring about those things. It is possible to do both at the same time and we should be chasing happiness and hope where we can, doing this doesn’t negate our compassion or care for the suffering around us. There has never been a time when this hasn’t been true. It isn’t new that terrible and awful things are happening all around the world. And it isn’t new that people continue to live their lives and be happy in between all of it. We are certainly more exposed to it now with how accessible information is, but with that also comes the dangers of only consuming the bombardment of bad news. You’re made to feel guilty for being happy when the world is burning, but you shouldn’t be.

It is so important to manage the constant influx of emotionally and mentally onerous information crammed into headlines; processing all of this is an arduous task because you might then feel compelled to gather more and more information after seeing the bad headlines—when do you give your brain a break from all the dread? We have to set boundaries for ourselves and limit how much time we spend consuming all of this information. What good does it do for anyone to live in a constant state of heaviness and despair? Amidst all the global chaos, finding happiness and joy is an act of resistance. Sure, it isn’t a solution to the pandemonium, but it provides us with the light at the end of the tunnel, silver linings, glimmers of hope, and it helps us weather the maelstrom.

If we stay in the turbulence, how do we fight the despondence we feel from the weight of carrying everything the world is throwing at us? We have to embrace things that make us want to rebel and fight against disarray we’ve been thrown into. Studies that have been conducted tend to find people who feel happiness towards their personal lives are more likely to want to contribute to change. Searching for pockets of joy amongst the darkness is not selfish or tone-deaf; it generates a want to take action and help those who need it. It makes us want to protect these precious moments so that we still have something to live for when we come screaming out of the dark, calamitous tunnel that we fought to get through to reach the light.

I’m going to address the other things that have also been so loudly brought up, which makes me exceptionally concerned that nuance, the ability to use critical thinking, and any form of comprehension skills might be close to extinction. Why are we experiencing such a major literacy crisis right now? Or are we not and it’s just people insisting on hating Taylor Swift simply for existing? So they’re just grasping at flimsy misinterpretations on purpose to further crush her for absolutely no reason that I am able to fathom (it’s probably misogyny, though). Have we reached the end of the line and it’s looping back to being “cool” to hate her? It is baffling.

This happens during every album release of Taylor’s. I am tired of this kind of discourse. Art is subjective. You need to fix your language and stop making sweeping statements about how the album is bad. It isn’t bad. You just don’t like it, and that’s OKAY! Like I said, art is subjective. You don’t have to like it, but you also don’t get to speak on behalf of everyone else. Share your opinion respectfully about why the album isn’t for you, but don’t make other people feel stupid or inferior for enjoying it, and whole-heartedly, please stop projecting nonsensical theories about racism, patriarchal facilitation, and trad-wife propaganda onto it.

Have we stopped acknowleding that metaphors exist? It is so common for words associated with darkness to evoke feelings of negativity and words associated with light to conjure feelings of positivity. Taylor is not racist just because she wrote ‘Sleepless in the onyx night / But now the sky is opalite’ about her and her fiancé’s experiences with former partners and his happens to be a black woman. She is not implying white supremacy. Come on, opalite isn’t even pure white. It is milky white (sometimes even looking colourless) with iridescent blue and golden orange undertones.

The hyperfocus on just these specific lyrics being racist without considering how commonplace the duality of the light and dark metaphor is, is actually absurd. Let’s not forget how usage of this metaphor is strewn throughout multitudes of aristic expression to tell stories, dating back to Shakespeare, probably before his time, too. ‘Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires’ - straight out of Macbeth; he is making associations of his murderous intent with darkness and wants to hide these desires from the light (goodness).

Say it with me now, it is not anti-feminist to want to get married and have children. It is not anti-feminist to want companionship and want someone to share your life with and to have someone to celebrate your accomplishments with you. It is not anti-feminist to feel lonely and melancholic when you think you’ve found that one person, only to realise that you stayed longer than you should have because of sunk-cost fallacy.

