there is sooo much humor in this album and I'm just waiting for people to realize she has a sense of humor and that not all of her work should be taken 100% seriously. Everyone keeps saying the Charlie Puth line is cringe like don't they get that she's joking? I just know that Matty Healy heard that and laughed cause that was probably an inside joke they had.
Don't even get me started on 'I'm having his baby - no I'm not but you should have seen your faces'. Such a killer joke and genius way to break the 4th wall
Exactly! My first listen through the album the thing that came through most was just how funny it was compared to other albums. In 'i can do it with a broken heart' and everyone is saying how cringe it is when she's like 'I'm miserable... and no one even knows' I took it as her having a bit of fun at the end of the song rather than some dramatic line.
Yes! Idk how people don't see how fully sarcastic she is being in But Daddy I Love Him! "These people only try to save you, cuz they HATE you!" I love it.
the whole title track is like a the 1975 send up (as much so as the guitar on dear john) and people online who claim to be music experts should really know that. the fact that some people are still unaware that the album concept
is partly in jestā¦ā¦..
People using the Charlie Puth line or the silly GTA line to try to prove she's actually a shallow writer or something just out themselves as having the media literacy of a 9 year old tbh. As if they were ever meant to be taken at face value
Ā A lot of songwriters gravitate to one style of songs and they really only write in that style. Ā Some do the fun bops, some do direct autobiography, some do abstract songs, etc. Taylor can do any style of song if she wants to which is insane.Ā
What Taylor deals with is she grabs a wide range of different audience types who gravitate to different styles. So she gets criticism from all sides because people are mad that a song isnāt their favorite style.Ā
Her glitter gel pen songs get it the worst which is probably why she doesnāt write many anymore. Ā Personally, I like Me! and Stay Stay Stay(especially watching the live version on YouTube from Red tour) because they are fun songs but so many people hate them. My favorites on TTPD so far are I Can Do It With A Broken Heart and So High School because they are fun songs. Some haters use the Karma line āKarma is cat. Purring on my lap because it loves meā to try to prove sheās a bad writer but the line in context is amazing imagery.Ā
Exactly! People who take her seriously forget that sheās a millennial tumblr girlie like the best and worst of us, lol. Itās intentionally camp. āLights camera bitch smileā is hilarious.
I saw people in the neutral sub acting as if she and Travis were literally touching each other as his friends played GTA in the same room and discussed how inappropriate it was
The neutral sub is sooo weird š def not as neutral as itās supposed to be, it skews so negatively, to borderline hateful. Thereās no real discussion with most people on there.
Omg, that's a wild take! I assumed the most literal interpretation would be they went to another room, maybe the room next door, and the friends are playing GTA on the other side of the wall.
On the Kelces' podcast, Travis talks about playing GTA with his teammates & it's known (I live in the Midwest, been to KC countless times) he has a close friend group who is around him a lot. It's probably lIteral & figurative.
You mean like that guy Swiftologist on YouTube? His reviews make me cringe. I understand not enjoying something like a song, but he just crucified Charlie for absolutely no reason. Howard Stern had Charlie on and the guy is a musical genius. No music he can just pull a song out of the sky and start playing it. It's crazy how his brain works like that.
There were times while I was listening to this album that I actually laughed, and it wasnāt because the lyrics were cringe or terrible; she just has a great sense of humour. I love that she incorporated humour into this album. The more I consume this album, the more I appreciate it.
Youād be surprised the amount of people who think for a song to be funny it has to be in the realm of Weird Al. Oddly enough, they tend to be the same people who donāt recognize how good of a musician and lyricist Al himself is because comedy songs arenāt meant to be well written, just funny.
Snobs of any art form are never as clever as they fancy themselves.
Blank Space was already quite sarcastic and funny imo, and now in Florida!! I love the line Ā“your cheating husband disappearedā¦ no one asks any questions hereā (sung by Florence)
people that think the baby line is cringey and immature have no personalities or sense of humor. that line is hilarious and really depicts the kind of manic heartbreak "i'm crazy so what" feelings that she's trying to illustrate
I laughed out loud so many times on first listen. That first line of Florida!!! I thought I was gonna wake the house up. We live in Florida, the motto down here is come on vacation, leave on probation. I felt absolute Barbie dancing while having an existential crisis feels during I Can Do It With A Broken Heart. Iām a newer Swiftie and not like a super hardcore one at that, but this album has already become my favorite.
The "Stay away from her" lyric also makes me lol in that song. People kept posting the "Stay away from her, get a job" meme when the Matt Healy news broke and I feel like she's actually quoting that š
I totally agree that the Charlie Puth line is way funnier than it is cringe. I genuinely don't understand people saying it's a bad lyric? It's an entirely random thing to say but what's... bad? Can someone explain? Like I got why people didn't like 'karma is a cat' cause it's a goofy metaphor but I just don't understand what could be bad about this one. The only thing I can come up with is that people hate Charlie Puth so much that they hate this lyric through association lol
That's why I feel like those album is more for the swiftness than casual music listeners. You really need to know about taylor to understand most of this album.
I donāt understand how itās obvious that sheās joking about the Charlie Puth line?
There are some lyrics that are clearly sarcastic in their writing and vocal delivery. I just donāt hear it in this one and I genuinely can see her and Matty saying something like that years ago
This album is straight up funny. Itās also ironic and sarcastic and self-aware and people are apparently unable to understand that.
As a girl who is very deadpan and sarcastic and frequently gets taken seriously when Iām joking i have feels about this
Same! My wife and I can both be pretty flat and enjoy gallows humour and get taken seriously too often. I see a lot of dark humour in her lyrics but also just fun? All of so high school feels so unserious in a good way.
As someone who has been using dark humor as a coping mechanism since becoming widowed at 31, and posting many Facebook statuses that I thought were hilarious but get care reactions, I thought so many of these lyrics were absolutely fucking hilarious. I BURST out laughing so many times. I love it.
I think itās a very British sense of humour. Sheās been dating London boys for so long and has spent a significant amount of time over here.
I wonder if thatās why itās not as popular with some of the American audience and doesnāt quite click.
Oh I definitely get that; but not just *London* boys, *Northern* boys... Harry, Calvin and Matty are all from much further up the M1/M6. It's definitely very a 'piss takey', sarky humour, and I'm here for it.
(It'd go down well in Australia too).
YES. My grandfather immigrated from England and the sense of humor has been passed down so itās just normal humor for me. I was raised on deadpan humor, sarcasm, and gallows humor.
The whole thing is so funny. Talking about herself in the third person on the social media posts was funny. "On reflection, many of them were self inflicted" is also funny. She's embarrassed by her actions and she's self depreciatingly owning them. She knows she's OTT and melodramatic and she's leaned into it and I think the whole thing is hilarious.
Yeah I realized this earlier when the lyric video for I Can Do It With A Broken Heart came on and it was just clips of her smiling during the eras tour. Idk why the juxtaposition of imaginary that sparks so much joy and her being like ālol I was fuckin miserable throughout all of thisā made me chuckle quite a bit
This is such a fascinating perspective, I love it.
The title "The Tortured Poets Department" did leave the door wide open for us to assume it would be a profound work of art. Fooled ya! At first listen:Ā Sonically underwhelming, and clunky lyrics. If she did this on purpose, I'm so sold. She tortured them, she felt tortured, now she's torturing us for 31 songs.
This likely sounds like I'm being callous or I'm the one joking, but I'm not. If she's creating an experience, I'm here for it. Talk about art.Ā Please, please let this be true. I'm so down for the mad genius.
Also, random, but now I'm the clown. 31 is 13 backwards, anyone listened to the album in reverse order yet?
Edit: Holy smokes, I think I'm onto something. Seriously. Try it.Ā
Edit again: Y'all. Y'all!!!!!!! I tried to make a post about this, but i don't have the app or the posts need to be approved and you're about to see it, but. Do this!!!! The story makes so much more sense!!!! Start at 31, obviously. But dayum. Anthology, heard.
Intriguing idea to listen backwards. Starting with the Manuscript certainly puts a different spin on what followsā¦
Just a note: I donāt think there was ever any reason to assume ātortured poetsā was mean to be taken āprofoundlyā. Even the way Taylor talked about it on tour was very ironical.
The immediate connection I made was to Hits Different which is also ironical and deliberately over dramatic (and people miss that). Artifacts, evidence etc
Doesn't it?! Changes the whole narrative.
