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Fans who got their hands on the physical copies of Taylor Swift‘s new album The Tortured Poets Department received an extra surprise when the project arrived Friday (April 19) — a passage written by the OG tortured poet Stevie Nicks.
The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman penned a poem dedicated to Swift, as printed inside the CD casings of the 16-track record. “He was in love with her/ Or at least she thought so,” it reads. “She was broken hearted/ Maybe he was too/ Neither of them knew.”
“He really can’t answer her,” the text, dated Sept. 13, continues. “He’s afraid of her/ He’s hiding from her/ And he knows — that he’s hurting her/ She tells the truth/ She writes about it/ She’s an informer/ He’s an x-lover/ There’s nothing there for her/ She’s already gone.”
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Nicks dedicated the poem, “For T — and me…”
The contribution from the “Edge of Seventeen” singer comes hand in hand with the shoutout Swift gave Nicks on the Tortured Poets closing track, “Clara Bow.” “You look like Stevie Nicks in ’75, the hair and lips,” the pop star sings on the finale. “The crowd goes wild at her fingertips/ Half moonshinе, a full eclipse.”
Later on in the song, the “Anti-Hero” artist turns the line on its head — “You look like Taylor Swiftin this light, we’re loving it/ You’ve got edge, she never did.”
The two stars’ surprise partnership with Tortured Poets comes after Nicks praised Swift’s Midnights track “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” last year. When Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie passed away in November 2022, the “Landslide” icon took comfort in the younger star’s lyrics, she revealed.
“Thank you to Taylor Swift for doing a favor for me, and that is, writing a song called ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid,’” Nicks said at one of her concerts. “That is the sadness of how I feel.”
Read Stevie Nicks poem for Tortured Poets below.
Let the games begin! Quickly after Taylor Swift dropped her The Tortured Poets Department album, Swifties were sifting through the lyrics to play their favorite parlor game: who is this lyric about?
And while longtime fans were sure the singer’s 11th studio album — which, in a surprise, is a 31-track, double-disc, two-hour behemoth — would plumb into the end of her affair with former longtime boyfriend actor Joe Alwyn, or perhaps gush over new beau NFL player Travis Kelce — the lyrics many keyed in on were not about either man.
In fact, a number of Swifties speculated that on the title track she references a fellow musician who Taylor allegedly dated for a brief period in early 2023, The 1975’s shambolic singer Matty Healy. The lines in question refer to an ex as a “tattooed golden retriever,” which many Swifties thought seemed to poetically sum up the hedonistic, cigarette-puffing, inked-up rock rabble rouser who seamlessly swings from eager-to-please to gratingly off-putting.
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“You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate/ We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist/ I scratch your head, you fall asleep/ Like a tattooed golden retriever,” she sings on the collection’s gauzy second song. Healy often puffs cigs on stage during his band’s shows and his band released a song called “Chocolate” in 2013.
Other clues? A seeming reference to Healy’s one-time friend Lucy Dacus, in which Swift sings, “Sometimes I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me/ But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave/ And I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen/ Everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be/ Because we’re crazy,” which also name-checks longtime friend and the song’s producer, Jack Antonoff. While Swift, and her team, never confirmed that the two were romantically linked, Swifties, as usual, dug deep for receipts.
“TTPD – Thank you Taylor for my new favorite description of Matty Healy, ‘Tattooed golden retriever.’ The Lucy & Jack name drop & wedding ring thing here triggered some kind of sleeper agent in me. Kinda wish this was the lead single but it feels too personal to be. 8/10 #TTPD,” wrote one, with another quipping, “the matty healy thing could have been a bizarre wrinkle in taylor swift lore and now it is the backbone of a major turning point in her career lmao.”
Oner song detective launched a deep-dive X thread with seemingly connected all the dots, including, “‘you left your typewriter at my apartment’ matty mentioned his love for typewriters multiple times, he spoke about it in this interview for example and a typewriter is also always a part of the stage of the 1975,” as well as “also when multiple magazines reported in may 2023 that matty is writing songs with taylor, they mentioned that he already left stuff like his guitar effect pedals, audio interfaces, synths and his macbook at her nyc apartment where he got papped multiple times the day before.”
At press time it did not appear that Healy had commented on the song.
