The Tortured Poets Dept

It is no secret that I am a big fan of Swift’s work. Having said that I am longing for her to separate herself from Jack Antonoff. He has worked on the last seven of Swift’s releases not including any re-recording and I am definitely ready for something new. It is not that I didn’t enjoy the previous six albums or this one, I have been thoroughly entertained by them. It is just that as I was listening the similarities between all Swift’s albums from the past decade it really hit me for some reason. Part of it is knowing that there are plenty of other extremely capable producers in the music scene and in my humble, non-musically educated opinion Antonoff has received more than enough attention. I am also just interested in hearing something that has a different sound, something new. I am certainly not holding my breath for this to happen as there are no signs of this coming at all but I can dream right?

Secondly on the spectrum of Swifties I am actually pretty far from the top. I don’t bother following relationship drama or really any drama in the media. So as always there are definitely references in this album that I will not discuss at all. I don’t so much care which tracks are about what person. I just want to discuss what I gleaned from a few of the tracks as I listened. This album does contain a substantial amount of magnificent poetry and that is what I am focusing on.

So Long, London

“I saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist

I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift”

I am moved by the imagery of this; the idea that one individual in a relationship is carrying this immense emotional boulder while the other seems almost completely unburdened by what is going on. Its paints a really telling picture about the status of the relationship.

“Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away

My spine split from carrying us up the hill

Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill

I stopped trying to make him laugh

Stopped trying to drill the safe”

The one person who cares finally had enough of carrying everything of being the only one who is actually trying. I am intrigued by the line about drilling the safe, the first thing that comes to my mind is secrets being a major part of the rift in the relationship and it was finally too much. At some point you must realize that you are just not getting anywhere.

“Thinkin, how much sad did you think I had

Did you think I had in me?

Oh, the tragedy …”

How long did you think I could last? How long did you honestly think this would keep going? Perhaps one individual in this relationship thought a bit to highly of themselves or was just completely oblivious.

“So long, London

You'll find someone …”

London is spoken about like a person here it gives me the idea that both London the place as well as someone who calls the place home are both being left behind here.

“I didn't opt in to be your odd man out

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 stopped CPR, after all it's no use

The spirit was gone, we would never come to

And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free”

I get the impression that this is eluding to a third member in the relationship seemingly a person but a pronoun could of course be attached to something else. The idea of emotional CPR is so emotionally poignant; the essence of the relationship was already dead and gone so there was no hope that anyone could return and revive the relationship. That is powerful. This last line “And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” I have wondered what exactly this means? Was one individual never fully invested in the relationship so its as if all the time was wasted or is it referring to all the time spent after the rift in the relationship was beginning to form?

“For so long, London

Stitches undone

Two graves, one gun

I'll find someone …”

Is this a grave for each person in the relationship? My current theory is that this is referring to the other individual in the relationship as well as who or what they attached themselves to which ended things. By terminating the relationship you are metaphorically taking them both out by removing them from your life, hence “two graves, one gun”. With the ending line eluding to the fact that you know you will find someone else and move on.

“And you say I abandoned the ship

But I was going down with it”

Obviously there is a substantial difference between abandoning a relationship and sinking with it. Perhaps this illustrates how differently two people can view things in a relationship.

“My white knuckle dying grip

Holding tight to your quiet resentment and

My friends said it isn't right to be scared

Every day of a love affair

Every breath feels like rarest air

When you're not sure if he wants to be there”

I can see in my head someone holding on so tight to the railing of a ship as it sinks into the treacherous sea. They are holding tight to this quiet indignation; this feeling of being treated quite unfairly in this relationship. I get the idea that they were scared in this relationship; not for their life or anything but just had this fear of knowing that the relationship would suddenly end but not knowing when. "Every breath feels like rarest air" because you don't know which breath will be the last one before the relationship plummets into the sea. You are constantly wondering if the other person actually wants to be there with you or if they simply going through the motions.

“Just how low did you think I'd go?

Before I'd self-implode

Before I'd have to go be free

You swore that you loved me but where were the clues?

I died on the altar waiting for the proof

You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days

And I'm just getting color back into my face

I'm just mad as hell cause I loved this place”

You can only go on for so long believing that something will change eventually you have to get out of there or at least hopefully you do before something just completely breaks you and you are stuck; though I don’t know if that is the case here. “I died on the altar waiting for the proof” there was a lot of talking but no action. They were waiting on evidence that would just never come. “You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days” I have pondered quite a bit on what this might mean, “sacrificed us” so it would seem that the relationship was sacrificed. Why though and how exactly? Were they going through a depressing time and rather than confiding or relying on their partner they shut down and pushed them away. I know that depression is not easy to discuss but if you cannot talk to your partner about it then you have some deeper issues. A relationship should be about trust and opening yourself up to being completely vulnerable. I would postulate that isn’t what happened here.

“But I'm not the one

You'll find someone …”

I find it interesting that “I’ll find someone” is mentioned only once whereas “You’ll find someone” is mentioned twice. I wonder if this is a way of showing that they still care about the other person and they want to them to know that they believe they will find someone. This certainly doesn’t seem like a relationship that ended on the best of terms but that doesn’t mean you don’t still wish for them to be happy you just need them to be happy away from you.

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

“… The who's who of "Who's that?" is poised for the attack

But my bare hands paved their paths

You don't get to tell me about sad

… If you wanted me dead, you should've just said

Nothing makes me feel more alive”

A relationship which met a very painful end; rather than any sort of mutually agreed upon split they chose to viciously wound the other person. I would gather that this isn’t the first time this has happened and they have had enough. “You don’t get to tell me about sad” they know sad, they have lived sad.