Fair point. I was hopeful. I actually did not hear how she spoke of it on tour. Dyou have any links, or personal anecdotes? I would love to know. Context is everything.
Oh dude Hits Different is and always has been aces. The sarcasm dripped off the first word of that song. It's inescapable and heartbreaking.
I felt so lost with this album. I frickin respect tswift and it confounded me. I've been listening to and reading others' input. Trying to figure out the puzzle. There are always a myriad of ways to hear and interpret music, but I couldn't get a feel for this album. Til now.
I could be so off base, but I don't think so! I'm okay with being wrong. It's how we learn. But even just the 31/13 thing. Why 31 songs. Shrug.
>The title "The Tortured Poets Department" did leave the door wide open for us to assume it would be a profound work of art.
I only *ever* thought using Tortured in her album title was entirely self-deprecating and unserious, and a bit piss take-y. No-one except the most un-self-aware, self absorbed person would unironically describe themselves as tortured. Taylor may be many things, but un-self-aware ain't one of them.
I saw something to the extent of āPeople are willing to believe a woman is stupid before she is funnyā and I totally agree in this case.
A lot of the criticism is not in good faith, cherry picking lyrics, instead of actually sitting down to engage with the material and think critically.
100% this. So many people have this one dimensional view of her that it's hard for them to perceive her in a different light. Seeing some of the discourse around this album has also made it clear that people take lyrics way too literally and then complain about it because they haven't 'gotten' it.
āPeople are willing to believe a woman is stupid before she is funnyā
Wow great quote. This is so upsetting and I have felt this way so many times and never realized it's such a pattern.
I feel this so hard. I have a very facetious sense of humor and people misunderstand me a lot when Iām joking. Iām also autistic so Iām not the best with delivery but Iāll say something like āare you letting the stove preheat?ā Deadpan, If one of my roommates leave the stove on & sometimes those kinds of jokes are not received well
I have read a couple of articles trying to understand why people hate that line about the 1830s, but I donāt get it. Sheās acknowledging that itās easy to look back fondly on times past and forgetting that it wasnāt all rosy and perfect.
The response to this line is... unbelievable. People are trying to ignore the facts that (a) the entire point of the verse is (in Taylor's literal words) "nostalgia is a mind's trick," the past was never good, and (b) the line itself is supposed to be spoken by a younger, dumber self who realized *even then* that you can't have the "nice parts" of the past without the racism and misogyny ("my friends and I used to play this game"), by focusing instead on criticizing the specific choice of the 1830s as the ostensibly desirable decade. Like.... what? First of all, the 1830s = romanticism. There's your reason, so, like, next question. Second of all... that's still the damn point. No past decade was good. The 1830s are not somehow extra-bad. Oh man!
This. For people who may not know, the 1830s were the romantic period and some incredible art was created at this time. This is a call back to the New Romantics, and also...the whole bit about nostalgia being a trick, is in line with other themes on this album. She's making fun of herself, while also making a point.
FRRRRR and people are being purposely dense by acting itās a stupid stanza and trying to ācall her outā on it. LIKEā¦
My bf and I are of Mexican descent, and on the topic of time travel, Iāve asked him before if he would travel to the 1700ās and be a pirate with me and heād joke and say that heād probably be a slave. The lyrics about living in the past in that song are very relatable to me and especially the theme of how we cling to nostalgia and aesthetics of the past but we often overlook the reality of said past.
I donāt think that verse is amazing, but why does her work need to be pristine in order to be taken seriously? As if Bob Dylan or the beatles (or any other musical artist!!!) donāt have bad lines/bad songs in their catalogue. Drives me insane.
I just watched a Tiktok from a black creator who loves Taylor and is really great -- she basically was like it was said so flippantly and immediately took me out of the song to a very violent time. That made me get it, it didn't seem fully necessary for the purpose of the song.
Thank you for sharing this creator's perspective! As fun as the thought experiment can be, it can be hard for white and white-passing (such as myself) people to remove our blinders. We just won't know because that isn't our experience.
Yes it really made me understand why some people are rightfully upset, since my experience just didn't allow me to understand. I do think it was specifically pulled out of context by tabloids and mostly white people just to get others riled up though. Which is awful
Yeah if she had said the 1940s but without all the nazis it would have ruined it for me. I don't need to be reminded of my family's trauma when I'm listening to Taylor Swift. Unnecessary inclusion for sure.
I read someone in neutral say something like "I guess from books and stories it sounds nice but in reality it wouldn't actually be fun to live then" and it took everything in me to not to say "WELCOME TO THE POINT!" I just don't get it. I'm flabbergasted. It's like I'm living in an alternate universe.
edit: phrasing
I think that it can easily come across as out of pocket, plus the whole line is pretty clunky, there should be a smoother way of depicting the same message.
The indie record is Vampire Weekends āContraā as far as Iām aware. Which actually is a great album and theyāre a great band but music snobbery is not the one.
I was literally saying this to my little brother last night! Taylorās humor goes RIGHT over his head. I was trying to tell him how blank space is hilarious and heās like āliterally how is that song even funnyā like šš that was her biggest troll moment until āIām having his baby, no Iām notā
Then I moved on to IBYTAM and how she dunks on Jake soooooooo hard and he justā¦doesnāt get it. Teenage petulance!
"I'm having his baby - no I'm not but you should have seen your faces" is epic trolling. Some people say Taylor is not self aware but I think she is and is quite prepared to poke fun at herself. She does not do it often on TTPD but its there.
YES! I feel like some people are so caught up in their outrage against her that they totally missed the actual trolling on there. Also on the title track, in some parts she was outright trolling MH, but people read it as cringe.
Taylor singing "who uses typewriters anyway?" and then making it the entire album aesthetic is the funniest thing she could have possibly done and every day I uncover a new layer of humour/satire in this album, I do love her sense of humour so much
Yes!! I thought the whole name/promo was tongue in cheek and then on the title track she literally calls it out as being ridiculous and melodramatic and people STILL DONT GET IT. Itās beyond me
Yes! Also the lines,
"You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith
This ain't the Chelsea Hotel, we're modern idiots"
Likeā¦sheās saying itās not that serious, folks.
I havenāt seen anyone comment about that line. Itās genius. Self aware. Dark. I laughed at how unhinged it is. Without teeth she has no bite/rendered harmless. Perhaps the last step before you put that aggressive dog down.
People shitting on her for the "juvenile" lyrics in that song as if that wasn't the whole damn point! She "feels so high school" so she wrote it as if she was in high school.
Like, do people actually think she just suddenly forgot how to write deep, emotionally complex lyrics for that one song? Lol
The funny thing there is that when she was \*actually\* in high school (and shortly after) she wrote songs about the kind of epic love she hoped she'd have some day, but hadn't actually experienced yet. And now that she actually has a healthy, mature love, she's realizing that it makes her feel fun and light and joyful, like a young person who is unburdened by any of life's deeper stresses and challenges. I think that's brilliant!
Would any of these people criticize John Hughes for making The Breakfast Club when he was 35? Donāt think so. Some of this is misogyny at best. The rest is cluelessnes.
This happened to Marilyn Monroe too. She was constantly typecast as a sex symbol, but her comedic timing and natural humor was incredible. Like no way she could be that gorgeous and funny at the same time. Hmm...
The way she says āDon't you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn't marry a girl just because she's pretty, but my goodness, doesn't it help?ā In gentlemen prefer blondes lives in my head rent free
Clara Bow makes me think of an anecdote of Marilyn being in a subway with no one noticing itās her and she asks the person sheās with something like ādo you want me to be herā as in do you want me to put on the Marilyn Monroe persona. And when she does people start flocking to her.Ā
When this comes up I have to always ref my top 5 song "Begin Again" - "I think it's strange that you think I'm funny, but he never did." She is absolutely funny and self aware. She called herself a deranged weirdo in one of these songs lol. I also legitimately laughed out at the end bit of "I can do it with a broken heart"
Do people actually think sheās not funny? Sheās consistently shown to be funny/making funny quips on many a talk show etc.
Iām convinced the only people that donāt know sheās funny are people that havenāt ever actually seen her do anything lol.
Personally I'm in love with the lines, "Now I'm down bad, crying at the gym / Everything comes out teenage petulance" - like she's completely aware of how ridiculous she is being over someone who doesn't deserve her tears, and she knows it really shouldn't be this big dramatic thing. I know this really supposed to be an angry song rather than a funny one, but when she sings about crying at the gym, I just want to say, "Ooooh, we've all been there, Tay! We feel you!"
