Taylor Swift’s TTPD: Thoughts and Review from a Tortured Poet

When Taylor Swift announced The Tortured Poets Department, I couldn’t have been more thrilled yet petrified. It had ME written all over it — not only for the content and theme but for the timing.

I figured with the release of TTPD, and the theme of this blog being very tortured-poet-like, it made most sense to put my usual content on hold for this.

This album had me reflecting on my past relationships, my youth, as well as the present day, so I want to talk about that.

NOTE: If you’re not into all the deep stuff, skip to the end, where I will give my personal and honest review of the album.

My Thoughts?

As a “Swiftie,” I know more than I’d like to admit about Taylor’s dating life (but I’m not unhinged, I promise). Knowing that she had been in a relationship with Joe Alwyn for six years that never resulted in marriage meant that I would relate to this content a LOT.

From my late teens to mid-twenties, I was in ONE relationship.

I’ve always been a hopeless romantic — hence why I’m a Taylor Swift fan — so, at a very young age, I had a fairy-tale image in my head about relationships. When I met the first man I had ever loved at 18, I quite literally lived for the hope of it all.

After years of losing and finding yourself again with one person, that comes with wanting more. I was 24 years old and thought — then later declared — “I should have a ring on my finger.”

Once that relationship concluded, getting a ring was all I could think about. This obsession led me to make more mistakes, and I ultimately ended up hurting myself and others.

What I should have done was be patient and not put so much pressure on myself.

What I should have done was heal on my own before getting into another relationship.

When Taylor said, “…you let me give you all that youth for free,” I felt that.

Among many lines from “So Long, London," this one hit deep because giving away my youth for free was how I spent most of my twenties, up until the end of last year. I’ve grappled with the pain of knowing I’ll never get that time back, whimperingly asking, “What was it all for?”

We don’t always know the answers to this question, and I feel this was a recurring theme of thought in TTPD. You just know that one day, it’ll make sense.

I’m okay with not having all the answers right now.

Matty Healy was the getaway car.

To any Swifties who claim that 75% of TTPD (“loml” specifically) is about Matty Healy, you must not have been in a long-term relationship. I can guarantee you do not feel THIS strongly about someone you’ve dated for three months, even if you’ve known them for years. Take it from the woman (me) who spent most of her life in long-term, committed relationships.

When you’re running from the feelings of a relationship that you bled all your tears, effort, love, and time into — that ultimately ended up falling apart — Matty happens.

When you leave one thing and immediately run to another, you’re not growing. You remain stagnant in the place that you were when you began running.

Healing isn’t a linear line.

I’ve talked about this in an earlier blog post, but it bears mentioning again. I love the stages displayed in this album because it shows that the process of healing is up and down and side to side and that it is OKAY.

If an album like this makes you revisit past relationships and feelings, that just means they were real to you. It does not, however, mean that you’re backtracking. To grow is to reflect.

As put so brilliantly and simply by Pablo Neruda, “Love is so short and forgetting is so long.”

To have loved is a beautiful thing, even if profoundly painful.

“Looking backwards might be the only way to move forward.”

With lyrics like these in the album’s final poem, “The Manuscript," there’s an inevitable and natural conclusion to the stories of this chapter.

You get a sense of clean breathing.
You get a sense of truth.

“And at last, she knew what the agony had been for.”

TTPD: My Review

I was very intrigued when I first heard about the concept of this album because if Taylor Swift is best at anything other than brilliant business moves and branding, it’s writing.

But I had one concern: Jack Antonnoff.

Don’t get me wrong, Jack Antonoff is a brilliant producer and I love what he’s created with Taylor Swift, Bleachers, Lorde, and others. I just find that Taylor’s work is starting to sound repetitive. Maybe this is simply Taylor’s “sound” now, but I found that TTPD sounded like a mashup of my favourite record Folklore and Midnights (which I was a little disappointed by) with hints of Evermore.

Folklore was the most differentiating Taylor Swift album in a long time.

A huge reason for that was Aaron Dessner. Ah, Aaron Dessner. God BLESS him and his depth of sound so masterfully put to words.

I found that most of my favourite songs, other than a few exceptions, were on TTPD: The Anthology (AKA the surprise second album). Why? Well, other than Aaron producing most of them, the songs felt more “tortured.”

One could argue this album was meant for the tortured words, and the music was merely a prop for the poetry. However, if Taylor wants to deepen her sound, she may have to part ways with Jack and work closer with Aaron and other producers alike.

All that being said, the idea begs the question: should artists HAVE to constantly reinvent themselves? Food for thought.

Closing Thoughts:

Overall, I would say this album brought back an element in Taylor’s writing that we haven’t heard in a long time: brutal honesty and raw vulnerability. The words were cathartic, chaotic, and simply exquisite.

The Tortured Poets Department is my favourite Taylor Swift record since Folklore, so it is Alexa (Tortured poet number 7,967) approved.