Taylor Swift has always been, first and foremost, a songwriter. But with a title like The Tortured Poets Department, the pop star’s new album calls even more attention to her lyricism than usual, inviting listeners to dissect, interpret and intellectualize each track just as a scholar might pore over the works of Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson (whom the singer just so happens to be distantly related to, as we learned shortly before the record’s release).
Adding to the already impossibly high levels of intrigue surrounding the project, Swift is famously at her best when writing autobiographically about her own personal life and heartbreaks — and an innately complicated breakup from a boyfriend of six years (ahem, Joe Alwyn), a rumored situationship with the 1975’s Matty Healy and the trials of embarking on a colossal global tour while dealing with such earth-shattering life changes certainly offered up plenty of inspiration in that department (no pun intended).
Plus, fans knew going in that Tortured Poets would find Swift delivering some of her most vulnerable lyrics yet. The musician told them so herself. “It kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life,” she said of the record during one of her Melbourne Eras Tour performances. “I’ve never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets.”
What they didn’t know was that two hours after the release of the album, the star would immediately drop 15 additional tracks under a package dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. Some of her rawest moments as Department Chairman come on these bonus songs, with Swift writing on Instagram, “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you.”
Between the 16 main tracks on The Tortured Poets Department and the 15 extra ones, Swift covers a lot of ground. Keep reading to see the 13 best instances of lyrical genius on her sweeping new project, in tracklist order, below.
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“The Tortured Poets Department”
Lyric: “You told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave/ And I had said that to Jack about so I felt seen/ Everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be/ Because we’re crazy.”
Why it’s great: On an album full of English major-like prose, Swift packs a purposeful punch when she delivers lines as direct and razor-edged as this one. The unflinching use of two names of people in her real life — almost certainly Lucy Dacus and TTPD collaborator Jack Antonoff, both of whom share a circle with Matty Healy — calls back to the fictional storytelling style on Folklore, although the story is much more real this time.
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“My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”
Lyric: “My boy only breaks his favorite toys/ I’m queen of sand castles he destroys/ ‘Cause it fit too right, puzzle pieces in the dead of night/ I should’ve known it was a matter of time.”
Why it’s great: This track is home to one of Swift’s best extended metaphors on Tortured Poets, serving the dual purpose of being a character study of her ex as well as admitting that she knew the relationship was doomed from the start.
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“So Long, London”
Lyric: “I founded the club she’s heard great things about/ I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath/ I stoppеd CPR, after all, it’s no use/ The spirit was gonе, we would never come to/ And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.”
Why it’s great: To borrow a term from Swift, the entirety of “So Long, London” is a stunning post mortem of a longterm relationship gone down in flames. The second verse stands out in particular, distilling years of spousal issues into just a few lines — the last of which calls back to a pointed comment the singer made in her December Time Person of the Year interview. “Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I’ll never get that time back,” she told the publication. “I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”
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“Guilty as Sin?”
Lyric: “I dream of cracking locks/ Throwin’ my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks/ Crashing into him tonight, he’s a paradox/ I’m seeing visions/ Am I bad or mad or wise?”
Why it’s great: The “Guilty as Sin?” intro showcases some of Swift’s best imagery on Tortured Poets, painting the scene like a gothic novel a la Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca or Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.
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“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
Lyric: “I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean/ Don’t you worry folks we took out all her teeth … You caged me and then you called me crazy/ I am what I am ’cause you trained me.”
Why it’s great: This track could be a narration of Stephen King’s Carrie, the titular character of which Swift could certainly draw her own parallels to. After years of having her gifts questioned, belittled and used against her, the vocalist imagines enacting her revenge in a spree of accountability-rejecting derangement — reminding fans and haters alike that her relationship to the public is a two-way street.
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“I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”
Lyric: “The dopamine races through his brain on a six-lane Texas highway/ His hands so calloused from his pistol, softly traces hearts on my face/ And I could see it from a mile away/ A perfect case for my certain skill set.”