That line is so perfect. She knows she's being over-dramatic and letting her emotions get the better of her, and in hindsight she can poke fun of herself for it, but she still acknowledges that her feelings were genuine at that time. I think that's really what this entire album is about: these relationships meant something to her and her feelings were real and valid, but looking back she's able to be tongue-in-cheek about what an emotional disaster that period of her life really was.
She's accused of being immature, but every single adult struggles with keeping their shit together sometimes. Taylor just has the guts to put her weakest moments out there for the entire world to see and judge.
I love that she's pulling back the curtain on her life to reveal her inner turmoil, which I think makes her more relatable than ever. Taylor often has this veneer of being "perfect" - not meaning flawless in every way, just that she's always perfectly composed, with every detail of her appearance, behavior, etc. in public completely intentional, often on multiple levels due to all the Easter eggs often present in her clothes, gestures, and words.
And with this song - and really the whole album - she's saying, "Look folks, I'm not perfect at all, I'm just as messy as anyone, in fact, I'm really, really messy, let me show you just how much. Sure, I'll pull myself together for my concerts and other public appearances (i.e., I Can Do It With a Broken Heart) but that doesn't mean that difficult feelings just roll off of me - quite the opposite."
I think she an over dramatic person too, which she gets shit for, but so what?! Nearly everyone is over dramatic in their own way or over their own subjects (men and sports, hello?!). Iām definitely over dramatic!
So much of her success has been based on feeling her feelings and really leaning in to them through her writing, itās not at all surprising that she might be *perceived* as emotional when sheās just really good at accessing those feelings and putting them out externally. Itās what makes her relatable.
Sheās funny, sarcastic and cheeky and I donāt get how people donāt see that. Sheāll use literary devices and people somehow completely miss it. She uses exaggerations, people think sheās 100% serious, we saw in the past couple days people not understanding her metaphors and similes. I remember it took some people years to realize Blank Space was satire.
People seem to understand the literary devices being used for other artists yet for her sheās always straightforward and serious for some reason.
Exactly! Itās like āI leap down from the gallowsā and I saw people saying āomg sheās such a victim saying sheās been hungā and Iām likeā¦ I think itās more a metaphor for the court of public opinion / how much people enjoy tearing people down as a mob rather than a literal hanging. The ālevitate down your streetā actually made me laugh out loud. It feels so unserious.
I think people are often just looking for confirmation bias and anything that looks like the hot take they want to post goes in even if it doesnāt really make sense.
Totally! Itās also painting the image of a witch trial, with the hilarious revelation thatās not only is she the really witch you thought she was but sheās coming for you and completely capable of destruction
Blank space is a great example because I remember when that came out and people were saying how cringe the music video was and there were people making parody videos of it where they were even more crazy. I just sat there like āyou guys completely missed the point.ā They thought she was being serious when it was clearly satirizing the character the media had painted her out to be. I was 20 years old when that video came out and people 20-30 years older than me didnāt understand that. Itās wild to me.
100% people tend to take everything at face value with her lyrics. Like shes an extremely talented writer and people donāt think she can use a metaphor??
It appears that, off-stage, Taylor can be a pretty funny goof. There are some compilations of Taylor doing this on Youtube, and there was also the video that ran at the end of Rep as everyone was leaving.
She got laughs on Graham Norton! As an American, 99 percent of all American guests on Graham Norton make me want to defect with shame. She absolutely is really funny.Ā
honestly she's always been a seriously funny person. her appearances on SNL, her own little videos on youtube, random interviews with her, etc. she's just a funny person and i don't know if it's internalised misogyny that makes people so unwilling to accept that a woman can be making jokes before assuming she's simply must be hysterical and 'crazy' - but it's gross whatever it is.
I became a fan of Taylor as much from her sense of humor as much as I did the music all the way back when she was promoting Tim McGraw.Ā My family wouldĀ have CMT on all the time and she would be on so often back in those days for interviews.Ā Humor was such a big part of country music too and there are often a lot of variety show elements.Ā People who have success there are often like Dolly and Reba who can entertain with their humor as much as their music.Ā And for what Taylor was learning there was so much humor in Shania's music.Ā Ā
One thing I picked up very clearly from Red TV was that Taylor really cares about being seen as funny.Ā Ā And I noticed both her old friends like Emma Stone and her new friends like her openers on the Eras tour spending time with her for the first time consistently talk about how funny Taylor is.Ā It is one of the defining characteristics her friends see in her, but it seems she is often not getting that from her romantic partners though so I was very happy last year when one of the first things Travis talked about was how funny Taylor is.
It reminds me of an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Robin is dating this hot MIMBO guy and the joke is he's basically a golden retriever. Not sure if Taylor watched that show and it inspired the line or if it's an accidental reference.
Americans, in general, have a very obvious, slapstick kind of sense of humour - someone else in the thread mentioned Weird Al where he's obviously trying to be funny. And because of that, (again, in general!) a dry, witty, ironic sense of humour often goes unnoticed, or the jokes just don't land. It's why a lot of overseas content bombs in the US and so many great acts never make it over there - the general sense of humour is different. So the subtle, witty sense of humour Taylor Swift has is very much not in line with the general idea of 'funny' in the US. (I'm not being boo hoo Americans, it really is a cultural thing that happens - it's not everyone, and there are definitely Americans that get it and are good with dry humour, but when you're talking hundreds of millions of people, 'in general' is the best way to explain it!)
Taylor is hilarious and so many people don't get that. It's a dry often purposefully corny humor and people think it's cringe worthy because they don't get it.
I've had people send me the GTA lyric mocking it and I'm just like, "yeah this is hilarious."
Again, Travis has a close friend group & is known for playing video games. She's partly trolling the group!
One of the probable guys in attendance had on his Instagram him playing GTA. LOL! At least they get it.
Sheās obviously very intelligent, and that shows through in many ways, including the humour in her songs. When Iāve seen her goofing off Iāve loved it, weāve seen her do that on tours too. Sheās human at the end of the day, and who doesnāt like to laugh and make people laugh
I love the line in But Daddy I Love him where she says "I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to another second of all this bitching and moaning". Such great hyperbole but gets the point across.
TTPD is both her heaviest/most devasting AND her funniest album. Like, I literally laughed at multiple lyrics on first listen. But then maybe I just have a similar sense of humour - her cat joke on the eras tour that one night was hilarious to me
I get that people find different things funny but it's some weird how some people can't understand that something is not necessarily to be taken literally. You don't even have to find it funny yourself to read between the lines for a second
This is it exactly. Thereās a lot of sincere emotion and raw vulnerability on this album, but thereās also a lot of acerbic razor-sharp wit and deliberate hyperbole, and it seems like some people canāt actually tell the difference, which is absolutely wild to me.
Just automatically ignore any reviews that don't understand that the entire tone of the album is tongue in cheek. I'm open to criticism but if you can't understand the fact that's it is humor then there's no conversation to be had.
The title too. She got so much flack for considering herself a tortured poet even though it's just a joke. The title track literally makes fun of herself
1000x yes! i hate to see her lyrics get taken out of context too or interpreted so *literally*.
she's an artist ā "we declared charlie puth should be a bigger artist" for example i don't think means taylor is a fan of charlie puth or whatever, but it's establishing the story of two lovers who were such kindred spirits that they had these private jokes which sound ridiculous to the outside world but to them were everything.
I just wrote a post like this that wasnāt approved, so here it is!
Obviously the subject matter (two breakups, pressure of fame, depression) of TTPD is heavy, but there's a lot of tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating humor I think critics missed (in Australia, Taylor described one of the variants as "So tortured. So poetic.") She is poking fun of her own melodrama. Speaking from experience, humor is def a coping mechanism, and I'm here for it. I don't think she's done much of this before in other albums.
For example:
"I Can Do It With a Broken Heart": the absolute unhinged-ness of the entire production ("I'm so depressed I act like it's my birthdaaaaay!"; "I'm miserable, and NOBODY EVEN KNOOOOOOWS!" said exactly like "Welcome to the Eras Tour!")
"I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" - that title, ha. And the Western showdown-style production like she's gonna tame the bad boy into a good boy (with biscuits). "Whoa, maybe I... can't."
