It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I have missed you guys, but I hope you will forgive me when I tell you why I have been gone for so long… I have been listening to The Tortured Poets Department on repeat, and I got quite lost in it. Now, as a Swiftie, I can’t get over the 31 songs, but I’m not going to go through each and every one of them – I am going to do 13.

1. Fortnight

We all have that dream, we all have that what could have been but what will never be. A tragedy that stains some vital part of our life span, a black spot on the stories of our life that leave us fractured like a windstorm. Its dramatic, its dark, it is accompanied by a beguiling black and white (for the most part) video.

It features Post Malone who, admittedly I did not beleive would be a well serving duo but after listening to the track a few times I was happy for his company, his harmonies complimenting Taylor’s effortlessly. You can sing to it, sob to it, dance to it. Taylor Swift remains on top.

We have all had that one love that has ruined our life be it a lover, a friend, a habit, identify the culprit and run. Also her Grammys 2024 advert makes so much more sense after watching this video and I gotta say I like this new asthetic although I miss midnight’s vibe, I’ll get over it.

Although melencholia permeates through the synth and the melody toward the conclusion of this song there is so much hope, there is optimism that the sun will return. It is the light we have learned to love, it is the light we have learned to live for but without the dark we wouldn’t see its benefits.

2. The Tortured Poets Department

I heard this and immediatley thought of those pretenious people that slide into your lives only to build up their own ego. They frequently quite Charles Bukowsi and exclusivley drink espresso, they writer poetry in their tartan pyjamas until the early hours of the morning, either on a typewriter or with quill and ink. They drink only a specific type of ale and beleive they bring the light to any room they stand in. I have met a few, perhaps have even been this person to some, although I hope not.

I like the rhyming pattern in this song but do I like this song? I do not know. Does it inspire me? No. Did I google Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith? Yes. The lyrics “You smoked then ate 7 bars of chocolate” are just ridiculous especially when followed with ‘like a tatooed golden retriever’ I get the imagery, I get the energy, it just didnt live up to my idea of Swift’s usual standards. But this is one song out of 31 that I am unsure on.

3. Down Bad

As someone who has cried at the gym, its from the cardio I swear…, I love this song. The sound at the start, whatever is the source of such n intoxicating tune, it is so beautiful, it really rinses my brain, I hear it and I breathe better. I think the pain we learn from our first heartbreak never goes away, that pain is part of us and we polish it.

Even in your 30s,40s, 50s, that anger is evocative of end of the world fights when you were 16 having your heart crushed for the very first time, you are full of rage and upset and there is no where to channel it, all this love that has been lost comes out as a black hole in your bedroom, something you collapse in, something you pull the rest of the world into and there is no escape.

This song is on my gym playlist, don’t blame me if you see me singing to myself when I am supposed to be sprinting when this comes on. The vulnerability, the isolation that comes with heartbreak even though it is a universal feeling, your love the one specifally for you was meant to be different, it was mean’t to last.

It is quite clear that I love this song.

4. So,Long, London.

Listening to this with headphones on is otherwordly. The pacing, the power, the harmonies. ‘How much sad do you think I had in me?’ How much pain can one person make you feel, how much do you have in you? Throughout the honest, the vulnerbaility, Swift is a storm, she is sad, enranged but she remains hopeful, a force of resilience she continues. ‘You said that you loved me but where was the proof?’

Words are just words even when you sing them softly! You have just moved someone’s air and warmed it into music for thier mind, where is the action, where are the flowrs, the notes, the planned dates, the suprises, where is the passion?

This track 5 song is allegedly an ode to Swift’s ex who she split with after 6 years. 6 years, 6 months , 6 weeks all a lifetime when you are in love. Heartbreak is a state of mourning, you are yearning for what you once had, but also what could have been and what will now never be.

5. Florida

I instantly loved this track, Taylor’s energy, the impact of Florence +The Machine, the chorus! Sometimes we like comfort, but then there comes the consequence of the comfort and that is when we fight for freedom, or take flight to escapism. Florida is all about reinvention, that stage in your heartbreak where you recreate who you were, you rid yourself of who they once loved and try on new shoes, squeeze into them and tell yourself they fit as you struggle to dance the night away. Going to Florida is perhaps the popstar equivalent to getting a new haircut and handbag after a bad breakup.

The end is an opportunity, live a new life, see the world with different eyes and forget all the lies of the loves that came before. Florida ,for me, is about trying again, again on that note of recreation and resilience. I love the line ‘Me and my ghost we had a hell of a time‘, this is a song for the road, for the summer, rooftop down, windows open, belting out Florida as you drive through your quiet village pretending you are anywhere else.

6. Guilty As Sin?

With an opening evocative of a very slow, sedated blur song 2 riff, this song is all about wanting someone you shouldn’t, or should you? Who is to tell you who you can and can’t love (as long as it is consentual) your friends may try to protect you from further damage by pleading with you to get rid but if you beleive it is love, then for you it mus the love.

