File Name: The Closer.
My (mercifully) last deep dive into Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.'
Readers, we have made it to our final post-mortem of The Tortured Poets Department. This time, we’ll be breaking down The Anthology, a surprise double album drop a mere two hours after the initial album release and the reason why Swifties everywhere are walking around deranged and depressed.
Track 17- The Black Dog- I hope you have tissues nearby, because this song is going to make you sob like a little baby (at least it will if you’re anything like me). The second I heard the first verse, I singled this one out as one of my favorites she’s ever written. Originally marketed as a special bonus track edition of the original TTPD, when I first read the title of this song I naively believed the titular dog was either a literal one or a symbol for something. So you can imagine my utter despair when I heard the opening verse:
“I am someone who, until recent events
You shared your secrets with
And your location
You forgot to turn it off
And so I watch as you walk
Into some bar called The Black Dog
And pierce new holes in my heart
You forgot to turn it off
And it hits me
I just don't understand”
Reader, I present to you:
Not a dog or a symbol but a place. A place she can see the man who broke her heart going into without her, moving on without her.
“How you don't miss me
In The Black Dog
When someone plays The Starting Line and you jump up
But she's too young to know this song
That was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming
Old habits die screaming”
Try to recall the line “now we’re at the starting line / I did my time” from “Fresh Out the Slammer" presumably referencing her breakup with Joe and newfound freedom with Matty. The phrase is used again in this song but this time, it refers to a band called The Starting Line, whom Matty has covered at The 1975 shows with their song “The Best Of Me,” which many believed was a purposeful secret message about his relationship with Taylor taking off.
“Six weeks of breathing clean air
I still miss the smoke
Were you making fun of me with some esoteric joke?
Now I want to sell my house and set fire to all my clothes
And hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons
Even if I die screaming
And I hope you hear it”
This song is full of such specific heartbreak and pain, two things Taylor writes better than any other songwriter I can think of.
Track 18- imgonnagetyouback - Do you remember those videos of Taylor and friends attending that The 1975 concert back in 2014 where Matty famously looked up and serenaded Taylor with his song “fallingforyou?” I don’t think the stylization of the song titles here is a coincidence.
“Whether I'm gonna be your wife or
Gonna smash up your bike, I
Haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back
Whether I'm gonna curse you out or
Take you back to my house, I
Haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back”
This song is such a bop. The double meaning behind getting him back i.e. revenge and getting him back i.e. as her boyfriend is just exquisite. There’s also another lyrical parallel between this song The 1975’s “fallingforyou,” in which Matty sings “all we need’s my bike and your enormous house.” Readers, nothing is coincidence.
“I can feel it comin', hummin' in the way you move
Push the reset button, we're becoming something new
Say you got somebody, I'll say, "I got someone too"
Even if it's handcuffed, I'm leaving here with you
Bygones will be bygone eras fadin' into gray (fadin' into gray)
We broke all the pieces but still want to play the game (oh)
Told my friends, "I hate you but I love you just the same"
Pick your poison, babe
I'm poison either way”
I actually only included these lyrics because I love them.
Track 19- The Albatross- I don’t have much to say on this song, other than I love the literary reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which “tells of the misfortunes of a seaman who shoots an albatross, which spells disaster for his ship and fellow sailors. The seaman, who is the ancient mariner of the title, then roams the world retelling the tale of his cursed journey.” In Swiftian terms, Taylor leans into another of her stylistic tropes as a misunderstood and misjudged predator who is actually the prey.
Track 20- Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus- I love this song, it’s ruining my life. The title alone is reminiscent of my favorite writer of the millennial generation, Sally Rooney. The names are irrelevant to the story but the fact that there are four of them, joined by “or”s tells us that what’s important is that none of them are named Taylor.