Check out the fans comments and speculation below.
also when multiple magazines reported in may 2023 that matty is writing songs with taylor, they mentioned that he already left stuff like his guitar effect pedals, audio interfaces, synths and his macbook at her nyc apartment where he got papped multiple times the day before pic.twitter.com/S15LW6BAQ6— shelly ⎕ (@balladofmaroon) April 19, 2024
“sometimes i wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me but you told lucy you’d kill yourself if i ever leave and i said that to jack about you so i felt seen” lucy dacus and jack antonoff are both mutual friends of taylor and matty pic.twitter.com/NesasQafYk— shelly ⎕ (@balladofmaroon) April 19, 2024
matty lovebomving taylor and telling lucy dacus he’s going to kill himself about it 💔— ୨୧ graham┊peoples princess .ᐟ (@juniperfever) April 19, 2024
TTPD – Thank you Taylor for my new favorite description of Matty Healy, “Tattooed golden retriever.” The Lucy & Jack name drop & wedding ring thing here triggered some kind of sleeper agent in me. Kinda wish this was the lead single but it feels too personal to be. 8/10 #TTPD— Yanny ⎕ | Missing the Guys (@laurelsnotyanny) April 19, 2024
Imagining a heated argument between Taylor Swift and Matty Healy about typewriters.— Steven Hyden (@Steven_Hyden) April 19, 2024
the matty healy thing could have been a bizarre wrinkle in taylor swift lore and now it is the backbone of a major turning point in her career lmao— claire shaffer (@claireeshaffer) April 18, 2024
Another day, another record broken by Taylor Swift. In less than 12 hours, Swift’s new The Tortured Poets Department double album has become Spotify’s most streamed album in a single day in 2024 so far, Spotify confirms exclusively to Billboard. The 31-track set snags the honor from the previous record-holder, Beyoncé’s Billboard 200-topping Cowboy Carter […]
Surprise! Taylor Swift gave night owls a bonus when she dropped the secret, second part of The Tortured Poets Department.
Swift had teased a mysterious 2am countdown ahead of the conventional midnight release of Tortured Poets. For Swifties, it was worth the wait as the collection extended by an additional 15 songs.
“It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” writes Swift on Instagram. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”
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The final, sprawling edition comes in at 31 songs, and more than two hours of playing time.
If three is the magic number, two is a godsend for Swifties, many of whom have noticed that their idol has been waving the number 2 in their faces for weeks. Her Tortured Poets Spotify library installation in Los Angeles featured a peace-sign statuette, and Swift herself flashed two fingers on camera at the 2024 Grammys when she first announced her new record. The clocks at the library pop-up and in her cryptic “Fortnight” music video announcement from earlier this week have all been set to 2 o’clock, and the star tweeted Wednesday, “✌️days til THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT.”
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Swift’s stamina is hard to beat. Tortured Poets is her fifth studio album in less than five years, a period that has also included four re-recorded Taylor’s Version albums. So, make that nine full length recordings since the months prior to the pandemic. Her epic The Eras Tour is currently on a break, and will restart next month for a summer stadium run across the U.K. and Europe.
TayTay announced The Tortured Poets Department at the 2024 Grammy Awards in February, where she won album of the year for a record fourth time, with Midnights, her 10th studio effort. In the same month, Swift collected the IFPI’s Global Recording Artist award for a fourth time, also a record.
Stream The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology in full below.
Taylor Swift just released her new album The Tortured Poets Department — but from the looks of a mysterious new countdown hidden on her Instagram profile, the fun is far from over.
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As soon as the pop star’s 16-track project dropped at midnight on Friday (April 19), Swift made her very first post on Threads, Instagram’s text-only counterpart which launched last year. At the same time, a mysterious two-hour countdown went live on her Instagram page, potentially ticking down to a new announcement or surprise coming at 2 a.m. ET.
The new countdown is sure to pique the interests of Swifties, who have noticed that the musician has seemingly been teasing the number 2 for weeks. Her Tortured Poets Spotify library installation in Los Angeles featured a peace-sign statuette, and Swift herself flashed two fingers on camera at the 2024 Grammys when she first announced her new record. The clocks at the library pop-up and in her cryptic “Fortnight” music video announcement from earlier this week have all been set to 2 o’clock, and the star tweeted Wednesday, “✌️days til THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT.”
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✌️days til THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 17, 2024
Only time will tell what 2 a.m brings — but in the meantime, Instagram and Threads have several other new features for Swifties to enjoy. Fans can now change their direct messaging backgrounds to visuals inspired by the Tortured Poets album artwork; plus, Threads users who share the singer’s first post will receive a custom “TTPD” badge on their profile, distinguishing them as bona fide Swifties.