Why it’s great: Borrowing much stylistic inspiration from the pop star’s “Snow on the Beach” collaborator Lana Del Rey, “I Can Fix Him” is a cautionary tale warning against the dangers of romanticizing toxic men — because if Taylor Swift can fall into that trap, anyone can. This stanza is especially loaded, the first half signifying a daydream that Swift gently deflates with a self-aware remark about her own problematic tendencies, setting the stage for her to later end the song with, “Maybe I can’t [fix him].”
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“LOML”
Lyric: “You shit-talked me under the table/ Talking rings and talking cradles/ I wish I could unrecall/ How much we almost had it all.”
Why it’s great: “LOML” features some of the most devastating insights on Tortured Poets, including a punch-in-the-gut twist of the song’s title at the very end. Saddest of them all, though, is when Swift makes a rare allusion to her buried desire to be a wife and mother. She’s a woman who’s amassed one of the most impressive, lucrative, record-smashing music careers in history, but some of life’s simplest pleasures are still out of reach for her.
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“I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
Lyric: “Lights, camera, b—h, smile/ Even when you wanna die/ He said he’d love me all his life/ But that life was too short/ Breaking down I hit the floor/ All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, ‘More!’”
Why it’s great: Swift and Alwyn’s breakup was the unspoken elephant in the stadium during the first couple months of the Eras Tour, the pain of which the pop star only betrayed when tears occasionally came to her eyes during particularly emotional surprise song performances. With “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” — which runs parallel to Folklore‘s “Mirrorball” — Swift finally confirms what fans only suspected: “I’m miserable and nobody even knows.”
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“The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
Lyric: “‘Cause it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden/ I would’ve died for your sins/ Instead I just died inside/ And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time.”
Why it’s great: “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” is probably the most brutal song on all of Tortured Poets, but this line is an especially lethal takedown of the oppressively private nature of her past relationship.
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“Clara Bow”
Lyric: “You look like Taylor Swift in this light, we’re loving it/ You’ve got edge, she never did.”
Why it’s great: This lyric finds Swift positioning herself in a long timeline of female stars whose lives and legacies have been dissected and commodified by an insatiable public — Old Hollywood starlet Clara Bow, Stevie Nicks and now Taylor Swift. Akin to “Nothing New” or “The Lucky One” from Red (Taylor’s Version), the singer acknowledges that no matter the ceilings she shatters, her image will always outlast her humanity in an endlessly repeating, self-fulfilling prophecy.
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“The Black Dog”
Lyric: “I just don’t understand/ How you don’t miss me/ In The Black Dog, when someone plays The Starting Line/ And you jump up, but she’s too young to know this song … Old habits die screaming.”
Why it’s great: “Old habits die screaming,” which repeats throughout the song, is one of Swift’s best turns of phrase on the record — especially paired with the intensity of her vocals as she delivers it, the earth-shaking production making your stomach drop each time. From the reference to the “Best of Me” pop-punk band to the generational difference it illuminates between Swift’s ex and his new girl, each detail of this line serves an expertly crafted purpose.
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“How Did It End?”
Lyric: “Come one come all, it’s happening again/ The empathetic hunger descends/ We’ll tell no-one except all of our friends/ We must know, how did it end?”
Why it’s great: Taylor loves her Swifties, but this chorus makes it very clear that she knows exactly what fuels their relationship: an intrinsic nosiness into the pop star’s personal life that both parties know can’t be helped. It could also double as an “I see you” moment directed at the population at large, which has long used the pop star’s high profile relationships as conversation starters.
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“Thank You Aimee”
Lyric: “I wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool/ I built a legacy which you can’t undo/ But when I count the scars, there’s a moment of truth/ That there wouldn’t be this, if there hadn’t been you.”
Why it’s great: Seemingly a letter signed, sealed and delivered straight to Kim Kardashian (whose first name she hid in capitalized letters in the song’s title), these lyrics do something Swift hasn’t done in any of her many songs about her various feuds over the years. Unlike “Bad Blood,” “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” or “Karma,” she actually acknowledges that she benefitted greatly from her clash with the reality star and came out on the other side stronger than she was before. It’s a shade of maturity that’s been a long time coming for the singer — who’s now in her mid-30s and 11 albums deep into an untouchable career — and a welcome one at that.
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