Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift The Tortured Poets Department

25th Apr 2024 — Leave a comment

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.

Taylor Swift The Tortured Poets Department 2024 (not my image)
  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.

1989 (Taylor’s Version)

29th Oct 2023 — Leave a comment

An echo of our adolescence now the soundtrack to our adulthood…

Taylor Swift 1989 (Taylor’s Version) Album cover

Evocative of early adolescence when many of us early Swifts wanted to be part of the squad buying our first red lipsticks and singing Bad Blood into makeshift mics, 1989 Taylor’s version returns at a time when we are following her footsteps, navigating our twenties, leaving home and figuring out who we are meant to be..

20s, the decade we scrabble around trying to fix the fragments of shattered dreams and broken hearts in a desperate hope to piece ourselves back together  only to realise the pieces don’t fit  with each other anymore because you have someone new, and that is okay. 1989 us an artistic renaissance, a testament to reinvention, a celebration of what could be, what is and what is no longer, it is facing the change and doing so with a smile.

1989 saw the singer reinvent herself, transitioning from country to release the most iconic pop album this century has seen. She made what the media portrayed as a mess into a magnum opus, a full on Monet. An incomplete jigsaw is not pretty until finished but the joys and frustration of getting it to that point are what make it art. 1989 is a musical mosaic, showcasing shards of Taylors life up to the point of release. Navigating new cities, revisiting old flames and fanning those of friendship.

Track One: Welcome to New York

Welcome To New York (Taylor’s Version)

Presenting her new beginnings with a new backdrop, a new chapter, a transitional period placing Taylor in the centre of possibility. Her opening track, Welcome to New York’, is an electric start setting the tone to a power album, showing us Swift is capable of it all. Change, can lead to a feeling of being displaced, but this vivacious song reassures us  that home isn’t always a house, moving can give us the power to  build the landscape to our lives. Listening to this album now many of us may have moved out or are at least waiting to take that step and this serves as a reminder that leaving your comfort zone is something to celebrate.

Optimism defines this track, with pulsing synthesisers and programmed drums, it is potential coming into fruition, the start of something magical. It captures the momentary emotion of making it and having done so alone.

It’s also a rallying cry for equality, an audible demonstration of allegiance with the LGBTQIA+ community. The lines ‘And you can want who you want, Boys and boys and girls and girls’ released at a time when same sex  marriage was not yet legalised in all fifty states, shimmering so brightly. Although Swift has confirmed she is not part of the community she is a clear ally in its movement.

Track Two: Blank Space

Blank Space (Taylor’s Version)

Other people may weaponize their words against you and  you have to humour the hurt. Made to feel and though you are not a human being but a creature, dissected by giants who claim they are perfect, with cameras for eyes and judgement for tongues, they try  to pathe your own life whilst  bulldozing your dreams and pushing you to follow them. You are often undermined and sometimes made to feel utterly alone but you can learn to take the power from that narrative and use it to build your own.

The tongue in cheek satire of Blank Space is still so relevant to Swift’s social life now, speculation surrounding boyfriends, exes but she rises above, reclaiming the narrative and making it bow to her. As an electro-pop song it boasts a timeless quality and it contains many of my favourite lines including “ Darling I am a nightmare dressed like a daydream” and “Boys only want love if its torture’. Swift was once America’s sweetheart, a girl next door- Miss. Americana but it seems her relationship with the media blew up when it claimed everybody she set eyes upon was her next prey, making her out to be a man eating psychopath which is exactly the narrative she presumes in this song.

Taylor Swift Eras Tour

Track 4: Out Of The Woods

Questioning the foundations of what were once fundamentals, teenage true love, a paper promise of eternity, now turns to lingering eyes, strangers smile, hands held tighter, you’re left wondering if you’ll last the while. Until you’re in the heavy midst of your twenties people tell you that you are young, you can do this, there is so much time to build your dreams and then you’re 23 and your peers push you into the ocean of impatience, their seeming success serving as an awakening that you are temporary and there is never enough time, everything has to be now or it will never be.

Out Of The Woods (Taylor’s Version)

Out of the woods is a desperate attempt to make sense of a relationship that should work out well but neither of you can ever get it right leaving you constantly question “If you’re in the clear yet?”. This relationship digs a whole within you that you try to fill using the same shovel, holding their hand in that space between you hoping it will bring you closer only for it to tear you apart.

