By Shannen Lim En-Qi (24A01A)

A sold-out global tour covering nearly 18 years’ worth of music, 14 Grammys and a Time Person of the Year Award later, Taylor Swift peels back the layers in her public and private persona with a very simple challenge posed in The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD)– “Try and come for my job.”

The answer? You cannot. As she reveals in her most honest and personal album to date, being Taylor Swift comes with the mania, depression and anger of being human, but with the caveat that all eyes will be on you at all times. 

She deftly addresses this in songs like But Daddy I Love Him, where she fiercely declares that she simply “(doesn’t) cater to all these vipers dressed in empaths’ clothing”, calling out intrusive fans who believe they have a right not only to access her personal life, but critique it endlessly. 

She later continues to shed her people-pleasing public persona in her questioning present in Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?, calling out the media circus for their longtime criticism of Swift as a wild, vicious woman, akin almost, to a snake. She reclaims this narrative of her perceived madness with the post-chorus repetition of “You should be” in response to the song’s title, showing how the mad woman in Folklore has grown into her power and learnt to wield it. 

Swift doesn’t shy away from sharing the more personal details of her real-life love affairs, especially when she is in control of the narrative. This is where The Tortured Poets Department shines, as Swift pulls out lines that feel straight from her diary and weave them together with metaphors of religion and science fiction. 

In songs like Guilty as Sin? and Fresh Out the Slammer, seemingly about her relationship with Matty Healy, frontman of The 1975, Swift explores love that seems to drive one to a state of insanity. 

Swift also bids goodbye to old lovers in songs like So Long London and loml, in which  she evokes feelings of soft devastation through crushing, visceral lyrics she has come to be known for. 

In particular, Swift achieves this effect by subverting the acronym of loml from ‘love of my life’ to ‘loss of my life’, alongside a gut-wrenching bridge with the imagery “That I can’t get out of bed/Cause something’s counterfeit’s dead”. 

Swift continues her journey detailing the ups and downs of her love affairs, but this time with companions. In her collaborations with Post Malone and Florence and the Machine, Swift incorporates their unique soundscapes into hers to make the magnetic and melancholy melodies sound unearthly. 

In the lead single, Fortnight, best enjoyed indoors on a rainy day (and perhaps during Monday mornings in February), Swift weaves together a tale of illicit love with ease, opening the album with a simple mantra, “I love you, it’s ruining my life.” 

In Florida!!!, Swift continues this idea with the screaming, brooding tone of Florence and the Machine to build it to a bursting crescendo. 

Even then, gloom is not constant throughout the album. In The Alchemy, Swift is at her most euphoric with her American Football star boyfriend, Travis Kelce. Through metaphors of intoxication, American football and deep longing, she makes it clear she has found joy, with a man who ignores the trophy just to come “runnin over to (her)”. 

Swift closes the album with the quiet, haunting Clara Bow, a look at the comparisons Swift herself has faced against other female greats, especially early on in her career. In her own words, it represents how “we (as a society) teach women to see themselves as [if] you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you”. 

Swift questions her own place in the music industry as an artist that other young women may one day be held up against, taking a look into her legacy with a final wish she herself now knows to be true: “The future’s bright, dazzling”.

As a die-hard fan of several years, the album embodies the many things I love about Swift– her vulnerability, her flair for the dramatics, the personal and fictional narratives she effortlessly pulls together over synth beats and piano melodies. Yet, this one feels all the more special, because it feels like something she has written for no one but herself. 

In Swift’s own words on a night of the Melbourne leg of The Eras Tour, “I needed to make it”. This album feels like Swift letting go of industry expectations, fan desires and the panning of critics to simply write what she wants the way she wants to. While the album has been one of her most unpopular ones yet, I am not afraid to call it a favourite, and share in Swift’s own “wild joy” (But Daddy I Love Him). 

In the end, all that is left is the woman who has been writing songs, weaving stories and smashing records for close to two decades. As she proudly declares in “I Can Do it With a Broken Heart”, “You know you’re good, and I’m good”. While everyone now knows she’s miserable, the fact remains unchanged. 

BONUS: The Anthology

Hours after this release, Swift revealed she was not quite done telling her stories with a surprise 2am drop of 15 more songs, with the TTPD album then aptly titled The Anthology. 

If the first half of the album is set in a rainy cityscape, The Anthology brings listeners back to the forests and small towns of folklore and evermore, the devastation and joy of Lover and Speak Now and even the energy and wit of Reputation and 1989. 

In that spirit, for all the Swifties reading this, here’s a match to match of songs from previous eras to those in The Anthology. 

The Black Dog – Cornelia Street 

Both feature real-life locations in London that hold devastating memories for Swift, and as she had proven then with Cornelia Street, and now with The Black Dog, Swift has an uncanny ability to transport listeners not just to a space, but to a place in time. 

imgonnagetyouback – Hey Stephen

While both songs may sound vastly different on the surface, they delve equally well into the obsession, possessiveness and mania one often finds themselves experiencing in romance to a tee. 

The Albatross – Blank Space 

In both songs, Swift shows her affinity for weaving tales about women whose reputation precedes them (and not in a good way), supposedly leaving their lovers in terrible danger. 

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus – Death by a Thousand Cuts 

Swift looks back on all the ways her lovers broke her heart with the sort of lyrics and beats that break her audiences’. 

How Did It End? – High Infidelity 

The collapse of love affairs are blown into massive proportions and even put on display for all to see, with their broken pieces expertly woven together by Swift for her audiences. 

So High School – Our Song 

Written when Swift herself was actually in high school, the upbeat, joyful tone of Our Song is sure to bring you back to the “bittersweet sixteen suddenly” she describes in So High School. 

I Hate It Here – the lakes 

Swift’s favourite places exist in her mind or in quiet English countryside homes of poets just as tortured as her. 

thanK you aiMee – This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things 

Swift embodies forgiving—but not quite forgetting—in both songs, showing the ways in which she has (and hasn’t) quite moved on from the pain. 

I Look in People’s Windows – right where you left me 

Swift maintains her wishful thinking years after a relationship ends, reclaiming her role as the woman who can’t quite move on (since the media has repeatedly painted her as the crazy ex). 

The Prophecy – Foolish One

Swift shows her sympathies for the delusional and down-on-their-luck in love, while acknowledging her own role in refusing to break the strings of fate and patterns of folly that lead to even more heartbreak. 

Cassandra – mad woman 

One subject that has always been close to Swift’s heart and personal experiences is the subject of the scorned woman. She delves into this character through the lens of the Trojan priestess Cassandra and her own metaphorical “mad woman”, both of whom are representations of her herself. 

Peter – cardigan 

While both reference the boy who never grew up, Swift herself has matured since the release of cardigan, as Wendy bids goodbye to Peter in Peter for the last time.

The Bolter – cowboy like me 

Swift paints tales of enchanting protagonists fleeing from love in both songs, though one song’s protagonist is able to settle down a little better than the other. 

Robin — epiphany 

Swift’s knack for storytelling is most evident when she is given a piano, a gentle melody and the space to make short lyrics go a long way. 

The Manuscript – All Too Well (10 Minute Version) 

Both songs grieve messy love affairs with Swift’s flair for dramatic and personal lyrics, ending their respective albums (TTPD for The Manuscript and Red for All Too Well) with the sort of heartache she herself knows all too well how to write.