“Your hologram stumbled into my apartment
Hands in the hair of somebody in darkness
Named Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus
And I just watched it happen
As the decade would play us for fools
And you saw my bones out with somebody new
Who seemed like he would've bullied you in school
And you just watched it happen”
The decade between 2014 and 2024 seemingly did play Taylor and Matty for fools.
“If you wanna break my cold, cold heart
Just say, "I loved you the way that you were"
If you wanna tear my world apart
Just say you've always wondered”
I honestly don’t know if another Taylor Swift chorus has ever gutted me quite like this one. It’s lyrically tragic but sounds even more despairing as she sings it with such longing.
“You said some things that I can't un-absorb
You turned me into an idea of sorts
You needed me, but you needed drugs more
And I couldn't watch it happen
I changed into goddesses, villains, and fools
Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules
All to outrun my desertion of you
And you just watched it”
This is pure speculation, but this could potentially be a reference to their earlier 2014 situation which ended suddenly. We know from public events that Matty did have substance abuse issues around that time. Of course we also know that Taylor literally did change outfits and lover and plans since we reap the benefits of her various eras.
“If the glint in my eye traced the depths of your sigh
Down that passage in time back to the moment
I crashed into you, like so many wrecks do
Too impaired by my youth to know what to do”
Taylor is known for her masterful bridges, and this one is alongside her best work, in my opinion.
“So if you wanna break my cold, cold heart
Say you loved me
And if you wanna tear my world apart
Say you'll always wonder
You really have to hear this one to understand why it affects me so. But the way she changes the lyric “say ‘I loved you the way that you were’” to “say you loved me” is unsettling. It reminds me of the amended verse on the 10-minute “All Too Well,” where she sings “And I was thinkin' on the drive down / any time now /
he's gonna say it's love / you never called it what it was.” I don’t know about you, but I will always wonder: how colorless would life be without Taylor Alison Swift’s gorgeous lyrics?!
Track 21- How Did It End?- This song definitely reads as a paranoid (for good reason) pop star’s resignation at yet another failed relationship. For me, it’s a reference to her six-year-long relationship with Joe coming to an end for not explosive reasons. The one lyrics I’d like to point out is:
“My beloved ghost and me
Sitting in a tree
D-Y-I-N-G”
It’s just such an incredible callback to the schoolyard “x and y sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. It also brings back another Swiftian motif: ghosts.
Track 22- So High School- Shocker! This one’s actually cute and happy and has one of the all time best Taylor lyrics:
“you know how to ball,
I know Aristotle”
I mean, if that doesn’t sum up their relationship, nothing does!
Track 23- I Hate It Here- A beautiful little ditty about escaping to your mental 'happy place’ is something everyone can relate to.
“I hate it here so I will go to secret gardens in my mind
People need a key to get to, the only one is mine
I read about it in a book when I was a precocious child
No mid-sized city hopes and small-town fears
I'm there most of the year 'cause I hate it here
I hate it here”
The line “secret gardens in my mind” stands out to me, because my favorite Taylor Swift song bar none is “seven” from folklore, about childhood. In “seven,” she sings of a childhood friend who went through hard times who can “move to India forever” with her. The children’s book The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett features a protagonist who was born and raised in India. She needs a key to get into the titular secret garden. Burnett also wrote A Little Princess, in which two young girls befriend each other and end up moving happily to India with the protagonists’ dad. There was a popular film adaptation directed by Alfonso Cuaron released in 1995, so it’s fairly reasonable to think these references could all be connected.
“I hate it here so I will go to secret gardens in my mind
People need a key to get to, the only one is mine
I read about it in a book when I was a precocious child
No mid-sized city hopes and small-town fears
I'm there most of the year 'cause I hate it here
I hate it here”
Reader, proof!