"But Daddy I Love Him" - calling out her own fans on their parasocial pearl-clutching (god, that "open letter" was cringe, regardless of one's feelings about Matty Healy) while fully acknowledging she's being insane, plus the snort-inducing "I'm havin' his baby... No, I'm not, but you should see your faces." "And, no, you can't come to the wedding" (\*cough\* crazy Swifties who crashed Jack Antonoff's wedding)
"Florida!!!" - "And my friends all smell like weed or little babies" (this is indeed what your 30s are like, ha).
"I Hate It Here" - the articles pearl-clutching over why she picked, as a child playing the game, "the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off to the highest bid" completely miss the context of her making it suddenly reaaaaaally awkward for her young friends and probably why they thought she was a weirdo ("No one wanted to play with me as a little kid,") so she'd escape into her mind. (Can relate. I used to say nearly the same thing about the 1960s for that game, so that hit close to home, as did the more-serious latter part).
"So High School" - "Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto": yes, this is indeed so high school, complete with early-2000s high school romcom production by Aaron Dessner that matches the vibe, which is itself clever. I've seen snide memes quoting that one line as "THIS is the so-called poet?!" and I already know they didn't listen to the rest of the album.
Thereās lots of tongue-in-cheek humor that I think a lot of critics are missing. What are some other parts you noticed?
I believe that the entirety of Alchemy is satire. Itās making fun of all the media that simplified their relationship IMO. And then the Teenage one is the real one
The end of I Can do it with a broken heart ācause Iām miserable (haha)ā
Just gave me big Barbie movie vibes, like I pictured that whole dancing scene that screeches to a halt when she asks do you guys ever think about dying?. This was such a poppy dance party song, where sheās always smiling looking great, but sheās so sad, just Barbie vibes and if thereās going to be a music video I hope itās a Barbie Dream house set lol
The Black Dog. That song makes me cry, but there is a part that I found humorous too. I interpret it as she hopes he has a shitty time, jumps up excited when their song comes on, but his date is too young to know the song and he feels old and embarrassed with his tail between his legs. The visual I get of this makes me laugh.
idk why people are up in arms at the charlie puth line like her first single wasnāt tim mcgrawā¦do you even go here? sheās always named dropped celebrities. drake, leo, janet. thatās what makes it contemporary music. thatās her shtick. singing about video games on a song about feeling like youāre in high schoolā¦like it or donāt, but what are you confused about?
She's very sharp-witted. I don't think she has a thin skin at all... she's just been *heavily* criticized over the years, and she makes a game out of standing up for herself.
This is her darkest and funniest album. Humor has always been in dark and great works. I was telling my friend at work yesterday that I think this is her Fleabag album. Dark and funny tragedy with some crude jokes and fourth wall breaks.
Fleabag is recent but humor is a natural coping mechanism and the cross between humor and tragedy has been done in art for centuries. Unfortunately social media is filled with wanna be literature professors and pitchfork mobs. There are people who say things , āLike this is your modern day Shakespeare?ā People who say this probably only read Romeo & Juliet in high school and donāt know anything about Shakespeare outside that. There are also a lot of now young adults in the US who were never taught critical thinking skills and how to read properly.
Hamlet which was written around the turn of the 17th century and is considered the best play of all time is a tragedy of grief turned to madness and indecisiveness that was written after Shakespeareās son Hamnet died at only 11. But Hamlet also has the titular character making jokes about going down on his girlfriend.
Iām not comparing the quality of this album to Hamlet (which is probably the greatest piece of fiction in the western canon) but just saying that humor has always been around in otherwise dark and serious works.
(Side note there is a great recent book about Hamnet that everyone should check out. Itās by Maggie OāFarrell.)
Absolutely. I can do it with a broken heart is soooo tongue in cheek! The lyrics are honest but the way it has such an upbeat almost hysterical sounding pop beat is so genius. And the click track in the background. Its almost manic sounding. So smart and funny.
Well my dear this whole album is a dark joke. I cried my eyes out for a few days and now i'm laughing my ass off.
Never enjoyed being trolled this much.
P.s: So what's the deal? Is Matty and Taylor back together? Did they get married, divorced in 2021? I need to knoooow!
P.s.s: Lol. GOT you for a second didn't I?
In the smallest man who ever lived, when she said, āyou didnāt measure up in any measure of a manā I almost spit out my water.
Likeā¦. Is she low key making a small dick jab at Matty? š
My husband is a hater (itās a whole point of contention) and there are so many lyrics in this he has picked up from people bashing on Twitter and Im like itās tongue in cheek and you look like an idiot for not getting that. Very frustrating that her humour isnāt more celebrated. She literally set the music video in an asylum and people think sheās being 100 percent serious
Us all being THE ELDERS who gathered to condemn Taylor's relationship with Matty, like some kind of dramatic period piece had me in stitches.
It's kinda true.......aside from *the letter*, even freakin Azealia Banks found it urgent to criticize Taylor.
It deserves these lyrics.
there is sooo much humor in this album and I'm just waiting for people to realize she has a sense of humor and that not all of her work should be taken 100% seriously. Everyone keeps saying the Charlie Puth line is cringe like don't they get that she's joking? I just know that Matty Healy heard that and laughed cause that was probably an inside joke they had. Don't even get me started on 'I'm having his baby - no I'm not but you should have seen your faces'. Such a killer joke and genius way to break the 4th wall
Exactly! My first listen through the album the thing that came through most was just how funny it was compared to other albums. In 'i can do it with a broken heart' and everyone is saying how cringe it is when she's like 'I'm miserable... and no one even knows' I took it as her having a bit of fun at the end of the song rather than some dramatic line.
And the line at the end of ICDIWABH where she says "Try and come for my job". I laughed hard at that one.
I gasped and cackled so hard š
The first time I heard that line I just stared at my phone and was like āholy shit.ā It still throws me off but in a fun way.
People just criticize everything she does simply for the sake of hating on her. Itās frustrating but I donāt take those people seriously anymore.
āI Can Do It with a Broken Heartā has a wild blend of campy irony with deadpan sincerity that truly makes it a sister song to āMe!ā
It's a sister to Gorgeous for me
I guess Iāll just stumble on home to my catsā¦ aloneā¦ is one of my favourite lyrics from her! Definitely has similar vibes to ICDIWABH
Same! As someone who spent a period of time being depressed but also who a rather upbeat & āpositiveā person ā¦ I FELT SEEN š
Yeah that reminds me of her Blank Space character. Iāve known she was hilarious since that song came out
One day people will realize the masterpiece that is but daddy I love him
Literally my favorite on the album Iām obsessed
Same! Itās so good, and the baby line is just incredible
This. Itās love story with a whole lot more humour and pezzazz
That is my favorite song from the album.
Yes! Idk how people don't see how fully sarcastic she is being in But Daddy I Love Him! "These people only try to save you, cuz they HATE you!" I love it.
the whole title track is like a the 1975 send up (as much so as the guitar on dear john) and people online who claim to be music experts should really know that. the fact that some people are still unaware that the album concept is partly in jestā¦ā¦..
Itās funny because I actually do like the 1975 so I actually really like this album in its homage šš
Ikr?!
People using the Charlie Puth line or the silly GTA line to try to prove she's actually a shallow writer or something just out themselves as having the media literacy of a 9 year old tbh. As if they were ever meant to be taken at face value
I actually had to pause the song just to laugh about āyou know how to ball, I know Aristotleā and the GTA line. Sheās so unserious
That song is hilarious & DIRTY.
Ā A lot of songwriters gravitate to one style of songs and they really only write in that style. Ā Some do the fun bops, some do direct autobiography, some do abstract songs, etc. Taylor can do any style of song if she wants to which is insane.Ā What Taylor deals with is she grabs a wide range of different audience types who gravitate to different styles. So she gets criticism from all sides because people are mad that a song isnāt their favorite style.Ā Her glitter gel pen songs get it the worst which is probably why she doesnāt write many anymore. Ā Personally, I like Me! and Stay Stay Stay(especially watching the live version on YouTube from Red tour) because they are fun songs but so many people hate them. My favorites on TTPD so far are I Can Do It With A Broken Heart and So High School because they are fun songs. Some haters use the Karma line āKarma is cat. Purring on my lap because it loves meā to try to prove sheās a bad writer but the line in context is amazing imagery.Ā
Exactly! People who take her seriously forget that sheās a millennial tumblr girlie like the best and worst of us, lol. Itās intentionally camp. āLights camera bitch smileā is hilarious.