No woman needs a man to save her from anything, but as human beings, there is a fundamental need for companionship, this is biologically driven and vital for physical and mental well-being. Please refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It is not anti-feminist to want to share your love with someone and it is not anti-feminst to want to find romantic companionship and it is not anti-feminst to want to be loved. Feminism is essential because it grants us the autonomy and freedom to choose without the input and control from the patriarchy. I can’t believe I even need to dispute that. Stop weaponising feminism for your own misguided agenda.

The criticism is endless, she can’t even do an interview where she is asked about her writing process and concepts behind certain tracks on the album without the comment sections flooding with disparagement and saying if she needs to explain herself then her writing is bad. She was asked to explain and share her process. Why is everything being taken out of context? And projecting onto her your speculative idea that what she is saying is because she is doing damage control when she’s explaining her use of satirical venacular, but you’re refusing to accept this and insist her lyrics be taken at face value, forcing onto her your interpretations of seriousness and sincerity, despite her telling you it is not.

Finally, the claims around the album concept and aesthetic not aligning with the music doesn’t make sense to me. Prior to release, she mentioned this is album represents her life behind-the-scenes of The Eras Tour—this does not mean the music will be a reflection of what you would expect a typical vintage Vegas showgirl sound to be. It in no way should be that because that would depict an on-stage experience, but she has never said that, she has maintained that it is about what went on in her life backstage and behind the curtain. Also, since comprehension is dead, I do not mean that literally. I mean that figuratively. I don’t understand where people have been getting the expectation that this would be a noir showgirl genre album.

The marketing around it has been glitter and Taylor has spoken about how she has established for herself genre categories for lyrics she writes, i.e. quills, fountain pens, and glitter gel pens. We are in the glitter gel pen era, to quote Taylor, these songs are “frivolous, carefree, bouncy” and “glitter gel pen lyrics don’t care if you don’t take them seriously because they don’t take themselves seriously”. These songs are “the drunk girl at the party who tells you that you look like an angel in the bathroom”, she goes on to say, “it’s what we need every once in a while in these fraught times in which we live”, and she is keeping it one hundred

Let us be happy, let Taylor be happy and share in her joy with us. It’s unfair and cruel to want her to stay tortured. She’s finally gotten what she’s been writing songs about since she started writing songs and she is being more authentically herself than she’s ever been. You shouldn’t take that away from anyone. You should be celebrating it.

The Tortured Poets Department

Track 5 - So Long, London

If you know Taylor Swift lore, you will know she always saves the most devasting songs for track 5, so we're in for a ride here. I have seen a lot of people simplifying this song into "Taylor left her long-term boyfriend because he was depressed", but they are severely misinterpreting the song. Let me explain.

The intro starts with half-notes of the chorus, so (so) long (long), Lon (Lon) Don (Don). This is reminsicent of church bells and I think in this case, it is meant to be the wedding bells that never eventuated.

In the first verse, the narrator sets the scene of her lover's emotional inaccessibility, she's in a perpetual state of trying to get him to open up to her emotionally and was single-handedly keeping the relationship afloat, without any reciprocity from him.

I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift // Pulled him in tighter each time he was driftin' away

He maintained his emotionally unavailable exterior despite her greatest efforts, but whenever she felt like he was drifting away and a rift was forming between them, she kept calm and didn't protest to putting work in because she saw their future on the other side of all these obstacles.

I saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist

Carrying the weight of the relationship on her own got too much, though. She couldn't continue because it was becoming detirmental to her own well-being, so she stopped trying to get him to open up and let her in. Despite this, he continued not giving her anything back.

My spine split from carrying us up the hill // Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill // I stopped trying to make him laugh, stopped trying to drill the safe

The chorus goes through her internal monologue, questioning how much sad did you think I had // did you think I had in me? // oh, the tragedy, indicating she couldn't keep putting herself through this just to keep him around. She couldn't continue being sad all the time; she ran out of sadness. She was feeling so lonely and isolated in this relationship without any trade-off from him. She goes on to bid him farewell, so long, London // you'll find someone.

This ties back to the song London Boy from four years ago, when she was telling everyone how in love and happy she was with him. Her life was interwoven with his and she took on his interests and lifestyle in 'London Boy', demonstrating just how much effort she had put into this relationship, to now saying goodbye.