Track 24- thanK you aIMee- I don’t have much to say about this one, I’m afraid. I hate that it’s already picking up steam online for all the wrong reasons. Yes, we can see who she’s calling out in the title. (If you are somehow blissfully unaware, Taylor has stated in her Time Person of the Year interview that she felt a “career death” after the Kanye-Kim-Famous situation). I don’t think it takes Sherlock Holmes to deduce that one. But the lyric everyone should be talking about is this one:
“And one day, your kid comes home singing
A song that only us two is gonna know is about you”
Taylor’s best revenge has always been that her music will seep its way into the lives of any of her enemies. Just look at how many of her exes’ spouses and girlfriends love her.
Track 25- I Look in People’s Windows- The shortest song on the album, but a lacerating one.
“Does it feel alright to not know me?
I'm addicted to the ‘if only’”
Another constant Swiftian trope is reminiscing on the “if only” of former lovers, perhaps most obviously in “the 1” on folklore, where she sings “if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?”
“So I look in people's windows
Like I'm some deranged weirdo
I attend Christmas parties from outside
I look in people's windows
In case you're at their table
What if your eyes looked up and met mine
One more time”
The “monster on the hill” from “Anti-Hero” has now become a “deranged weirdo.” Taylor paints a picture here of being on the outside looking in, a theme she will return to again before this anthology closes.
Track 26- The Prophecy- This song brings to mind the themes of fate Taylor has sung about before, notably on one of my favorite tracks on folklore, “invisible string.” It also features more religious imagery:
“Hand on the throttle
Thought I caught lightning in a bottle
Oh, but it's gone again
And it was written
I got cursed like Eve got bitten
Oh, was it punishment?
Pad around when I get home
I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope
A greater woman wouldn't beg
But I looked to the sky and said”
Taylor may have had many relationships, but that’s actually one of the things I admire most about her. She has never given up that naïve hope that one day her Romeo will come and they will live happily every after.
“I've been on my knees
Change the prophecy
Don't want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo the prophecy?”
Track 27- Cassandra- I haven’t yet pointed out that most of The Anthology tracks were co-written with Aaron Dessner, whom Taylor also worked with on folklore and evermore. Lyrically and sonically they do sound reminiscent of those two sister albums. This song is a potential reference to the Greek goddess Cassandra, whom Apollo gifted with prophecies but cursed to never be believed.
“When it's ‘Burn the bitch,’ they're shrieking
When the truth comes out, it's quiet”
The infamous edited video that Kim released of Taylor and Kanye’s phone call over his song “Famous” is something Taylor stated in her 2023 Time interview “took [her] down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before.” As a longtime Swiftie, I can confirm that the year this situation happened, it was really hard to be taken seriously as a Swift fan. For some reason (could it be because she became too successful for a woman?), no one was willing to believe that Kim and Kanye were in the wrong.
“So, they killed Cassandra first 'cause she feared the worst
And tried to tell the town
So they filled my cell with snakes, I regret to say
Do you believe me now?”
Kim infamously used the snake emoji to describe Taylor, and Taylor famously turned the snake into *the* symbol of her Reputation era. It feels relevant to point out that when Reputation was first released, it was not well reviewed or received by many. Interestingly, it has aged almost too well, as many critics have since written overwhelmingly positive retrospectives on the album.
Track 28- Peter- We may have strayed from the Matty Healy of it all, but boy are we back on track with this one. Remember how we linked Taylor’s dedication of “cardigan” to Matty in Nashville with the lyrics about porch lights on “Fresh Out the Slammer?” Well, here we’re going to take the “cardigan”-Matty of it all to new heights. Before we get into the “Peter” lyrics, we need to revisit “cardigan” once more:
“You drew stars around my scars
But now I'm bleedin'
'Cause I knew you
Steppin' on the last train
Marked me like a bloodstain, I
I knew you
Tried to change the ending
Peter losing Wendy”
Now, I’m not going to rewrite the timeline and say Taylor wrote “cardigan” about Matty. It could be fair to assume she took some inspiration from their past in writing these lyrics. But what’s important to note is that regardless of whether or not she wrote it about him, she certainly turned it into a song Swifties could associate with Matty after dedicating it to him in Nashville. Now, in “Peter:”
“Forgive me, Peter
My lost fearless leader
In closets like cedar
Preserved from when we were just kids
Is it somethin' I did?
