Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poet's Department - album discussion thread

[OldHabitsDieScreaming]

Hello Swifties! Thought I would start a thread to chat about TS11 or TTPD or whatever we're calling it 😁Don't know about you but the excitement is building for this old-enough-to-know-better Swiftie and I'll be taking the long way into work tomorrow so I can listen to it in Peace...(see what I did there?)

So this thread is for anyone who loves TS and wants to talk/think/muse/swoon over the newest output from the hardest-working woman in music!

Personally I'm intrigued and delighted that Aaron Dessner seems to have co-writing credits on several tracks - I'm a committed Folklore/Evermore fan and more in a similar vein will be very welcome!

(Oh, and while hopefully this doesn't need saying, please don't bother posting to say how shit/overrated/talentless you think TS is. This is a fan / appreciation thread about a specific piece of work and it would be lovely to keep it that way.)

I think I feel the same .. it's a lot of songs to cope with!

I wasn't sure at first, I hoped for something more poppy, but then with the title I should have known what to expect!

I'm loving Down Bad and Who's afraid of ..

Fortnight is growing on me, as are quite a few of the others.

Oh I don’t mind not so poppy and angst ridden, I love a slow sad song, I also love petty Taylor 😂 so there’s a lot I’m really liking.

I think there’s some songs in there that are among her best, just that maybe, she could have used a bit of editing. Like as albums, there’s some stuff they should have been left off?

But, then maybe some of the ones I’m loving wouldn’t have made the cut 😂 because I’m seeing some people really loving ones I’m still a bit mmmh about.

Which is why I’m still considering the possibility that people moan that she leaves the best stuff off, so it’s a case of, here, have everything and make your own playlist out of it

I love Matty Healy! Charismatic front man of a really talented band.

I think he wasn't intimidated by her fame and didn't want to be part of the circus. Unlike that Kelce bloke who's jumping around her like an oversized puppy. I hope she'll be kind to him on her next break up album.

Oh and re travis, obviously as I’m in the uk and not into sports I’d never heard of him before, but I get the impression he’d been building a pretty solid career outside of being a football player, so I’d assume he could be pretty clever just not in an arty way.

I’d imagine an on the ball (pun not actually intended) straightforward guy could be a breath of fresh air after a run of tortured artists.

Not that I’m comparing myself to Taylor 😂 but I have an English degree and I’m a reader, my DP doesn’t even read the paper and is into football - doesn’t mean he’s not clever, his job is really technical, he understands chess and he’s done things like fit our kitchen and bathroom that I wouldn’t be able to figure out.

You don’t have to have the same sort of skill set to appreciate the skills.

I have no real opinion on whether it’s longterm tbh, they seem happy, if so, good for them…

Yeah he's great from a distance. But imagine trying to have a relationship with a lovebombing smack head narcissist.

Well you don't have to imagine! Just listen to The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. Anyone who has been entangled with one of these people will relate to those feelings of horror, shock and confusion.

Not to mention the racism and misogyny. Whether he means it or whether he just thinks he's being edgy, it's not a good look.

Maybe he's a really lovely bloke underneath but he's a mess.

exactly that's my issue with him, he might not actually feel and think the worst things he says. But he is prepared to say them for shock value with no care to the actual people he may hurt in the process, and this isn't things he said in 2007 being dragged up, it's recent too. In his heart he might not be a racist misogynist, but he dresses up as one and causes the same damage, so what difference does it actually make? If I was a Jewish person in a festival crowd and the person on stage did a Nazi salute for a laugh I'm not sure I would be less upset because he isn't really a Nazi if you have a nice chat with him. He is a repugnant person.

Not saying I think Matty is a particularly nice person but I find the ‘smack head’ comment a bit distasteful. Being an addict does not make you a bad person or incapable after recovery (which he’s been in for years now) of being a good partner.

To be fair, and I’m not a fan of him or the 1975 - the salute isn’t for a laugh, it’s about Kanye west being anti semetic

I don't think Matty Healy is a racist or misogynist - he can just be a prat sometimes. And that's OK because the artists that I admire are allowed to have feet of clay.

Same with Taylor Swift. I'm a huge fan but I bet she's high maintenance in a relationship. Love bombing them (see poor Kelce), idolising them, then when it's over she plays the victim and trashes the guy on her next album.

But like Healy she makes great music and is a hugely charismatic performer. She's an entertainer, not my pal.

Being an addict doesn't make you a bad person but it does make you a bad person to be in a relationship with.

And who knows what's fiction and what's true, but the songs make it sound like he's in active addiction. Maybe not with heroin, but with other drugs.