In verse two the narrator tells us despite how hard she was working to break through his foritifcaion of emotional unavailability, he was unfaithful, and I believe this ties into his depression. She has discussed his depression in songs before, often using blue as symbolism for this, such as in My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys, Lover, and hoax. These songs tie into this one where she's saying she lived through his bouts of depression with him and loved him in spite of it.

I'm going to put my psychology degree to use here and provide some context into male infidelity and its correlation with depression. Often, men with depression will involve themselves in an affair to remedy their melancholia. Clandestine ventures provide them with a self-esteem boost because it makes them feel desired, gives them a quick supply of self-worth, and a form of validation. This is because depression tends to cause people to lose enthusiasm in things that used to bring them excitement, and even cause them to start resenting it so they seek out thrills elsewhere (source).

I didn't opt in to be your odd man out // I founded the club she's heard great things about

She didn't sign up to be the third wheel in their own relationship, indicating she was being cheated on. She references another woman praising her lover and reaping the benefits of the work she put in to get him to be the person he is being complimented for.

I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath // I stopped CPR, after all, it's no use // The spirit was gone, we would never come to // And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free

Despite leaving her whole life behind, moving to his country, in order to be with him and do her best to integrate into the life he had built already, he left her behind anyway. At this point, she realises that no matter how much she puts into this relationship and her continually resuscitating it when it was dying was pointless. The CPR lyric ties into the song You're Losing Me, in which she uses her own heartbeat in the production, and states, I can't find a pulse // my heart won't start anymore // for you.

She then goes on to say she's angry that he wasted her youth. She kept giving and giving, but got nothing back. He wasted so much of her time for nothing to transpire from it. In the second chorus, she says, for so long, London // stitches undone // two graves, one gun // I'll find someone.

Stiches is likely referencing the songs invisible string and Glitch, in the former, she says all along there was some invisible string tying you to me and the latter, I'm fastening myself to you with a stitch. Now these things binding them together have come undone because of he stepped out on their relationship. The gun she references here is the other woman, it is what killed their relationship; the two graves are the narrator and her lover.

In the bridge, the narrator is calling out her lover for blaming her and saying she abandoned their relationship but she says she was actually killing herself trying to keep it afloat, and you say I abandoned the ship // but I was going down with it // my white-knuckle dying grip // holding tight to your quiet resentment. She did everything she could to keep the relationship together, but all he did was resent her for it.

She goes on to say her friends are showing concern for her, telling her that it isn't right to be scared // every day of a love affair // every breath feels like rarest air // when you're not sure if he wants to be there. She was giving everything she had and still living in anxiety and uncertainty of having him half-way out the door. Relationships are work, but it is a two-way street, it cannot just be one person holding it together, and it shouldn't be this hard.

She's rightfully engraged in the final verse, where she's saying that he swore that he loved her, but his actions proved otherwise. She died on the altar waiting for the proof of his love; another wedding/marriage reference. She fought for and tolerated so much from him for a marriage that never eventuated.

You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days // And I'm just getting colour back into my face // I'm just mad as hell 'cause I loved this place

I think this is another reference to the cheating, sacrifing their relationship, succumbing to his depression that yielded an affair. She's just now unravelling herself from the life she tried to build with him and finding herself again, and finally seeing it for what it was. She's roused from her sadness of their sinking relationship and instead is angry because she loved him and now she has to let him go, all because he wouldn't pull it together for her.

The final chorus is also her final farewell.

So long, London // Had a good run // A moment of warm sun // But I'm not the one // So Long, London // Stitches undone // Two graves, one gun // You'll find someone

She accepts that while in a dark place, he lit it up for her and gave her what she needed at the time, but she was not the one for him, even if she thought he was the one for her. She's taking herself out of the equation because three people in a relationship is what killed it. She is acquiescing but accepting that it's over and he will find someone else. I think this also ties into the song the 1.

The lyric 'so long' throughout the song is there to deliver a layered meaning of how long they were together, but also serves as a farewell.

