Taylor Swift released âThe Tortured Poets Departmentâ on Friday, a 31-track surprise double album, and sheâs clearly in an emotionally evolved era.
On its surface, the album offers a pretty mellow listening experience, sounding like a marriage of the haunting depths of 2020âs âFolkloreâ and the synthy riffs of 2022âs Midnights.
Underneath it all, however, youâll find a boldly vulnerable expression of the pop star poetâs innermost thoughts, and it takes some reading between the lines to understand the scope of her message â with some entries requiring a deeper dive than others. For that, weâre here to help:
1. âFortnightâ (feat. Post Malone)
In an audio clip played during iHeartRadioâs Album Premiere Special on Friday, Swift said this song âreally exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album,â including âfatalism, longing, pining away, lost dreams.â
âIâve always imagined that it took place in this, like, American town where the American Dream you thought would happen to you didnât, right? You ended up not with the person you loved and now you have to just live with that every day, wondering what wouldâve been, maybe seeing them out,â she said. âAnd thatâs a pretty tragic concept, really. So I was just writing from that perspective.â
2. 'The Tortured Poets Department'
It looks like the albumâs title track may be about The 1975 band frontman , to whom Swift was first linked in 2014 and then later, briefly, after her 2023 split from British actor Joe Alwyn.
Clues include the opening in which Swift sings, âYou left your typewriter at my apartment.â (Healy expressed a fondness for typewriters in a 2019 with GQ magazine.) Honorable mentions in this track also go to Lucy and Jack â who could be Swiftâs friend Lucy Dacus of the band Boygenius and Jack Antonoff, her friend and frequent collaborator â and Charlie Puth, who Swift in the song and declares âshould be a bigger artist.â
3. 'My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys'
ââMy Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toysâ is a song I wrote alone and itâs a metaphor from the perspective of a childâs toy being somebodyâs favorite toy until they break you, and then donât want to play with you anymore,â Swift told iHeartRadio on Friday.
4. 'Down bad'
In one of the more synth-heavy tracks that leans into Swiftâs recent âMidnightsâ era, âDown Badâ also feels slightly more contemporary in nature, with the modern-feeling refrain âcryinâ at the gymâ in the chorus. The Grammy-winner told iHeartRadio that the song serves as a metaphor for âthe idea of being love bombed where someone, you know, rocks your world and dazzles you then kind of abandons you.â
5. âSo Long, Londonâ
One of the more devastating tracks on âTortured Poets,â itâs a safe bet to presume this one is about Alwyn, Swiftâs ex-boyfriend of six years. The song covers a wide array of feelings about saying goodbye to not just a city she loved and spent a significant amount of time in, but letting go of both the good times and heartbreak which the former couple surely experienced there.
Many see the song as an answer, however bleak, to her upbeat track âLondon Boy,â featured on her 2019 âLoverâ album, which is also believed to be about Alwyn during the heyday of their relationship. Swift and Alwyn were first romantically linked in 2016 and in April 2023.
6. âBut Daddy I Love Himâ
This slow-building and breezy track calls to mind some of Swiftâs earlier eras from before â1989â and some listeners suspect a double meaning is at play. Weâll leave it up to you to decide.
7. âFresh Out The Slammerâ
The opening guitar riff here resembles something inspired by an Orville Peck song, and turns into an upbeat and breathy pop track that equates getting out of jail to getting out of a relationship.
8. âFlorida!!!â (feat. Florence + the Machine)
Swift told iHeartRadio on Friday that she wrote this song with Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine, saying, âI was coming up with this idea of what happens when your life doesnât fit, or your choices youâve made catch up to you, and youâre surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgment, and circumstances did not lead you to where you thought youâd be and you just want to escape from everything youâve ever known, is there a place you could go.â
That place to escape, according to Swift and Welch? Florida!!! Oh, and as an FYI: Oscar-winning actress Emma Stone is also credited as a contributor on this song, according to .
9. âGuilty as Sin?â
âAm I allowed to cry?â she asks. Sounds like the same question weâre all asking ourselves while listening to this album, to be honest.
10. âWhoâs Afraid of Little Old Me?â
Written solely by Swift, she declares here, âWhoâs afraid of little old me?â and then warns, âYou should be.â Reminder: stay on Swiftâs good side.
The construction of the song title also calls to mind Edward Albeeâs 1962 play âWhoâs Afraid of Virginia Woolf?â about a troubled marriage, which in turn also references the famously tortured writer and poet Virginia Woolf.
11. âI Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)â
Weâve all argued this case at some point in our lives, right?!
12. âlomlâ
Translation: âlomlâ is internet-speak for âlove of my life.â
Written with Aaron Dessner, Swift sings on this moody track, âI wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.â After singing the words âyou said Iâm the love of your lifeâ several times over the course of the song, she concludes, âYouâre the loss of my life.â Ouch.
13. âI Can Do It With a Broken Heartâ
Imagine going through a breakup and then having to go on stage, put on a shimmering smile and perform for tens of thousands of people. Thatâs what Swift examines in this track. âIâm so depressed, I act like itâs my birthday every day,â she sings.