Our 20s are defined by a constant feeling of business whilst seemingly standing still, you see friends marry, excel in their career, move on and leave home whilst you’re just watching, waiting, the stability held in place by the last sprinkles fo childhood magic still lingering on from your teens simply drifts away, leaving you in the dark. If you look for the issues you will find them but in reality this is your space to reclaim yourself, finally make a name for yourself.

You conclude that if something good happens then that is the anomaly. Perfection is a place for tourist not natives, some of us may be lucky enough to stay there for a week, most of us will wander down it’s immaculate pathways, a daunting detour before we stumble back on to collages of gum on a wet and windy Thursday.

Love is ferocious but it is fragile, it is delicious and delicate, it can sting you whilst singing. It is confusing and beautiful people will peck at it, leaving you with crumbs you either have to walk away from or work to produce a loaf out of, it is work but it can be so worth it.

Track 8:Bad Blood

Leaving Uni an looking for a new job you think cliques are finally a thing of the past, that you will be able to swim in a pool full of reasonable people, that, like you, just want to be allowed to breathe peacefully filling their life with purpose. But purpose is a powerful thing and when one feels powerless their purpose can become about dragging you down from the pedestal they have placed you on. Betrayal from a once close friend can leave you feeling alone, your blood boiling. 

This song celebrates the strength of friendship in the face of adversity, coming together against threats, a homage to genuine connections. The stomping drums the sound of defiance in the face of destruction, Swift rallies up her remaining friends in a harmonized battle cry, the memorable music video showcasing an ensemble cast. In life we will lose those we once loved but that does not mean we must lose ourselves too.

 What is armour if there is only one of you on the battlefield? What is an army without union? A power anthem, a chorus of community, Swift showed us she was a force to be reckoned with.

Track 16:New Romantics

‘Heartbreak is the national anthem/ we sing it proudly’.

‘New Romantics’ is a satirical slice  bout those that find hobby in heartbreak and do it happily because they are carless and free. Romance is whimsical it’s all about dancing, you and me, and them and he. It introduces an indie edge to her pop repertoire , fusing what was to what is to create an explosively positive anthem that applauds spirited living.

The New Romantics culture movement that permeated the late 70s and 80s was characterised by its flamboyance and eccentricity, celebrating differences and looking for a more whimsical way to live. Here Swift faces a new found energy, recovering from heartbreak and betrayal, she breathes in a new era of romance. Hedonism defines this track, welcome to a world where ‘ We are too busy dancin’ to get knocked off our feet, finding enjoyment in what you were once made to endure, the world can be yours

Love is not a fairy-tale but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, you’re young, you’re old, you’re in love or you’re alone, you can always find a reason to not take life so seriously.

The Vault Tracks

Slut! (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)

“Slut!” Follows on from who she is in Blank Space, an ode to a woman who finds her self in the public eye and in love. The media project their many eyes on to her, painting her out to be the obsessive one that hunts men when in reality the media are the only hunters, craving their next hurtful headline, it is not Swift who is the villain in the relationship but the media. Shamed and targeted for being like any of us, a victim of the camera lens, Swift always finds magic in the mean, here she lets herself be in love and if they call her a slut then ‘You know it might be worth it for once”.

The Final song Is It Over Now? A savage addition to her poignant repertoire, offering s blunt rendition into the aftermath of a relationship. It has a cinematic opening, you are left in suspense before her angelic vocals cut through, you know whatever comes next is going to be  powerful, a wave slapping the shore, the striking line “You dream of my mouth before it called you a lying traitor’ demonstrating the extremity of the fall out. Perhaps the bitter brutality that becomes this track is an echo of what is on it’s way…

The speculation surrounding who the vault tracks are disusing are irrelevant to me. The entire narrative of 1989 is Taylor’s attempt to transition into what she believes the media wanted from her, Pop culture, to be America’s sweetheart again so she tried to be satirising their image of her and spending more time with her female friends.

Swift is rarely, if ever allowed to be enjoyed just as her and her music, she has to be perceived through the media sense of who is she dating, many of her fans and foes questioning why has she written this and guessing who it must be about? 1989 is about Taylor moving on from that, investing in herself and taking a more reserved road. yTo often we find ourselves looking for who  we  are in the lives of strangers, looking for who to hate on because we may be approved by our peers because of it. 

Why try to find yourself in place you have never been,  why be someone you are not just because someone else will hold their gaze a second longer, you will not find who you are in the eyes of others, just like you can’t find something you have lost in a room you have not stepped into. I think we should enjoy this catalogue of her life respectfully and not pry into her love life, rather just enjoy the music.