The Tortured Poets Department

Track 4 - Down Bad

The premise of this track is the narrator reminiscing about a time she was abducted by aliens and went on an expedition discovering a world beyond what she knew, feeling as if she was chosen for this extraordinary life, but was then abruptly sent back to where she came from.

The narrator uses this as a metaphor for someone showing her love in a way she's never experienced before, but then they just precipitously dropped her back at square one, leaving her with all these newfound experiences and perspectives. Now she's down bad, cryin' at the gym. I think it also depicts how they were from different worlds and he couldn't assimilate into hers, so he left.

Down bad is a colloquialism for being in a state of mind where you are desperate for something you strongly desire, usually unrequited feelings of infatuation or attraction. Often resulting in the loss of all rational thinking.

The narrator is so enmeshed in this feeling that she is crying and behaving like a petulant teenager, saying fuck it, if I can't have him and I might just die, it would make no difference. These hyperbolic and fatalistic emotions are very much the representation of when your feelings are heightened and you cannot be reasoned with.

Starin' at the sky, come back and pick me up // Fuck it if I can't have us // I might just not get up, I might stay // Down bad

She is trying to impel him to return by cursing at the sky and willing him to come back and take her back with him.

The second verse has the narrator asking did you take all my old clothes // just to leave me here, naked and alone. This suggests that she was left in a vulnerable state and all her comforts taken from her, along with her old perspectives of the world. She goes on to say he left her in her same old town that seems hollow now, indicating and reiterating how her worldview has changed now and without him, everything feels meaningless.

They'll say I'm nuts if I talk about // the existence of you

I think this is the narrator relaying that people didn't approve of him and she can't talk about him because they would think she was crazy to still be so infatuated by this person that didn't belong in her world.

She then goes on to say she'll build a fort on some planet // where they can all understand it. She wants people to understand she is in love and that they do belong together and she is willing to find a place in this world where someone will understand them being together.

The bridge goes on to say that she loved the experience with him and she's so upset that it's over, she can't even actually bring herself to say that it is; the lyric cuts off before it the word 'over' is said. She is distressed and exclaims how dare you think it's romantic // leaving me safe and stranded.

This tells us that the person she was with felt like she would be better off and safer without him. This makes her mad because it isn't romantic, it takes away her agency and ability to make decisions on her own terms. He just makes the decision for her and it is unfair to not even discuss it, he just unexpectedly drops her off where she started.

I suspect the position Taylor was in before this encounter was during a heartbreak she thought she had healed from, before this person came and love bombed her with promises of a new and sparkling life, only to have him suddenly desert her, returning her to the place of heartbreak she thought she had healed from.

She says in the outro that this experience made her feel like she lost her twin. I believe this is in reference to a 'twin flame'. She considers this person her twin flame; this is a new-age ideology of spirituality.

It describes a twin flame as having an inner pull towards another person, feeling as if you have met before and have always known one another, the passion between these people is incredibly intense. However, given this level of intensity, it is common for the relationship to break down as it is difficult to manage the fervor that comes with it.

Twin flames are destined to have fiery, passionate relationships that cannot be a lifelong event, rather they enter your life for a period and impact your life in a way that veers you onto the life path you are intended for.

The Tortured Poets Department

Track 3 – My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

This track sets the scene with the narrator telling us she has experienced this before; the voices in her lover's head suggest it's a cyclical rumination of anxious and pessimstic overthinking. She analogises her lover to the sickest army doll. I think this lyric is showing a duality of meaning, 'sickest' is often used as a colloquialism for trendiness and stylishness, paralleled to actually being 'sick', inferring his mental unwellness.

Taylor has previously referenced soldiers, battles, and armies in songs, such as in The Great War and You're Losing Me. Soldiers are often attributed to traits of honour, integrity, truth, and resilience. Her use of these metaphors have previously switched between using it for her lover or herself; depending on the narrative of the piece.

What this tells me is that she's been in the wax and wane of this recurring battle for some time, consistently fighting to keep this relationship alive, always on the defence in one way or another, and it is breaking her. This is portrayed in the opening lines of verse one, oh, here we go again // the voices in his head // called the rain to end our days of wild.