14. âThe Smallest Man Who Ever Livedâ
This is a brutal song with notes of anger aimed toward someone (who may or may not be Healy) who ghosted her after ârustingâ her âsparklingâ summer, presumably the summer of 2023 when they were thought to have briefly dated (Healy and Swift were at each othersâ concerts around that time, among other indications). Other potential Healy references include one at the top of the song, when Swift mentions âyour Jehovahâs Witness suit,â which calls to mind The 1975 frontmanâs preferred fashion choices.
15. âThe Alchemyâ
Swiftâs boyfriend, three-time Super Bowl champ Travis Kelce, appears to be the subject of this track, which also happens to be one of the only classic love songs on the album. The tell? It includes a number of football references with buzzwords like âtouchdown,â âwarm the benchesâ and âgreatest in the league.â
Swift, of course, Kelceâs football games throughout last season, including the Super Bowl where his team the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers. âWhereâs the trophy? He just comes runninâ over to me,â she sings, perhaps a reference to the long embrace and kiss the couple shared on the field following the trophy presentation.
16. âClara Bowâ
While the title to this track references the famed silent film star from the 1920s and â30s (surely a visual inspiration for Swiftâs ), Swift also sings here about Stevie Nicks â who about both music starsâ past relationships in the liner notes to physical copies of the album.
The chorus for the song may or may not be an easter egg for Swifties and Marvel fans alike, who have in her friend Ryan Reynoldsâ sure-to-be blockbuster âDeadpool 3â this summer, as a musically gifted mutant named Dazzler. Telling lyrics include âPromise to be dazzlingâ and the final line, âThe futureâs bright, dazzling.â
17. âThe Black Dogâ
While entirely speculative, this song may reference a well known pub in Londonâs Vauxhall area. Swift longingly sings about trying to understand why an ex lover doesnât miss her and then mentions how the subject she is singing about forgot to turn off their location, so, weâll let you read between the lines.
18. âimgonnagetyoubackâ
Swift canât decide whether she wants to âsmash upâ an on-again-off-again loverâs bike or be his wife. Either way, as the title suggests in this song, sheâs determined to get him back.
19. âThe Albatrossâ
âSheâs the albatross,â Swift sings. âSheâs here to destroy you.â âNuff said.
20. âChloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcusâ
Some Swifties are speculating that one of the names in this song is the still-unknown moniker of Reynolds and Blake Livelyâs fourth child. The couple are close friends with Swift, who has the names of three of their daughters â Betty, James and Inez â in a number of tracks on âFolklore,â and featured the voice of one of their daughters on her 2017 song âGorgeousâ from âReputation.â
21. âHow Did it End?â
With a rolling piano melody, she conducts a âpost mortemâ on the end of a relationship, and devastatingly so. âThe deflation of our dreaming / Leaving me bereft and reeling,â she sings. Grab the tissues.
22. âSo High Schoolâ
If it feels like Swift and Kelceâs relationship has publicly been playing out like a romance between the coolest kids in high school, youâre not alone. Swift sings, âYou knew what you wanted and, boy, you got her,â a line that is perhaps a reference to the fact that of his desire to date Swift led to the beginning of their romantic relationship. She also references the game of âkiss, marry, kill,â which Kelce was seen playing (and choosing to âkissâ Swift) in a 2016 interview that recently .
23. âI Hate it Hereâ
âThis place made me feel worthless,â Swift sings. We donât know where she is that she hates so, but certainly hope sheâs no longer there.
24. âthanK you aIMeeâ
Oh boy. This one is wild. While it may sound like Swift is singing about a mean girl in high school named Aimee, the references in this song â and there are many â clearly point to Swift taking shots at Kim Kardashian, with whom sheâs had a⌠. The most obvious factor here being the letters that Swift chose to capitalize in the title of the song spell out âKIM.â
Other clues: âI donât think youâve changed much / I changed your name and any real defining clues / And one day, your kid comes home singinâ a song that only us two is gonna know is about you.â
25. 'I Look in Peopleâs Windows'
Itâs not as creepy as it sounds, we promise. Itâs more of a metaphor about being on the outside, looking in.
26. 'The Prophecy'
Maybe keep that tissue box close by during this tragic song, too.
27. âCassandraâ
Some Swifties think this song may also be about Kardashian, since it references snakes (Kardashian in to the #taylorswiftisasnake meme in the past). Others have connected the Cassandra that Swift sings about to the in Greek mythology, a priestess whose accurate prophecies were not believed.
28. âPeterâ
The references here on the surface are about the Disney animated classic âPeter Pan,â which she previously referred to in 2020âs âCardigan.â âPeterâ could very well be a continuation of the lore from that track, but the juryâs still out on who Peter may truly be based on â if anyone.
29. âThe Bolterâ
âAs she was leaving it felt like breathing,â Swift sings. The instrumentation and guitar strumming is reminiscent of the sounds on âFolklore,â her 2020 album on which Swift worked with Dessner, who is also credited to have co-written âThe Bolter.â
30. âRobinâ
Maybe this is Livelyâs and Reynoldsâ babyâs name?!
31. âThe Manuscriptâ
This is a devastatingly sad song that will leave you breathless as you come to the end of this poetically âtorturedâ journey. With just a piano and Swiftâs voice, she seems to be reflecting on the experiences described in the previous 30 songs, singing, âlooking backwards might be the only way to move forward.â
The powerful lyrics suggest Swift is coming to terms with the realization that âat last she knew what the agony had been for,â and even though she looks back on these memories, âthe story isnât mine anymoreâ now that sheâs shared it with the world.