passed down like folk songs

taylor putting out a spraaaaawling album that is dripping with moral ambiguity and "bad behavior" and the distinctly uglier parts of being human in a time when moral purity is almost being required of anyone with any kind of public persona is not only really fucking brave but also really really purposefully rebellious. like she really really wants to shove the ugliness down everyone's throats and make us really think about it.

Your wife waters flowers… I wanna kill her

“i hate it here” is peak escapism and hearing her talk about how she lives in a garden no one else has access to in her mind (unlike the rest of her life) for most of the year is sooooo. made up scenarios and imagining living in the 1800s… it’s giving the lakes except she’s alone and she can’t actually leave. so much of the album is about feeling stuck and this one is about feeling stuck in herself.

actually i think the song goes into another layer of maladaptive daydreaming. the first verse determines that she hates her current life and is scared, and the second verse determines that she’d actually hate real life in any given time period. she determines that she’d hate the 1800s because “nostalgia is a mind’s trick.” she knows reality too well, and she knows real life is always awful.

in the chorus, she explores her mind and that’s the only place she trusts. and so now she’s dreaming of a secret garden, a hidden valley on the moon, and a new planet. and this new place is not the strongest or the fittest, but the gentlest. and the bridge justifies this need to do live in her mind even more. she swears she is fine, but she gets lost on purpose. she feels fragile and she wants something, and though she knows that the way to move forward is to leave the things that break her behind, she can’t do it real life; she can only do it in her fantasy and so she loves it in her mind. she doesn’t care, she’s gonna live there for most of the year.

The Tortured Poets Department is a great reminder that women don't owe the world pretty. Taylor Swift doesn't owe anyone an easily digestible pretty pop album wrapped in a bow with short songs you can make TikToks to. She's allowed to present something raw, uncomfortable, and vulnerable to the world.

this is the most taylor swift album idk

not to piggy back on your clearly personal screaming into the void post but i think this is exactly why i'm seeing so many people (who are clearly not here for taylor they are just here for her "best" conventional work) hate this album because they're like "it's so cringe!" "this is all over the place it needs editing!" "she's a 35 year old white billionaire why is she writing these things she's so out of touch!" and like not to discount how valid some of these critiques are......but besties. if you were here from the beginning you'd know that this is literally Who She Is and this is the most Her she's ever been. this album is elements of every album she's ever made. it's the spunk of her early albums - the girl who called out joe jonas and john mayer - who wasn't afraid to call out the boys who broke her heart by name on her debut country album, the slight immaturity born out of anger on "better than revenge" and the naive hopeless romantic whimsy that makes up all of speak now, the high school romance and general teenage joy of fearless. it's the raw, chaotic, unedited emotion and pain that made red as successful as it, the experimentation that built that album and paved the way for her ability to jump genres. it's the situationship of 1989 coming full circle, watching a girl fall for someone quickly who has no intention on sticking around. it's the bitterness and confidence and take-no-shit attitude that was born on reputation. it's all the falling in love of lover but none of the certainty and sanity. it's the self-loathing self-destruction self-mutilation that is layered over all her albums that hits its peaks in lover and midnights both. it's folklore and evermore's sister, in fictional story-weaving and dark complicated emotions and alternative, quiet, singer-songwriter production. and guys, it's her. people act like taylor is the woman from the pandemic, this very reserved person who waves her quill and writes about fantasy worlds and is Mature Now and in a stable relationship and has grown up and refuses to let people into her personal life...but they forget that she has always been a girl who does shit out of spite, who criticizes herself more than anybody else, who loves a good joke and is a cringey millenial, who isn't afraid to try something new just because she can. this album is every piece of herself that she's collected over her career, exacerbated by her recent brutal heartbreaks and the intense magnifying glass on her and her career that she hasn't struggled with in years, and it's exactly what any of us would expect from her...in a unique packaging that none of us could have ever predicted. i'm sick of people saying "well she was good on folklore but ttpd..." NO! SHUT UP! IT'S THE SAME FUCKING PICTURE JUST ROTATED AND MOVED TWO SPACES TO THE LEFT! JUST BECAUSE SHE MENTIONS CHARLIE PUTH AND SAYS SHE WAS RAISED IN AN ASYLUM IT ISN'T ANY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT SHE'S BEEN WRITING AND SAYING AND ACTING FOR YEARS! god did any of you people listen to champagne problems when she said she's fucked in the head

Whether I’m gonna be your bike, or smash your wife or whatever Taylor Swift said.

This album has literally EVERYTHING like it’s fucking hilarious it’s raw it’s scathing it’s lyrics are unmatched it’s got slick grooves it’s got catchy bops it’s got diss tracks its nuanced it’s heartbreaking it’s sonically cohesive it’s got 31 entire tracks and NONE of them are skips??? like I am so not kidding you I think it’s going to go down in history as one of the best albums of all time and I get to live to experience it

Lately I can’t stop thinking about how deeply grateful I am to have grown up with fearless/speak now taylor. Having her enter my life at my most impressionable and the most necessary time for me…I can’t even put into words how fated it feels looking back. I will never not feel like in some ways I was complete shaped by how much less alone I was because of her. I love her so much 🩷

album prologue!! i think u should read this to understand the album better

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me is for the Mad Woman enjoyers

Aaron barely on the standard album and always on the double secret album…. She doesn’t let Aaron be bejeweled

the tortured poets department (2024)

"This is a Joe Alwyn album" "This is a Matty Healy album" shut up shut up SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!! Swifties are so annoying, this is a TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY IS YOUR FIRST REACTION TO ASSIGN THINGS TO A MAN!!!!!!!!!!!! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!!!!!

The Bolter

the black dog