Then she goes into how this makes her cry, rivulets descend my plastic smile. I did have to finally break out my dictionary to look this one up; rivulets is a small stream of water/liquid. Here, she is telling us that she's been masking her pain for a long time behind false smiles, until she can't hold them back anymore and the tears are finally flowing from her.

At this point, it feels like the narrator has accepted that this is how it'll always be and understands that the relationship is coming to an end, which is why she's crying.

She then goes on to say but you should've seen him when he first got me, reminiscing on the beginning of their relationship when it was brand new and shiny. This period of time was when he was showing her love, attention, appreciation, respect, and pride of being with her, like when a kid finally gets their hands on that toy they've been coveting for a while and they're just so excited about it.

Eventually, they play with their favourite toy too much; they become familiar and comfortable, it becomes less shiny, and it is taken for granted. The intial excitement fades so they put less care into making sure it doesn't break, so eventually it does from carelessness of how they treat it and it becomes neglected.

The narrator goes on to say I'm queen of sand castles he destroys. She has used kings and queens as metaphors before and I feel like she is tying that into this to tell us where the story is at now. In King of My Heart and London Boy she refers to herself as a queen and her lover as a king, and in Call It What You Want she likens her career to a castle in the lyric, my castle crumbled overnight. Now, her king is the one destroying the sand castles she's been building.

She then says 'cause it fit too right, puzzle pieces in the dead of night // I should've known it was a matter of time, suggesting they were too similar as people and this was their downfall. Anecdotally speaking, I have found that having too many similar traits can mean you end up clashing a lot. For instance, if you are a very passionate person and so is your partner, but the topic you're passionate about is different, this can cause some friction.

The second verse progresses the story into there being a litany of reasons they could have stopped playing house and actually follow through with the real commitment, we could've played for keeps this time. The use of the word litany suggests that it is repetitive and monotonous and they've been in this position a multitude of times.

Put me back on my shelf // But first, pull the string // And I'll tell you that he runs // Because he loves me

The narrator feels like she has been used up and then discarded after her lover broke her. She's also in denial here because she's stating that he is running only because he loves her. This is also depicted in the chorus, he saw forever, so he smashed it up.

He is afraid of commiting to doing life with her and so he runs and he breaks her in the process. However, she attributes this as a fault of her own and says, once I fix me // he's gonna miss me. Reinforcing her denial.

In the outro, the narrator states that she felt more when they were playing pretend than she ever did with other people she's been with. When they were just 'playing house', things were more real to her with him than with anyone else, but when things actually got serious her lover was threatened by the genuine need for commitment, the illusion shattered.

She goes on to say he was the only one who took her out of her box. The others didn't truly try to know her, but when she was in a bad place (stole my tortured heart) he wanted her and loved her anyway. But in the end, he didn't want to commit and left her broken, while trying to make it out as if she was better off without him. She says that she's not.

The Tortured Poets Department

Track 2 – The Tortured Poets Department

This seems a little bit like a tongue-in-cheek song where the narrator is making fun of her lover for taking himself, and her, too seriously. She states that he left his typewriter at her apartment ahd then proceeds to say things she never said at the time, like who uses typewriters anyway?

She goes on to acknowledge that her lover is in self-sabotage mode and indicates that this is something that has happened before, but she still loves them (I've seen this episode and still loved the show).

She questions who will hold him now or know him like she does if he just goes and sabotages what they've got. She reminds him not to take himself so seriously and they are nowhere close to the likes of Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith, and they are not at the Chelsea Hotel, they're just modern idiots.

The Chelsea Hotel is known for having affordable accommodation and this permitted a myriad of groundbreaking artists to frequent there and work on their craft, such as Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith. The former was a poet and writer, the latter being a singer-songwriter, poet, painter, and author.

The song progresses with the narrator discussing how her lover is high and they're having silly conversations and make declarations that artists like Charlie Puth should be bigger than they are. Having a generally good time together.

The narrator continues to say that her lover is once again in a bad place, but she says she chose to be in this tumultuous relationship and she's sticking around, once again going back into the chorus and questioning who will hold him or know him the way she does, then saying nobody would. The response of 'nobody would' indicates some frustration towards her lover.