Then again, Taylor says she's a "functioning alcoholic" so maybe it's not only Ratty who has issues in that department.

Why call him Ratty? Yes, I know that's what the "Swiftilogist" calls him but it's so infantile.

Anyway, back to the music. I've listened to some of it but I'm a lyric person so I'm going to sit down with my iPad today and read and listen.

I already love Daddy I Love Him and loml.

Yep, I've got the house to myself today so I'm going to spend some quality time lying on the sofa with my headphones on, properly listening to this album in peace and quiet. Bliss!

So far

I love

So long London…the start sounding like call it what you want, the lyrics following on from you’re losing me and - And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free - is a line

But Daddy I love him and Who’s afraid of little old me, for similar reasons, I tend to like her songs about public life vs private life, her image etc.

loml - so sad

I can do it with a broken heart - the sad lyrics against the cheery pop beat and finishing with, try and come for my job, like a fuck you thinking I can’t do my job because of my personal life, I’m good at what I do.

The albatross and the prophecy - again sad, I did say I like sad songs 😂

thanK you aIMee - love petty lyrics, and musically it’s nice.

Not sure about the rest yet

The smallest man that ever lived- I’m liking the funny pettiness, the tortured poets society and I hate it here - I like the themes (lyrically), I look in people’s windows - I like the call back to death by a thousand cuts… but I’m not completely sold on any of them quite yet.

The alchemy I haven’t decided whether I think it’s a cheesy song about travis, or if it’s about matty and think she heard that AI song and went hahaha, I can write that but with a plot twist

how did it end? I haven’t decided whether it’s her asking or about social media gossip etc

both of those it’ll depend which I end up thinking they are whether I’ll end up loving then or not I reckon.

and the rest so far would be skips right now, but I often change my mind about get songs after a few more listens

I definitely skipped some before they even ended. Can't recall a word of Chloe... or How Did it End? or Windows.

The alchemy I haven’t decided whether I think it’s a cheesy song about travis, or if it’s about matty and think she heard that AI song and went hahaha, I can write that but with a plot twist

This is exactly what I was thinking! (That she heard that awful AI song 😂)I really love the verses, think she sounds great. But the she loses me on the chorus.

I just think it's funny? It's just entertainment, I wouldn't get too stressed about it.

But Daddy I Love Him is a bop! That's the one so far that has really got into my head.

But then every song I listen to I'm finding something good in. I think a few are probably gping to get boring fast. I do like the songs where she reflects in some way on her fame. The songs about Joe are kind of boring but then with a few exceptions, they always have been.

Thank U Aimee is soooooo petty it's hilarious. When she says, your kids are going to come home singing this song but only you and I will know what it's really about - I was like, omg you are a psycho 🤣

So long, London is beautiful but she seems so petty and vindictive about the man who inspired London Boy, Invisible String and Cornelia Street. Does she really believe he "let me give you all that youth for free"? Like she gained nothing from her years with JA?

Same with the Smallest Man That Ever Lived. Does she never indulge in some self-reflection and realise not every break up is entirely the guy's fault.

She'd have a field day commenting on the MN Relationships board 😂

Agree. A big old chunk of her time with Joe was lockdown making Folklore/Evermore/that film she did and he seemed like the perfect chilled-out person to go through that with. She won the Grammy for Folklore!

A slight aside, but Taylor Swift related. My kid has just made these - apparently one representing each album.

Purely from songs obviously, but I think she thought her and Joe were going to get married and have kids… and he was just in the end not that into her and now she’s in het thirties and single again. Thats what I’m relating the youth line to anyway

I think she self reflects quite a lot, just not in the same song she’s angry or hurt in, but that’s what I think the albatross is about, she’s the albatross

I think she really looked up to Joe and took all the blame for the things that went wrong in their relationship (e.g afterglow) until she realised that he wasn't willing or able to put the effort in with her.

Fwiw I don't think she's trashed him at all on this album. I think she did really try to make things work but he just wasn't the guy. And I think she probably was hurt and angry that he let her keep trying with him when he knew all along he wasn't going to commit. Plus it sounds like they both had affairs or other things going on. But she hasn't laid into him or torn him apart, she's just expressed her own feelings.

Tbf, if she did want marriage and kids with him, then he fucked her over with his future faking.

So interesting reading different interpretations of the same lyrics. I didn’t get that Joe was indifferent and unwilling to commit, rather he had such struggles with depression and anxiety he couldn’t. I feel pretty sad for him to be honest. He lost someone he (seemingly) loved truly because his mental health prevented him loving them in the way they deserved. Sounds like Taylor got to the stage where the few good days weren’t worth all the bad.

I like Thank you, Aimee.

Even more so if it's about KK.