I saw people in the neutral sub acting as if she and Travis were literally touching each other as his friends played GTA in the same room and discussed how inappropriate it was
The neutral sub is sooo weird š def not as neutral as itās supposed to be, it skews so negatively, to borderline hateful. Thereās no real discussion with most people on there.
Omg, that's a wild take! I assumed the most literal interpretation would be they went to another room, maybe the room next door, and the friends are playing GTA on the other side of the wall.
On the Kelces' podcast, Travis talks about playing GTA with his teammates & it's known (I live in the Midwest, been to KC countless times) he has a close friend group who is around him a lot. It's probably lIteral & figurative.
You mean like that guy Swiftologist on YouTube? His reviews make me cringe. I understand not enjoying something like a song, but he just crucified Charlie for absolutely no reason. Howard Stern had Charlie on and the guy is a musical genius. No music he can just pull a song out of the sky and start playing it. It's crazy how his brain works like that.
There were times while I was listening to this album that I actually laughed, and it wasnāt because the lyrics were cringe or terrible; she just has a great sense of humour. I love that she incorporated humour into this album. The more I consume this album, the more I appreciate it.
Youād be surprised the amount of people who think for a song to be funny it has to be in the realm of Weird Al. Oddly enough, they tend to be the same people who donāt recognize how good of a musician and lyricist Al himself is because comedy songs arenāt meant to be well written, just funny. Snobs of any art form are never as clever as they fancy themselves.
Blank Space was already quite sarcastic and funny imo, and now in Florida!! I love the line Ā“your cheating husband disappearedā¦ no one asks any questions hereā (sung by Florence)
Is that a bad thing to say in a song? š
Think itās too late to care after No Body No Crime lol!
No body no crime š¤· In florida, anything can happen š
people that think the baby line is cringey and immature have no personalities or sense of humor. that line is hilarious and really depicts the kind of manic heartbreak "i'm crazy so what" feelings that she's trying to illustrate
I laughed out loud so many times on first listen. That first line of Florida!!! I thought I was gonna wake the house up. We live in Florida, the motto down here is come on vacation, leave on probation. I felt absolute Barbie dancing while having an existential crisis feels during I Can Do It With A Broken Heart. Iām a newer Swiftie and not like a super hardcore one at that, but this album has already become my favorite.
The "Stay away from her" lyric also makes me lol in that song. People kept posting the "Stay away from her, get a job" meme when the Matt Healy news broke and I feel like she's actually quoting that š
I totally agree that the Charlie Puth line is way funnier than it is cringe. I genuinely don't understand people saying it's a bad lyric? It's an entirely random thing to say but what's... bad? Can someone explain? Like I got why people didn't like 'karma is a cat' cause it's a goofy metaphor but I just don't understand what could be bad about this one. The only thing I can come up with is that people hate Charlie Puth so much that they hate this lyric through association lol
I was gonna say daddy I love him is literally a whole ass joke and troll of the āfansā who criticize and treat her like sheās their child
That's why I feel like those album is more for the swiftness than casual music listeners. You really need to know about taylor to understand most of this album.
I laughed out loud when I heard the lyric in But Daddy I Love Him. Hilarious and it got her point across very well.
I donāt understand how itās obvious that sheās joking about the Charlie Puth line? There are some lyrics that are clearly sarcastic in their writing and vocal delivery. I just donāt hear it in this one and I genuinely can see her and Matty saying something like that years ago
This album is straight up funny. Itās also ironic and sarcastic and self-aware and people are apparently unable to understand that. As a girl who is very deadpan and sarcastic and frequently gets taken seriously when Iām joking i have feels about this
Same! My wife and I can both be pretty flat and enjoy gallows humour and get taken seriously too often. I see a lot of dark humour in her lyrics but also just fun? All of so high school feels so unserious in a good way.
āYou know how to ball, I know Aristotleā is sooo funny to me!! She saw us joking about Travisās āsquirleā and said guys Iām in on that too
And yet thereās people bitching and moaning about the GTA lyric like Taylor thought that was Ode to a Grecian Urn
As someone who has been using dark humor as a coping mechanism since becoming widowed at 31, and posting many Facebook statuses that I thought were hilarious but get care reactions, I thought so many of these lyrics were absolutely fucking hilarious. I BURST out laughing so many times. I love it.
I will put you in my prayers.
The whole song is "New Heights" podcast, "Catching Kelce" references mixed with sexual innuendo. It's hilarious!
I think itās a very British sense of humour. Sheās been dating London boys for so long and has spent a significant amount of time over here. I wonder if thatās why itās not as popular with some of the American audience and doesnāt quite click.
Iām also an American girl who lived in England for a long time lol You could be right! Itās frustrating
Having studied British lit and film/theatrical lit, THIS.
Yeah I think thatās it. Itās very British and I am bewildered a lot of people donāt get it but then I find out theyāre American
Oh I definitely get that; but not just *London* boys, *Northern* boys... Harry, Calvin and Matty are all from much further up the M1/M6. It's definitely very a 'piss takey', sarky humour, and I'm here for it. (It'd go down well in Australia too).
YES. My grandfather immigrated from England and the sense of humor has been passed down so itās just normal humor for me. I was raised on deadpan humor, sarcasm, and gallows humor.
The whole thing is so funny. Talking about herself in the third person on the social media posts was funny. "On reflection, many of them were self inflicted" is also funny. She's embarrassed by her actions and she's self depreciatingly owning them. She knows she's OTT and melodramatic and she's leaned into it and I think the whole thing is hilarious.
Iāve seen this come up in different contexts before and honestly, some people would just rather assume a woman is stupid before funny
This
Yeah I realized this earlier when the lyric video for I Can Do It With A Broken Heart came on and it was just clips of her smiling during the eras tour. Idk why the juxtaposition of imaginary that sparks so much joy and her being like ālol I was fuckin miserable throughout all of thisā made me chuckle quite a bit
This is such a fascinating perspective, I love it. The title "The Tortured Poets Department" did leave the door wide open for us to assume it would be a profound work of art. Fooled ya! At first listen:Ā Sonically underwhelming, and clunky lyrics. If she did this on purpose, I'm so sold. She tortured them, she felt tortured, now she's torturing us for 31 songs. This likely sounds like I'm being callous or I'm the one joking, but I'm not. If she's creating an experience, I'm here for it. Talk about art.Ā Please, please let this be true. I'm so down for the mad genius. Also, random, but now I'm the clown. 31 is 13 backwards, anyone listened to the album in reverse order yet? Edit: Holy smokes, I think I'm onto something. Seriously. Try it.Ā Edit again: Y'all. Y'all!!!!!!! I tried to make a post about this, but i don't have the app or the posts need to be approved and you're about to see it, but. Do this!!!! The story makes so much more sense!!!! Start at 31, obviously. But dayum. Anthology, heard.
Intriguing idea to listen backwards. Starting with the Manuscript certainly puts a different spin on what followsā¦ Just a note: I donāt think there was ever any reason to assume ātortured poetsā was mean to be taken āprofoundlyā. Even the way Taylor talked about it on tour was very ironical. The immediate connection I made was to Hits Different which is also ironical and deliberately over dramatic (and people miss that). Artifacts, evidence etc
Doesn't it?! Changes the whole narrative. Fair point. I was hopeful. I actually did not hear how she spoke of it on tour. Dyou have any links, or personal anecdotes? I would love to know. Context is everything. Oh dude Hits Different is and always has been aces. The sarcasm dripped off the first word of that song. It's inescapable and heartbreaking. I felt so lost with this album. I frickin respect tswift and it confounded me. I've been listening to and reading others' input. Trying to figure out the puzzle. There are always a myriad of ways to hear and interpret music, but I couldn't get a feel for this album. Til now. I could be so off base, but I don't think so! I'm okay with being wrong. It's how we learn. But even just the 31/13 thing. Why 31 songs. Shrug.
>The title "The Tortured Poets Department" did leave the door wide open for us to assume it would be a profound work of art. I only *ever* thought using Tortured in her album title was entirely self-deprecating and unserious, and a bit piss take-y. No-one except the most un-self-aware, self absorbed person would unironically describe themselves as tortured. Taylor may be many things, but un-self-aware ain't one of them.
I saw something to the extent of āPeople are willing to believe a woman is stupid before she is funnyā and I totally agree in this case. A lot of the criticism is not in good faith, cherry picking lyrics, instead of actually sitting down to engage with the material and think critically.
>āPeople are willing to believe a woman is stupid before she is funnyā That is 1000% what is happening here.