The bridge tells us about a specific moment where the narrator's lover tells their friend that he would kill himself if she ever left him (speculated to be Lucy Dacus), and she reciprocates this feeling because she had told Jack (that is, her producer and friend, Jack Antonoff). This exchange is foreboding because while these are probably just a way to express and hyperbolise the intensity of their love, it is a toxic approach to it.

However, she does acknowledge that they're crazy for it, but everyone they know understands and think they're a good match (because they're both crazy).

She then gives us a glimpse into the love-bombing that she talks about in the prologue. The narrator's lover is telling her that he will commit to her; at dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger // and put it on the one people put wedding rings on // and that's the closest I've come to my heart exploding.

This lyric is layered, she talks about how this moment is the closest she has ever come to being married and being this intensely in love. If you are a well-versed Swiftian (I heard someone call us this on TikTok and I loved it, so I'm going with it because Swiftie sounds quite juvenile and we're in our 30s divorcée era now–says me, who is actually a happily married 33yo 🤣), you will know that Taylor Swift is a romantic, she loves love and the idea of love and romance. She has talked about this before. She doesn't know how her story ends, but she wants it to end in love. She's really shown us how emotionally intelligent she is and how self-aware she is.

She changes a line in the post-chorus section just before the outro and asks who's gonna hold you? // gonna know you? // gonna troll you? Giving another indication that this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, that she doesn't take him that seriously and keeps him grounded by making fun of him likening himself to a macabre of tortured poets.

However, this is the end. He stops here and never actually follows through with the marriage commitment. The outro of the song comes back to the present time where she says he left his typewriter at her apartment, straight from the tortured poets department, suggesting he succumbed to his self-sabotaging nature and left her behind.

It's quite a sombre ending because she spent a lot of her time loyally by his side, through the self-destruction, and piecing it back together with this man, only to have him abandon her so quickly, he didn't even have time to take his belongings.

The Tortured Poets Department

Track 1 – Fortnight feat. Post Malone

The song sets the scene of a woman stating that she should have been taken away to an asylum but no one came to get her. So, she's not in a good place mentally, didn't get help, so is a functioning alcoholic to cope.

The narrator goes on to explore the idea of her ex-lover years on becoming her neighbour. Your wife waters flowers // I want to kill her - this lyric reinforces her mental instability and tells us about the animosity towards her ex-lover's wife. It also demonstrates her ex-lover is now in a happy marriage with a nurturing person.

She then goes on to describe her own unhappy marriage:

All my mornings are Mondays // Stuck in an endless February // I took the miracle move-on drug // The effects were temporary At this point is when I felt like it was metaphorical, composite piece as it ties in a few different moments of Taylor's life. It is speculated that February 2023 is when she split up with her long-term boyfriend, and she moved onto her rebound; represented here as the miracle move-on drug. This didn't last either, therefore the effects were only temporary.

Later on in the song, the narrator says my husband is cheating // I want to kill him bringing it back around to contrast her marriage against her ex-lover's marriage. To me, this feels like an insecurity and anxiety of the narrator's, believing that her ex-lover will get his happy ending but she's still stuck in a place where she isn't happy. I believe the use of 'fortnight' here isn't literal, either. It is a metaphor for how the relationship had such a significant impact on her, but in the grand scheme of her life, it was a blip in time. It wasn't long enough for her because she was hoping for forever.

I don't think 'neighbour' is literal, either. I think because these are all celebrities who run in the same circles and go to the same award shows and ceremonies, she will inevitably bump into them and have to suffer through watching them with someone new and being happy without her.

I believe the outro of the song is from the perspective of the ex-lover trying to reach out, but she's not allowing that door to open anymore (I've been calling ya, but you won't pick up). This could also be interpreted as a communication barrier and how they're just misunderstanding each other all the time. Then he's encouraging her to move on (move to Florida, buy the car you want), but she doesn't want to do this without him (but it won't start up 'till I touch, touch, touch you).