“… So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street

Crash the party like a record scratch 

as I scream

"Who's afraid of little old me?"

You should be”

When you have experienced such terrible pain; feeling like a ghost of a person is normal. After previously stating “if you wanted me dead” this feels like a natural progression. It feels like something has been building and has been bottled up and now it is being unleashed and there is a new side of themselves they are showing. A side that is sick of putting up with people’s bullshit.

“… The scandal was contained

The bullet had just grazed

At all costs, keep your good name

You don't get to tell me you feel bad

… Is it a wonder I broke? “

What and who does this other person care about? Seems they are only concerned with the blowback. The reason they cannot say they feel bad is because it would be a lie that nobody should believe.

“I was tame, I was gentle 'til the circus life made me mean

"Don't you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth"

Who's afraid of little old me?

Well, you should be”

Since I first heard this I have always felt that it is talking about what it has been like to grow up in the media circus. How much has Swifts life been different because of being watched and judged so often. Having people seemingly care more about when you are down, when you fail and the like. That would certainly have a dramatic effect on your life. It is certainly something that I cannot imagine.

“You wouldn't last an hour 

in the asylum where they raised me

So all you kids can sneak into my 

house with all the cobwebs

I'm always drunk on my own tears,

 isn't that what they all said?”

I see this as being directly related to the last section; the asylum that raised her could be talking about what it is like to be skyrocketed to epic levels of stardom very quickly. It really did seem like almost nobody knew who Taylor Swift was and the Fearless tour hits and sells out everywhere; the album sells like crazy as well. Suddenly almost everyone knows Taylor Swift and things continue to go up from there. That had to be make for a completely insane young adult life. To me at least there is a lot about the media and all its attention along with growing up in the spotlight in this track.

The Manuscript

“Now and then she rereads the manuscript

Of the entire torrid affair

They compared their licenses

He said, "I'm not a donor but

I'd give you my heart if you needed it

She rolled her eyes and said

"You're a professional"“

Feels rehearsed like they are just delivering a line that they have used many times before. It’s something that didn't last which is another recurring theme. Relationships that don't last and aren't based on anything substantial.

“And the years passed

Like scenes of a show

The Professor said to write what you know

Lookin' backwards

Might be the only way to move forward…

She knew what the agony had been for”

Writing about what you have experienced. What had it been for? In the end was it actually worth it? It is if you have learned from it. Not dwelling on the past is certainly solid advice but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look back on it. I choose to believe that we do experience things for a reason; not because they are written in the stars or fate. Experience is the best teacher but we cannot learn from them if we don’t remember.

“The only thing that's left is the manuscript

One last souvenir from my trip to your shores

Now and then I reread the manuscript

But the story isn't mine anymore”

The only thing left after all the experiences is what you do with them, and the stories that you have to pass on afterwards. If it isn't yours anymore than whose is it? Is this meaning that now that Swift has put these experiences out into the world they are now for other people to learn from? Or perhaps this is speaking on the fact that this is a sort of closure; she has learned from the experiences spoken about them and is now putting them behind her forever. Her story will continue but it will do so in a different book.

In Summation

“For the purpose of warning

For the sake of reminding

As you might all unfortunately recall

I had been struck with a case

of a restricted humanity

Which explains my plea here today

of temporary insanity

You see, the pendulum swings

Oh, the chaos it brings

Leads the caged beast to do

the most curious things

Lovers spend years denying what’s ill fated

Resentment rotting away

galaxies we created

Stars placed and glued

meticulously by hand

next to the ceiling fan

Tried wishing on comets.

Tried dimming the shine.

Tried to orbit his planet.

Some stars never align.”

Some people just don't align, some relationships seem all but doomed to fail from the start.

“And in one conversation, I tore down the whole sky

And so I was out of the oven

And into the microwave

Out of the slammer and into a tidal wave”

Been removed from one tough situation only to be thrown into one that is even worse. Life can certainly feel this way at times and you may be accused of being over dramatic but the fact is that often when life hits you hard it just keeps hitting you harder.

“How gallant to save the empress

from her gilded tower

Swinging a sword he could barely lift

But loneliness struck at that fateful hour

Low hanging fruit on his wine stained lips

He never even scratched the surface

of me.

None of them did.

In summation, it was not a love affair!”

I screamed while bringing my fists

to my coffee ringed desk

It was a mutual manic phase.

It was self harm.

It was house and then cardiac arrest.”

It was love; it was mutually assured destruction, isn't that really what love is though when you think about it? I don’t mean that in a negative way. Love is giving everything you are to someone and receiving that in return. You divulge all your secrets; the very essence of your being and in doing so you give them the means to completely destroy you. This is a obviously a risky endeavor as it could lead to something great or something horrible. In this it case it is of course the latter. It was good for a time and then it died. It is inevitable that as we voyage through life we will be faced with relationships that don’t end how we thought they would or how we were hoping they would. This album collects a number of such experiences and puts them into this finely written, gloriously crafted and exquisitely somber package.

“A smirk creeps onto this poet’s face

Because it’s the worst men that I write best.

And so I enter into evidence

My tarnished coat of arms

My muses, acquired like bruises

My talismans and charms

The tick, tick, tick of love bombs

My veins of pitch black ink

All’s fair in love and poetry”

I have always thought it is interesting to say all is fair... If you are saying that all is fair is anything actually fair? It’s actually stating that nothing is fair which I suppose is exactly the point so why not just say that? But that wouldn’t be very poetic.