This song is abotu a fantasy, you have not acted on what you desire but the desire is there, oh it is there and when you see them are you guilty jsut for looking? Do your eyes give it away, do they see the ghost of themselves in your expression?

The power, the energy, the riff almost a call back to her country days with its slight twang. It is upbeat, it is thought-provoking, it is relatable. ‘Am I allowed to cry?’ Over someone who isn’t and or ever has been yours? Of course you are as it is unlikely the ever will be.

7. Who is afraid of little old me?

If you have ever been underestimated, overlooked, interupted, this song is your collective rage. It is empowering, it is engraging and it is just damn good. Swift’s life was under a microscope early in to her teens, she grew up being watched, these years of eyes, public spies, a strangers foot steps in her lifehave tkaen their toll on her well being and this song takes that power away from them.

I imagine the life of a celebrity to resemble that of a zoo animal, the tiger must always be magnificent and fierce, it must always perfrom and roar for us but its temper msut always be controlled. Here the tiger is unleashed and we put our cameras down and run for the hills. Yes she is a celebrity but she is a creator, she had given us this beautiful art and we are tear it apart, laughing at her broken heart.

8.Clara Bow

A legacy of talented women and the mirrors they hand down to us. We are never us in our own right we must always be justified, oh yes you come next in this single line of success for women, you are sensational, an ‘it’ girl, a younger version of… Clara bow was the first so called ‘it’ girl, paving the way for so many lookalikes. Why can a woman not just be herself and be applauded for it, comparison is a cage we need to break free from.

Clara Bow applauds these women with Swift name dropping Stevie Nicks and herself. It is an empowering song that offers a refrehsing insight on the industry as well as reminding us of these talented women who were never allowed to be talented in thier own right, there was always some other reason.

With this song Swift re-ignites that spotlight, openig up her stage to all the women that have come before, dring and after her. It is not one singers stage it is everyones.

9.The Black Dog

The delcious duality fo this song, the metaphor and meaning behind the Black dog but with it being a traditional english pub name this song has so many corridors. Lamenting the ong summers of love, wondering how could you ever not be enoguh when they had once healed you with their touch?

We are all replacable, even by those who are meant to polish our picture we could easily become a msitake shattered on the mantlepiece. You will forget me, I will forget you but it was love wasn’t it? At one point it was love and my god was it good? Was it good?

10.thanK you aIMee

Rising from the rubble of someone elses wreckage, your house is on fire but you didnt light the match. The world is burning and there are flames on your face, but you dondt light the match. Some wounds dont heal and that is ebcause they are not supposed to, we absorb them, we become part pain, part polish, we learn to live as a recovering patient, always, our smile stronger than any medication.Sometimes we have to watch part of us burn in order to breathe clearly again.

There is much speculation as to who this song is about and I would ahve to say I agree. Sucess is the best revenge and Swift certanly serves this. This song beuatifully reclaims Swift’s standing, wiping off the dust of an ongoing feud. She matuallry addresses the pain and demonstrates how she learned to grow from it. The reference to Sisyphus, I am in love with this album.

Again the actual tune to this track seems to have a country twang to it, definitly a banjo esque backing track going on.. debut fans are you listening?

11. I hate it here

We are all pretenders, we are all poets, we are all here and always somehwere else at the same time, in my mind I am living every other life, visting those ‘secret gardens’. Fantasy lands, places where you are unknown, places where you are seen by that one individual who looks straight through you. We are always born in the wrong era, we always blame our parents.

This track isn’t one of my favourites but I do like certian lines and the chorus is very fun, one we can all relate too. What is your secret garden?

12. I look in people’s windows

I like the repetition of out out out, then south south, south. The melody is very evocative of So, long, London. I think this song is a nod to all of us living other peoples lives, wathcing everything perfectly unfold online, their shiny skincare deals, thier iced lattes, their contoured and carved stomachs and faces, thier prsitine floors and smiling faces, thier instagram age full of passport pages.

We never want to look into the windows of our own life this is about living a windowsil life, dipping your toe into someone else’s strides. It’s s horter song as thoufh swift is literally just glancing through the glass not wantng to linger, not wanting to bother just wanting to watch, wanting to escape, wanting to learn.

13. The albatross

An albatross is a metaphor for an inescapable moral or emotional burden, is this how she felt? Is htis how she felt when she ran round with her super glue, her plasters, her pleading? when she tried to stop the walls from peeling, when she tried to stop you from leaving?

By the end of the song she is using those wings to fly above, to protect you, she becomes a parachute again that theme of resiilience permeates and there is always solace after sadness, there is always peace after a storm.

Similairly to the Black Dog and the Bolter the Albatross references England’s pubs and bars and continues on with the double entendre. Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is also a peom that references an albatross in which a sailor is cursed for shooting one down, sometimes we do not have to point out the beauty of the bird to someone else to prove its beauty, sometimes we can just appreicate it on our own and let it fly on.