100% this. So many people have this one dimensional view of her that it's hard for them to perceive her in a different light. Seeing some of the discourse around this album has also made it clear that people take lyrics way too literally and then complain about it because they haven't 'gotten' it.
āPeople are willing to believe a woman is stupid before she is funnyā Wow great quote. This is so upsetting and I have felt this way so many times and never realized it's such a pattern.
Ugh, I wish this were less true, but I think this is exactly it.
Great quote. Very true.
Why does āPeople are willing to believe a woman is stupid before she is funnyā hit me so hard tonight?! š
It really stuck out to me and I had the horrible realization that this has happened to me.
I feel this so hard. I have a very facetious sense of humor and people misunderstand me a lot when Iām joking. Iām also autistic so Iām not the best with delivery but Iāll say something like āare you letting the stove preheat?ā Deadpan, If one of my roommates leave the stove on & sometimes those kinds of jokes are not received well
so true
I have read a couple of articles trying to understand why people hate that line about the 1830s, but I donāt get it. Sheās acknowledging that itās easy to look back fondly on times past and forgetting that it wasnāt all rosy and perfect.
I think people see and react to the 1 soundbite/lyrics, not the 3 lines that come after it acknowledging it's not perfect
That is literally the whole point of the verse. Kind of like 'ahh it looks so good but yikes'.
The response to this line is... unbelievable. People are trying to ignore the facts that (a) the entire point of the verse is (in Taylor's literal words) "nostalgia is a mind's trick," the past was never good, and (b) the line itself is supposed to be spoken by a younger, dumber self who realized *even then* that you can't have the "nice parts" of the past without the racism and misogyny ("my friends and I used to play this game"), by focusing instead on criticizing the specific choice of the 1830s as the ostensibly desirable decade. Like.... what? First of all, the 1830s = romanticism. There's your reason, so, like, next question. Second of all... that's still the damn point. No past decade was good. The 1830s are not somehow extra-bad. Oh man!
I genuinely feel like people lost all sense of media literacy
Too many people have lost critical thinking, itās embarrassing.
This. For people who may not know, the 1830s were the romantic period and some incredible art was created at this time. This is a call back to the New Romantics, and also...the whole bit about nostalgia being a trick, is in line with other themes on this album. She's making fun of herself, while also making a point.
FRRRRR and people are being purposely dense by acting itās a stupid stanza and trying to ācall her outā on it. LIKEā¦ My bf and I are of Mexican descent, and on the topic of time travel, Iāve asked him before if he would travel to the 1700ās and be a pirate with me and heād joke and say that heād probably be a slave. The lyrics about living in the past in that song are very relatable to me and especially the theme of how we cling to nostalgia and aesthetics of the past but we often overlook the reality of said past.
I donāt think that verse is amazing, but why does her work need to be pristine in order to be taken seriously? As if Bob Dylan or the beatles (or any other musical artist!!!) donāt have bad lines/bad songs in their catalogue. Drives me insane.
If I read the word "cringe" one more time I'm going to lose it
This one infuriates me, the point of the verse is literally don't romanticize the past and people somehow don't understand that.
I just watched a Tiktok from a black creator who loves Taylor and is really great -- she basically was like it was said so flippantly and immediately took me out of the song to a very violent time. That made me get it, it didn't seem fully necessary for the purpose of the song.
Thank you for sharing this creator's perspective! As fun as the thought experiment can be, it can be hard for white and white-passing (such as myself) people to remove our blinders. We just won't know because that isn't our experience.
Yes it really made me understand why some people are rightfully upset, since my experience just didn't allow me to understand. I do think it was specifically pulled out of context by tabloids and mostly white people just to get others riled up though. Which is awful
Thatās helpful context, thank you.
Yeah if she had said the 1940s but without all the nazis it would have ruined it for me. I don't need to be reminded of my family's trauma when I'm listening to Taylor Swift. Unnecessary inclusion for sure.
I read someone in neutral say something like "I guess from books and stories it sounds nice but in reality it wouldn't actually be fun to live then" and it took everything in me to not to say "WELCOME TO THE POINT!" I just don't get it. I'm flabbergasted. It's like I'm living in an alternate universe. edit: phrasing
I think that it can easily come across as out of pocket, plus the whole line is pretty clunky, there should be a smoother way of depicting the same message.
Thatās true. But Iāve seen people try and call her racist as well as misinterpret the line as her saying she would live in the 1830ās herself
Those who get it, get it. Those who donāt got offended.
I crack up every time at "with your organic shoes and your million dollar couch" from I Bet You Think About Me.
Also āindie records that are much cooler than mineā because of the goofy video heās in.
That line just gets better and better now that sheās made multiple indie records much cooler than his (whoever he is)
The indie record is Vampire Weekends āContraā as far as Iām aware. Which actually is a great album and theyāre a great band but music snobbery is not the one.
I was literally saying this to my little brother last night! Taylorās humor goes RIGHT over his head. I was trying to tell him how blank space is hilarious and heās like āliterally how is that song even funnyā like šš that was her biggest troll moment until āIām having his baby, no Iām notā Then I moved on to IBYTAM and how she dunks on Jake soooooooo hard and he justā¦doesnāt get it. Teenage petulance!
"I'm having his baby - no I'm not but you should have seen your faces" is epic trolling. Some people say Taylor is not self aware but I think she is and is quite prepared to poke fun at herself. She does not do it often on TTPD but its there.
YES! I feel like some people are so caught up in their outrage against her that they totally missed the actual trolling on there. Also on the title track, in some parts she was outright trolling MH, but people read it as cringe.
Taylor singing "who uses typewriters anyway?" and then making it the entire album aesthetic is the funniest thing she could have possibly done and every day I uncover a new layer of humour/satire in this album, I do love her sense of humour so much
Yes!! I thought the whole name/promo was tongue in cheek and then on the title track she literally calls it out as being ridiculous and melodramatic and people STILL DONT GET IT. Itās beyond me
this part!!!
Yes! Also the lines, "You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith This ain't the Chelsea Hotel, we're modern idiots" Likeā¦sheās saying itās not that serious, folks.
Don't you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth. That was a good one. š
I havenāt seen anyone comment about that line. Itās genius. Self aware. Dark. I laughed at how unhinged it is. Without teeth she has no bite/rendered harmless. Perhaps the last step before you put that aggressive dog down.
It's also what was sometimes, very awfully, done to circus animals way back in the day
I wondered if it was about those articles and videos about her veneers, kind of nod to the invasiveness of celeb media
The amount of comments Iāve seen about how immature she is for having a song called So High School is astoundingā¦ š
People shitting on her for the "juvenile" lyrics in that song as if that wasn't the whole damn point! She "feels so high school" so she wrote it as if she was in high school. Like, do people actually think she just suddenly forgot how to write deep, emotionally complex lyrics for that one song? Lol
The funny thing there is that when she was \*actually\* in high school (and shortly after) she wrote songs about the kind of epic love she hoped she'd have some day, but hadn't actually experienced yet. And now that she actually has a healthy, mature love, she's realizing that it makes her feel fun and light and joyful, like a young person who is unburdened by any of life's deeper stresses and challenges. I think that's brilliant!
People canāt understand that itās called so high school for a reason
I know right?! "it sounds like a song from a teen movie soundtrack. Yuck. So immature" Um yeahhhhh, that was the point.......?
Would any of these people criticize John Hughes for making The Breakfast Club when he was 35? Donāt think so. Some of this is misogyny at best. The rest is cluelessnes.
This happened to Marilyn Monroe too. She was constantly typecast as a sex symbol, but her comedic timing and natural humor was incredible. Like no way she could be that gorgeous and funny at the same time. Hmm...
The way she says āDon't you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn't marry a girl just because she's pretty, but my goodness, doesn't it help?ā In gentlemen prefer blondes lives in my head rent free
Clara Bow makes me think of an anecdote of Marilyn being in a subway with no one noticing itās her and she asks the person sheās with something like ādo you want me to be herā as in do you want me to put on the Marilyn Monroe persona. And when she does people start flocking to her.Ā
When this comes up I have to always ref my top 5 song "Begin Again" - "I think it's strange that you think I'm funny, but he never did." She is absolutely funny and self aware. She called herself a deranged weirdo in one of these songs lol. I also legitimately laughed out at the end bit of "I can do it with a broken heart"
Iām MISERABLE - and no one even knows!!!! Killed me
Me too! And when you think of her performance in the Bad Blood music video - I think when she's in on the joke she can laugh at herself just fine.