Overall 1989 Taylor’s Version is all about change and transition and for many of us listening to the original 9 years ago, much change has ensued and we can enjoy those once tracks of our adolescence  once again but now in our adulthood. Swift is the soundtrack to our lives and many of us feel as though we have grown up beside her. Letting go of scrabbling hands to finally hold yourself is the greatest freedom, which is what Taylor does with this album, losing them to find herself.

Midnights

28th Oct 2022 — Leave a comment

It’s been a week since Blondie dropped her bombshell of an anthem on us.

Taylor Swift-Anti-Hero

Two years on from pandemic projects Evermore and Folklore Swift is back, taking on us all on a journey through time.We explore diary entries, a first hand point of view of Taylor’s kaleidoscope psyche. Her insecurities are ours, her heartbreak helps us heal, vengeance is a song best sung.

She has been both villain and victim, hero and heroine, a cognitive dissonance of colourful characters, finally learning to love all facets of herself. Outside of the girls next door, revolving relationship door lover, narrative that has shaped Swift’s shadow since her debut album taylor Swift in 2006, that she is still trying to shake off, Swift is everyone of us.There is a scarf somewhere in everyone’s life, a snake in the shadows and a mirror that we can’t quite look into, whether that be a pane of glass, a mother or a father, Swifts songs speak to the souls that have been scorned and rejected.

We are not always the protagonist in our life, sometimes the villain, a side character or the anti-hero. We spend our depressive adolescences blaming the world for the way we are, we dye our hair, we darken our nails, sign petitions and wish for change, In our early adult years, stretching out new skin carrying our selves in suitcases as we travel from each fleeting dwelling like a nomad in the search for who were are, we turn inwards, questing whether we are the problem. Is addressing this possibility enough to tackle it? No. Ironically Taylor’s music video for this single received widespread backlash after viewers found a scene to be fatphobic.

Swift steps onto some scales which spin to reveal the words fat. Swift has previously discussed her issues with self image, exacerbated by paparazzi and media perpetuating her proportions, she would either be too skinny or too fat, she would never be enough.This scale is the personification of herself, telling her not to eat, telling her to sweat it out because she feels she is too big, too much. Being fat is not necessarily a bad thing, just as being skinny is not necessarily a good thing as both can be unhealthy but this scene was meant to portray Swift as the anti-hero, ‘starve yourself to avoid ridicule, starve yourself to stay alive’ which is obviously not the correct message , it is not Swift saying she is fat it is the villanised version of herself trying to convince her she is.Swift has since responded to the backlash by removing this particular scene from the video.

Taylor Swift-Karma lyric video.

Seeing Taylor live during her red tour in 2014 solidified my love for her lyricism. The raw poetry, ink bleeding into a page as tears run down a scrunched up face, the power in each word a weapon, a victory. Karma is my most beloved Taylor Swift song to date so much so I was singling a long to it by the second verse. Revenge does not have to be a meticulous plan , with decoys and burner phones, it does not have to be violence it can be your victories.Yes they burned you but you ar eon fire, new car, new job, heart healed and love found. You do not need to hurt somebody to feel good, do good to feel good.as Swift puts it Karma can be as simple as ‘A relaxing thought’.

Taylor Swift-Vigilante Shit

She also taught us the former. Found some dirt on someone you can now bury? An ex cheated on you but you’ve got proof of them misbehaving at work? Drop them in it. Someone buys you a drink and stories your leg, leans in for a kiss and you say yes. In the morning the remind you they have a family? Find their phone, tell those people. Vigilante Shit, a dark enigma that is cutthroat on concise in telling you Swift is not the villain, she’s the mastermind , you might be able to trip he run but she’ll knock you down and take your wife too.The jazz sequel ending to this song adds a more appealing ambiguous edge to the bold bass of the track. This song definitely wears the violent fantasies of midnight and the arguments we have in the shower. Many fans believe this track is hint to Taylor Swifts amplified relationship with Ye and Kim- Kim and Swift are now friends whereas Ye has seemingly lost it all. What do you think?

Taylor Swift-Bejewelled video

Speaking of taking back power, Swift proves she is still the light in this dark night, shimmering stars that carpet the sky as we lay awake and try not to cry, through rage, through loss there are diamonds. Water reflects light so let yourself cry whilst you chase those jewels, do it all for you. Fifteen years of songwriting and storytelling and Swift is still shining, eyes bright, posture bold, she may feel like a monster on that hill but with that height you’re close enough to the stars to be considered part of the solar system.