Florida here could also be interpreted as the rebound. Move on with the rebound or someone else because the ex-lover can't offer her what she needs from him, but the thing is, she doesn't want to move on yet. She feels like she can't because she loves him and she can't start up without him. It's ruining her life to love him.

Overall, the song sounds like a reflection and regret. She still holds a lot of love for her ex-lover and wishes him well (all of this to say // I hope you're okay but you're the reason // and no one's here to blame // but what about your quiet treason?). The treason line is intriguing, perhaps this is a glimpse into cheating and it is why they were only together for a 'fortnight', but at the end of the day she still loves him and it is ruining her life because she doesn't want to move on without him and it is pushing her towards insanity.

Source: https://x.com/TSwiftEdits_13/status/1781449512244117821

This piece is included in the CD insert. I think this is an important to read before going into the album as it provides context. I wish it was done as a spoken piece as part of the album to hear the emotion she would use to portray these words.

However, I am thankful for those who have their copy of the CD already and have shared it (mine is still making its way to me via post).

I think it would benefit listeners to read this prior to listening to understand where her headspace was when this period of her life happened.

Taylor wants us to know this period in her life was a mutual manic phase, where she left the oven and went straight into the microwave. To me, this reads as her leaving her long-term relationship (oven), into something that is later referred to on track 12 'loml' as a "get-love-quick scheme" (microwave).

Ovens heat up slowly and if left unchecked, whatever is in there is going to turn into ashes eventually, whereas microwaves can heat up fast and destory what's in there quickly. She's using this to tell us the difference between these relationships, but neither produced anything successful and both burned down in the end.

She also tells us that she went temporarily insane and explains this with having been caged for too long and then was set free, but was still in a vulnerable place. What happened next was a little rat of a man who took advantage of her when she was in this headspace and love bombed her. Making everything so much worse than it had to be. She refers to him as being one of the worst men and later as the smallest man who ever lived on track 14.

A lot of critics don't understand this album and think Taylor has done too much here and needs an editior, but that's the point. The point of this album is meant to illustrate Taylor's temporary insanity and her manic phase; that's why it is wordy and it feels like a lot. She's done it this way so we can become immersed in the emotions of how she was feeling when this was all happening to her. The critics aren't doing enough research into the thematics of the album.

I standby this album not being for the general public, but rather this is for herself and for those fans who know the lore and know it well. It's for the fans who understand her as a writer and storyteller. The general public and the critics only really know Taylor for her radio hits and this album is not for them.

The Tortured Poets Department

I have many thoughts and feelings about this album just swirling around in my own mind; sporadically dropping messages across multiple chat groups and to multiple friends during random epiphanies throughout the day where my inner analytical nerd just needed to tell someone about it.

So, I figured I will just write this all down somewhere and whoever wants to read it, can. I will break down each song, yep - I'm doing all 31 songs, and share my analyses.

I say this now, but let's hope I don't run out of steam and stop at any point (spoiler alert from the future, I ran out of steam but I would like to come back and finish the rest one day). Haha. I'm also a bit rusty with writing. It's been a hot minute since I've actually had to write anything like this, but the critics have been getting this album so wrong that I needed to correct them as well as just getting out my own thoughts.

Maybe, this will end up just being a stream of consciousness. Who knows?

I'll link the post for each song I analyse below as I publish them, but before we get into it, I think it's important you read about the prologue Taylor wrote in the CD insert.

I also want to preface that as I get into it, I am going to take what Taylor said on her instagram post about these stories being ours now and I won't attribute it to anyone in particular, unless it's necessary to explore it, but mostly I'll just analyse and explore her storytelling and interpret it from that lens.

Fornight

The Tortured Poets Department

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

Down Bad

So Long, London

But Daddy I Love Him

Fresh Out the Slammer

Florida!!!

Guilty as Sin?

Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

loml

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

The Alchemy

Clara Bow The Anthology

The Black Dog

imgonnagetyouback

The Albatross

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus

How Did It End?

So High School

I Hate It Here

thanK you aIMee

I Look In People's Windows

The Prophecy

Cassandra

Peter

The Bolter

Robin