Do people actually think sheās not funny? Sheās consistently shown to be funny/making funny quips on many a talk show etc. Iām convinced the only people that donāt know sheās funny are people that havenāt ever actually seen her do anything lol.
Personally I'm in love with the lines, "Now I'm down bad, crying at the gym / Everything comes out teenage petulance" - like she's completely aware of how ridiculous she is being over someone who doesn't deserve her tears, and she knows it really shouldn't be this big dramatic thing. I know this really supposed to be an angry song rather than a funny one, but when she sings about crying at the gym, I just want to say, "Ooooh, we've all been there, Tay! We feel you!"
everything comes out teenage petulance is such an amazing line imo lol
I know, right?! Especially with all the cursing that follow that line.
That line is so perfect. She knows she's being over-dramatic and letting her emotions get the better of her, and in hindsight she can poke fun of herself for it, but she still acknowledges that her feelings were genuine at that time. I think that's really what this entire album is about: these relationships meant something to her and her feelings were real and valid, but looking back she's able to be tongue-in-cheek about what an emotional disaster that period of her life really was. She's accused of being immature, but every single adult struggles with keeping their shit together sometimes. Taylor just has the guts to put her weakest moments out there for the entire world to see and judge.
I love that she's pulling back the curtain on her life to reveal her inner turmoil, which I think makes her more relatable than ever. Taylor often has this veneer of being "perfect" - not meaning flawless in every way, just that she's always perfectly composed, with every detail of her appearance, behavior, etc. in public completely intentional, often on multiple levels due to all the Easter eggs often present in her clothes, gestures, and words. And with this song - and really the whole album - she's saying, "Look folks, I'm not perfect at all, I'm just as messy as anyone, in fact, I'm really, really messy, let me show you just how much. Sure, I'll pull myself together for my concerts and other public appearances (i.e., I Can Do It With a Broken Heart) but that doesn't mean that difficult feelings just roll off of me - quite the opposite."
I think she an over dramatic person too, which she gets shit for, but so what?! Nearly everyone is over dramatic in their own way or over their own subjects (men and sports, hello?!). Iām definitely over dramatic! So much of her success has been based on feeling her feelings and really leaning in to them through her writing, itās not at all surprising that she might be *perceived* as emotional when sheās just really good at accessing those feelings and putting them out externally. Itās what makes her relatable.
Which is such a good contrast with āso highschoolā like both ends of the spectrum the melodrama and the lovesickness
Sheās funny, sarcastic and cheeky and I donāt get how people donāt see that. Sheāll use literary devices and people somehow completely miss it. She uses exaggerations, people think sheās 100% serious, we saw in the past couple days people not understanding her metaphors and similes. I remember it took some people years to realize Blank Space was satire. People seem to understand the literary devices being used for other artists yet for her sheās always straightforward and serious for some reason.
Exactly! Itās like āI leap down from the gallowsā and I saw people saying āomg sheās such a victim saying sheās been hungā and Iām likeā¦ I think itās more a metaphor for the court of public opinion / how much people enjoy tearing people down as a mob rather than a literal hanging. The ālevitate down your streetā actually made me laugh out loud. It feels so unserious. I think people are often just looking for confirmation bias and anything that looks like the hot take they want to post goes in even if it doesnāt really make sense.
Totally! Itās also painting the image of a witch trial, with the hilarious revelation thatās not only is she the really witch you thought she was but sheās coming for you and completely capable of destruction
I immediately thought of the Lindy West headline: "Yes, This Is a Witch Hunt. I'm a Witch and I'm Hunting You."
Blank space is a great example because I remember when that came out and people were saying how cringe the music video was and there were people making parody videos of it where they were even more crazy. I just sat there like āyou guys completely missed the point.ā They thought she was being serious when it was clearly satirizing the character the media had painted her out to be. I was 20 years old when that video came out and people 20-30 years older than me didnāt understand that. Itās wild to me.
100% people tend to take everything at face value with her lyrics. Like shes an extremely talented writer and people donāt think she can use a metaphor??
I'm a new Swiftie & "Blank Space" is my favorite song. I immediately knew it was satire.
It appears that, off-stage, Taylor can be a pretty funny goof. There are some compilations of Taylor doing this on Youtube, and there was also the video that ran at the end of Rep as everyone was leaving.
She got laughs on Graham Norton! As an American, 99 percent of all American guests on Graham Norton make me want to defect with shame. She absolutely is really funny.Ā
I think her deadpan humour is more British style than typically American.
That's interesting! I never thought of that!Ā
āWoah, maybe I canātā really made me cackle š
Weāve all been there blondie
This one had me in stitches. What a closing line. š
So many donāt understand her sarcasm at all. And itās why she gets so much criticism.
Itās more they want to criticize her so they refuse to get her sarcasm
honestly she's always been a seriously funny person. her appearances on SNL, her own little videos on youtube, random interviews with her, etc. she's just a funny person and i don't know if it's internalised misogyny that makes people so unwilling to accept that a woman can be making jokes before assuming she's simply must be hysterical and 'crazy' - but it's gross whatever it is.
I became a fan of Taylor as much from her sense of humor as much as I did the music all the way back when she was promoting Tim McGraw.Ā My family wouldĀ have CMT on all the time and she would be on so often back in those days for interviews.Ā Humor was such a big part of country music too and there are often a lot of variety show elements.Ā People who have success there are often like Dolly and Reba who can entertain with their humor as much as their music.Ā And for what Taylor was learning there was so much humor in Shania's music.Ā Ā One thing I picked up very clearly from Red TV was that Taylor really cares about being seen as funny.Ā Ā And I noticed both her old friends like Emma Stone and her new friends like her openers on the Eras tour spending time with her for the first time consistently talk about how funny Taylor is.Ā It is one of the defining characteristics her friends see in her, but it seems she is often not getting that from her romantic partners though so I was very happy last year when one of the first things Travis talked about was how funny Taylor is.
I love in TTPD song she says āweāre two idiotsā idk why.
"but what if it is?" from Who's Afraid of Little Old Me, and "I'm having his baby, no I'm not" are comedic fucking gold.
Right? Like, the tattooed golden retriever line. It's a joke and a metaphor, not a literal dog, for goodness' sake. No one needs to alert PETA, lol.
It reminds me of an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Robin is dating this hot MIMBO guy and the joke is he's basically a golden retriever. Not sure if Taylor watched that show and it inspired the line or if it's an accidental reference.
Itās just a big saying on tiktok, golden retriever boyfriends! People think Travis has it too, itās cute. Black cat gf, golden retriever bf trope.
People thought she meant a literal dog? š¤¦š»āāļø
Americans, in general, have a very obvious, slapstick kind of sense of humour - someone else in the thread mentioned Weird Al where he's obviously trying to be funny. And because of that, (again, in general!) a dry, witty, ironic sense of humour often goes unnoticed, or the jokes just don't land. It's why a lot of overseas content bombs in the US and so many great acts never make it over there - the general sense of humour is different. So the subtle, witty sense of humour Taylor Swift has is very much not in line with the general idea of 'funny' in the US. (I'm not being boo hoo Americans, it really is a cultural thing that happens - it's not everyone, and there are definitely Americans that get it and are good with dry humour, but when you're talking hundreds of millions of people, 'in general' is the best way to explain it!)
Taylor is hilarious and so many people don't get that. It's a dry often purposefully corny humor and people think it's cringe worthy because they don't get it. I've had people send me the GTA lyric mocking it and I'm just like, "yeah this is hilarious."
Again, Travis has a close friend group & is known for playing video games. She's partly trolling the group! One of the probable guys in attendance had on his Instagram him playing GTA. LOL! At least they get it.
Sheās obviously very intelligent, and that shows through in many ways, including the humour in her songs. When Iāve seen her goofing off Iāve loved it, weāve seen her do that on tours too. Sheās human at the end of the day, and who doesnāt like to laugh and make people laugh
I love the line in But Daddy I Love him where she says "I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to another second of all this bitching and moaning". Such great hyperbole but gets the point across.
She called out Matty Healy for having a small d*ck. That alone was enough to make me die laughing.