In the week leading up to Tortured Poets release day, Instagram launched its original secret countdown, which was only visible when fans pulled down on Swift’s profile to “refresh.” The countdown also prompted viewers to follow the 14-time Grammy winner on Threads.
As this was going on, conversations on Threads tagged #TTPD, #The Tortured Poets Department, #Tortured Poets, #TSTTPD, #Swifties or #Taylor Swift prompted a special shimmer effect to appear, while celebratory hearts appeared onscreen for those who “liked” a post stamped with any of the same tags.
Complete with 16 tracks, four bonus songs spread out across various deluxe versions and collaborations with Post Malone and Florence + The Machine, The Tortured Poets Department was one of the most anticipated releases of 2024. Swift took a break from her global Eras Tour to prepare for the album’s release but will resume the trek in May.
“It kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life,” she said of the project at a February Eras show. “I’ve never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets.”
04/19/2024
See how we broke down every track from Taylor Swift’s latest opus.
04/19/2024
Poetry class is in session. Taylor Swift’s long-awaited 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, arrived on Friday (April 19). Swift initially announced the album at the 2024 Grammys, dropping the bombshell news mid-acceptance speech for best pop vocal for her 2022 record Midnights. “This is my 13th Grammy – which is my lucky number, I don’t know […]
One of the constants of Taylor Swift’s storied career has been the chances she’s taken at the precise moment when taking a chance wasn’t necessary. She was a country superstar who didn’t need to go pop; she was less than a year removed from a major pop album and didn’t need to take an indie-folk detour; she was in the middle of a blockbuster run of new albums and didn’t need to re-record her old ones.
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Time and again, Swift has identified artistic opportunities that other stars would have blanched at (or at the very least, set aside for a different time, so as to not muck up any professional momentum), and she has leapt into them fearlessly, always coming out on top.
So right now — in the middle of a mega-selling stadium tour, after a record-breaking fourth album of the year Grammy win, in a high-profile new romance and at the commercial zenith of an already all-time career — is, naturally, the time Swift has chosen to release a knowingly messy, wildly unguarded breakup album.
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She didn’t have to do this! But then again, making an album like The Tortured Poets Department is exactly what separates Swift from her more careful peers. Challenging herself to shape-shift, to accomplish something new at the moment anyone else would rest on their laurels, is what makes her so fascinating.
Swift has written plenty of songs that revel in post-breakup hurt across her catalog, but The Tortured Poets Department is both more mature — the teen slings and arrows naturally evolving into adult entanglements and emotional affairs — and more pissed-off, with unbridled emotion and unkempt drama often taking center stage. There will be a lot of guessing about who each song is about, considering that the album was created in the wake of her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn ending, a brief romance with The 1975’s Matty Healy, and the start of her relationship with football star Travis Kelce. But the male subjects are besides the point: Swift is a hurricane across the album, blowing the doors off of the agonizing details of her recent reality.
Furious rhetorical questions and errors in judgment dot the Tortured Poets Department lyrics, as Swift aims at a target beyond vulnerability, that allows her wide listenership to understand her heart and mind. In a career defined by her songwriting, Swift has never placed so much emphasis on her words — the production, courtesy of Swift and close collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, seems to evaporate at points, the music almost incidental compared to the lyrics. The warm synth-pop of Midnights serves as the closest reference point, but that album was cleanly orchestrated, while The Tortured Poets Department wants to get in the mud with soft-loud dissonance and tracklist sprawl. Really, the album is in conversation with her entire catalog — a country-pop chorus here, a Folklore folk tale there — while still making time to explore the unknown.
The Tortured Poets Department is extreme in its emotions and uninterested in traditional hits; not everyone will love it, but the ones who get it will adore it fiercely. As Swift continues this current astonishing run of superstardom, she has once again pushed herself to strike a new pose. It’s what makes her special — and what turns The Tortured Poets Department into yet another triumph.
Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department is just hours away from arriving on Friday (April 19), and the pop superstar is building the anticipation by teasing the lead single, “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Swift took to X to share a preview of the […]
Billie Eilish’s new musical era is upon us, and the superstar unveiled the tracklist for her upcoming album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, on Thursday (April 18). The 10-track album features tracks like “Skinny,” “Lunch,” “L’Amour De Ma Vie,” “Blue,” and “Wildflower,” among others. As of the current announcement, there does not appear to be […]