The goddess of timing
Once found us beguiling
She said she was trying
Peter, was she lying?
My ribs get the feeling she did”
Taylor takes the Peter reference from “cardigan” and turns it into the main subject of this song. The narrator is directly addressing Peter.
“And I didn't wanna come down
I thought it was just goodbye for now”
This is Taylor & Matty (Victoria’s Version) speaking to you now, but this line makes me imagine that Taylor literally did not realize the last time she saw Matty would be the last time.
“Said you were gonna grow up
Then you were gonna come find me
Words from the mouths of babes
Promises oceans deep
But never to keep”
Yikes.
“Are you still a mind reader?
A natural scene stealer?
I've heard great things, Peter
But life was always easier on you
Than it was on me
And sometimes it gets me
When crossing your jet stream
We both did the best we could do
Underneath the same moon
In different galaxies”
What haunts me here is “life was always easier on you,” as Taylor is once again pointing out the pain of being held to different standards than her male counterparts.
“And I won't confess that I waited, but I let the lamp burn
As the men masqueraded, I hoped you'd return
With your feet on the ground, tell me all that you'd learned
'Cause love's never lost when perspective is earned”
I think it’s safe to assume that here she’s referring to their youthful dalliance, after which she was still friendly with Matty but dated other men.
“And you said you'd come and get me, but you were twenty-five
And the shelf life of those fantasies has expired
Lost to the "Lost Boys" chapter of your life”
Matty was twenty-five in 2014, and his first band had a song called “The Lost Boys.”
Track 29- The Bolter- I read this one as classic references to Taylor’s reputation and how she “goes on too many dates,” as she sings on “Shake It Off.”
“Started with a kiss
’Oh, we must stop meeting like this’
But it always ends up with a town car speeding
Out the drive one evening”
A masterful callback to “Getaway Car:”
“I’m in a getaway car
I left you in a motel bar
Put the money in a bag and I stole the keys
That was the last time you ever saw me”
At least Taylor feels some sense of freedom in leaving:
“But she's got the best stories
You can be sure
That as she was leaving
It felt like freedom”
Track 30- Robin- This is a sweet song about youth that I think we can assume is speaking directly to Aaron Dessner’s son, Robin. Add it to the list of adorable and achingly tender songs about youth in her catalog (“The Best Day” “Never Grow Up,” “seven,” etc.).
Track 31- The Manuscript- I’m not really caught up in who this song might be ‘about.’ Based on the references to making coffee in a cool French press, or dating an older man, being hurt by him and fleeing to the comfort of her mother’s bed, it’s a safe bet on either John Mayer or Jake Gyllenhaal. But the man in this story is not the point. The point is that she is drawing another parallel between the way she expected her love life to turn out and the way it actually went. And, finally, the devastating final line of the entire double album:
In live performances, Taylor has long since reiterated that her songs are no longer hers once they’ve been released. She pointedly said this in regards to “Dear John” and “All Too Well” on stops at The Eras Tour to ensure fans didn’t get riled up over her exes yet again. But this final line suggests an extension of the shared ownership. It isn’t just her songs that aren’t hers anymore, but her whole story. She has almost become a mythical figure to both Swifties and haters. The fact that I’ve written a three-part line-reading of her new album proves that her story is, in fact, not hers anymore.
My thanks to my dear friends for indulging my absolutely chaotic, devoted, insatiable Swiftie self. I would say I hope our girl rests for a bit, but we know she won’t. I personally love that she released this new album before finishing with her re-releases. If the conspiracy Swifties are correct, we should be getting Reputation (Taylor’s Version) soon, which means we know we have some absolute bangers coming our way. I’ll leave you with Taylor’s final words on The Tortured Poets Department.
“The Tortured Poets Department. An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”