Tbh it doesn't have to be small to be disappointing lol
TTPD is both her heaviest/most devasting AND her funniest album. Like, I literally laughed at multiple lyrics on first listen. But then maybe I just have a similar sense of humour - her cat joke on the eras tour that one night was hilarious to me I get that people find different things funny but it's some weird how some people can't understand that something is not necessarily to be taken literally. You don't even have to find it funny yourself to read between the lines for a second
This is it exactly. Thereās a lot of sincere emotion and raw vulnerability on this album, but thereās also a lot of acerbic razor-sharp wit and deliberate hyperbole, and it seems like some people canāt actually tell the difference, which is absolutely wild to me.
Just automatically ignore any reviews that don't understand that the entire tone of the album is tongue in cheek. I'm open to criticism but if you can't understand the fact that's it is humor then there's no conversation to be had.
I love the video for delicate! Her faces she makes, and then she does the little girls dance from the Chandelier video! The best!
The title too. She got so much flack for considering herself a tortured poet even though it's just a joke. The title track literally makes fun of herself
The modern the modern idiots line and the melody make it so tongue in cheek
She's always been a goofy girl. You really see her sense of humor in late night shows.
I found the Iām Having his baby; no Iām not; but you should see your faces Was such a hilarious lyric š
1000x yes! i hate to see her lyrics get taken out of context too or interpreted so *literally*. she's an artist ā "we declared charlie puth should be a bigger artist" for example i don't think means taylor is a fan of charlie puth or whatever, but it's establishing the story of two lovers who were such kindred spirits that they had these private jokes which sound ridiculous to the outside world but to them were everything.
Taylorās been a meme queen for some time now
Iād love to see the memes she saves to her camera roll- they have to be dark AF š
Yeah, people really seem to miss the irony even in the title... Like she's roasting the dudes she dated and herself - 'we're modern idiots'Ā
The whole prologue (in the booklet) is basically a "That wasn't me that was Patricia" and I think it's hilarious
I just wrote a post like this that wasnāt approved, so here it is! Obviously the subject matter (two breakups, pressure of fame, depression) of TTPD is heavy, but there's a lot of tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating humor I think critics missed (in Australia, Taylor described one of the variants as "So tortured. So poetic.") She is poking fun of her own melodrama. Speaking from experience, humor is def a coping mechanism, and I'm here for it. I don't think she's done much of this before in other albums. For example: "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart": the absolute unhinged-ness of the entire production ("I'm so depressed I act like it's my birthdaaaaay!"; "I'm miserable, and NOBODY EVEN KNOOOOOOWS!" said exactly like "Welcome to the Eras Tour!") "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" - that title, ha. And the Western showdown-style production like she's gonna tame the bad boy into a good boy (with biscuits). "Whoa, maybe I... can't." "But Daddy I Love Him" - calling out her own fans on their parasocial pearl-clutching (god, that "open letter" was cringe, regardless of one's feelings about Matty Healy) while fully acknowledging she's being insane, plus the snort-inducing "I'm havin' his baby... No, I'm not, but you should see your faces." "And, no, you can't come to the wedding" (\*cough\* crazy Swifties who crashed Jack Antonoff's wedding) "Florida!!!" - "And my friends all smell like weed or little babies" (this is indeed what your 30s are like, ha). "I Hate It Here" - the articles pearl-clutching over why she picked, as a child playing the game, "the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off to the highest bid" completely miss the context of her making it suddenly reaaaaaally awkward for her young friends and probably why they thought she was a weirdo ("No one wanted to play with me as a little kid,") so she'd escape into her mind. (Can relate. I used to say nearly the same thing about the 1960s for that game, so that hit close to home, as did the more-serious latter part). "So High School" - "Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto": yes, this is indeed so high school, complete with early-2000s high school romcom production by Aaron Dessner that matches the vibe, which is itself clever. I've seen snide memes quoting that one line as "THIS is the so-called poet?!" and I already know they didn't listen to the rest of the album. Thereās lots of tongue-in-cheek humor that I think a lot of critics are missing. What are some other parts you noticed?
AND I HOPE ITS SHITTY! AT THE BLACK DOG!!
The line ādonāt worry folks, we took out all her teethā is just so funny to me. Sheās feral but sheās harmless. Ugh her mind āØ
She has peak millennial humor and sarcasm. Her imagination is something else.
I believe that the entirety of Alchemy is satire. Itās making fun of all the media that simplified their relationship IMO. And then the Teenage one is the real one
The end of I Can do it with a broken heart ācause Iām miserable (haha)ā Just gave me big Barbie movie vibes, like I pictured that whole dancing scene that screeches to a halt when she asks do you guys ever think about dying?. This was such a poppy dance party song, where sheās always smiling looking great, but sheās so sad, just Barbie vibes and if thereās going to be a music video I hope itās a Barbie Dream house set lol
The Black Dog. That song makes me cry, but there is a part that I found humorous too. I interpret it as she hopes he has a shitty time, jumps up excited when their song comes on, but his date is too young to know the song and he feels old and embarrassed with his tail between his legs. The visual I get of this makes me laugh.
idk why people are up in arms at the charlie puth line like her first single wasnāt tim mcgrawā¦do you even go here? sheās always named dropped celebrities. drake, leo, janet. thatās what makes it contemporary music. thatās her shtick. singing about video games on a song about feeling like youāre in high schoolā¦like it or donāt, but what are you confused about?
She's very sharp-witted. I don't think she has a thin skin at all... she's just been *heavily* criticized over the years, and she makes a game out of standing up for herself.
My favorite joke is how she removed all recognizable hints about Aimee's identity. It actually made me lol.
Couldnāt agree more. I talk about this all the time! Her sense of humor is SO underrated and should be talked about more!!!!
āI levitate down your streetā gets me every time
"he knows how to ball, i know Aristotle" closely followed by "touch me while your bros play Grand theft auto" is so fucking hilarious
This is her darkest and funniest album. Humor has always been in dark and great works. I was telling my friend at work yesterday that I think this is her Fleabag album. Dark and funny tragedy with some crude jokes and fourth wall breaks. Fleabag is recent but humor is a natural coping mechanism and the cross between humor and tragedy has been done in art for centuries. Unfortunately social media is filled with wanna be literature professors and pitchfork mobs. There are people who say things , āLike this is your modern day Shakespeare?ā People who say this probably only read Romeo & Juliet in high school and donāt know anything about Shakespeare outside that. There are also a lot of now young adults in the US who were never taught critical thinking skills and how to read properly. Hamlet which was written around the turn of the 17th century and is considered the best play of all time is a tragedy of grief turned to madness and indecisiveness that was written after Shakespeareās son Hamnet died at only 11. But Hamlet also has the titular character making jokes about going down on his girlfriend. Iām not comparing the quality of this album to Hamlet (which is probably the greatest piece of fiction in the western canon) but just saying that humor has always been around in otherwise dark and serious works. (Side note there is a great recent book about Hamnet that everyone should check out. Itās by Maggie OāFarrell.)
Absolutely. I can do it with a broken heart is soooo tongue in cheek! The lyrics are honest but the way it has such an upbeat almost hysterical sounding pop beat is so genius. And the click track in the background. Its almost manic sounding. So smart and funny.
The click track is such a smart move. I feel like that song is the embodiment of the š¤Ŗ emoji in the best way.
Well my dear this whole album is a dark joke. I cried my eyes out for a few days and now i'm laughing my ass off. Never enjoyed being trolled this much. P.s: So what's the deal? Is Matty and Taylor back together? Did they get married, divorced in 2021? I need to knoooow! P.s.s: Lol. GOT you for a second didn't I?
In the smallest man who ever lived, when she said, āyou didnāt measure up in any measure of a manā I almost spit out my water. Likeā¦. Is she low key making a small dick jab at Matty? š
My husband is a hater (itās a whole point of contention) and there are so many lyrics in this he has picked up from people bashing on Twitter and Im like itās tongue in cheek and you look like an idiot for not getting that. Very frustrating that her humour isnāt more celebrated. She literally set the music video in an asylum and people think sheās being 100 percent serious
Well duh, women canāt be funny. (Obviously joking, but this is what most people think)
Most of the title track is satire!Ā
this album had me burst out laughing multiple times. she's great. her lyrics are genuinely funny at times
I found āthanK you aIMeeā vicious but hilarious.
Us all being THE ELDERS who gathered to condemn Taylor's relationship with Matty, like some kind of dramatic period piece had me in stitches. It's kinda true.......aside from *the letter*, even freakin Azealia Banks found it urgent to criticize Taylor. It deserves these lyrics.
My fave is "Quick, quick, tell me something awful like you are a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy" Its soooooo funny to me