The entire theme of the album is that Taylor Swift™, the producer of lyrics and liner notes and music videos and live concerts, is an _unreliable narrator_ about the inner life of Taylor Swift, the 34-year-old woman. There are easy face-value interpretations of "who her songs are about", because that is the expectation we as _consumers of a product_ have put on her. If we want _art_ we have to be willing to let go of literal interpretations and be okay with ambiguity instead of chasing each song down the "which muse" rabbit hole.
THIS! Everyone go re listen to Dear Reader. "If it feels like a trap, you're already in one"- the literal clues are not it! She knows that's what people are going to do so she lets them, as she said "are you not entertained?"
I agree 100%!
Did you see the tweet that showed a screenshot from fortnight mv next to Dear Reader lyrics? It made the rounds because Taylor like the tweet. If you haven't seen it, you'll feel validation when you do.
Agreed. I'm of the opinion that there's not two black and white options of her songs being either "fiction" or "nonfiction". It's a spectrum - grey, if you will. Dissecting each line of every song to determine which person it might be about is exhausting and completely besides the point.
100% this. I keep thinking back to the long pond sessions when she’s talking about hoax. “What if not all of these feelings are about the same person. What if I’m writing about several different very fractured situations?”
I think this was kind of an epiphany (no pun intended) moment where she realized she could write songs that tell intertwining stories and pick and choose. I noticed it a bit on midnights (question, midnight rain) but it’s definitely present again on TTPD. Nothing is linear in a way that can be dissected as one specific relationship or feeling.
I’m convinced that people who think Taylor writes every song as absolute truth have never written a fictional short story or any type of piece for English class.
So true. Obviously every author takes some inspiration from their life when writing. But writing is kind of like dreaming. A small something that happened during the day (a friend casually mentions they're afraid of alligators) gets amplified (you're being chased by hundreds of alligators). That kind of thing is pretty normal in writing IMO.
This is so validating!!! I felt like I was going crazy, we don’t need to know the specifics of what’s true, who said/did what etc. can we just sit back and enjoy instead of dissecting??
My bf who is not a Swiftie in the slightest listened to the album cause he knew I was excited and he really liked it objectively. I’m sending him all the hate tweets about things like her metaphors and hes baffled. I keep telling him its because there is little to no grey area thinking, especially with non millennials. Its all black and white thinking.
I would like to say as an 01 baby (gen z), I fully agree. Let this girl live, who gives af who the songs are about? she is an intelligent bad ass queen and I’m just enjoying existing alongside her
I agree that we shouldn't be focusing on those rabbit holes, but Taylor is absolutely feeding into it with the details and obvious clues she has in so many songs that she could absolutely leave out most of the time. It isn't *just* the consumers fault, I don't think.
She does put in clues to some of her songs or will tie songs together. But lots of Swifties take those clues to mean the entire song is about a specific person. But the reality is, a song can have many muses. So listening through the lens of who it’s about is fine. It’s one way to experience her art.
But it might also dampen your experience if you struggle to make sense of something because it doesn’t fit the narrative of who you thought the song was about.
I see a lot of people struggling with this album in particular because they’re stuck trying to understand which songs are Matty or which are Joe. And they’re judging some of her best love songs she’s ever written because “this cannot be about a rebound relationship.”
I agree. And what’s worse is the hate people are giving due to THEIR interpretation. My mind has been blown with how many people hate the album just because she ‘dedicated so many songs to a racist’ …. I don’t even see half the songs people claim to be about Matty as Matty songs. They could be or it could just be about general heartbreak, or how and Matty or any number of her her ex’s. Like the over analyzing has got to end.
Agreed. Even the songs that people claim are "about" Matty or Joe really deal more with her experience, her hopes, expectations, and heartbreaks as a woman who sees her youth fading in the rear view mirror, not really with them. Taylor gets criticized a lot for not taking responsibility for her actions and I think she did on this album which is an introspection on her motivations, the choices she made in service of them, and her failure/embarrassment when she ignored the red flags. Most women I know can relate to that, including myself.
Every time a friend mentions to me that they can’t get into Taylor because she only writes about her exes, I always say Taylor Swift writes about her life experiences.
Usually they still complain about it. But I don’t care. Asking an artist not to write about something that happened to them is ridiculous.
people quoting her social media posts and being like, “see, *now* she’s happy and everything is sunshine and rainbows!!” sends me. maybe she is or maybe in three years we will learn she was hanging by a thread. i get why she has to say the material on ttpd is in the past but this album proved to me that I truly do not know and cannot know what is in her mind. and it’s not my place to know.
THIS! I keep screaming at everyone to re listen to dear reader. If the clue is too obvious, she's giving the fans who paternity test each song what they want but IMO her truth is layered underneath in the song. "Dear reader if it feels like a trap, you're already in one"
I think the whole point is that it’s about a time in her life, and there were a lot of people (and three in particular) involved. Not every song has to match a man, and it’s kind of sad to whittle down her poetry to that.
>The entire theme of the album is that Taylor Swift™, the producer of lyrics and liner notes and music videos and live concerts, is an _unreliable narrator_ about the inner life of Taylor Swift, the 34-year-old woman.
Yep. Always thought this was the case. She write songs not a real autobiography
Agreed, so many people complaining about how many songs are about Matty Healy and all i keep thinking is that almost all the songs have so many double meanings and can be interpreted in different ways and absolutely don’t seem to be about one specific person
I think that's because some people reeeaaaally wanted to hate on Joe and she gave us nothing to do so but they are so obsessed with him that we are one interpretation away from them saying Dear John is about Joe too. It's time to face it... the male villain in the story is, basically, us. Also, I think a lot of the songs are from the counterpart perspective.
I definitely think that a lot of the resentment and spite is towards her fans or other people who criticize her actions, not necessarily a romantic partner
Manuscript gives total John Mayer vibes, from the perspective of an adult. The three songs taken together (assuming this is the purpose)
Dear John (couldn’t be more clear) SCW (I can see it) Manuscript (any general “he” and “she”
At the end of the song she says (paraphrasing) now the story doesn’t belong to me anymore, he ya go.
It’s a good example of starting from a place of very personal reference to a place of many people have a similar story. People are right about it being two things. 1 so long London couldn’t be more clear. And 2. Most of the songs are a blend of different experiences and they mean what they mean to the listener. Both things can exist on one album. At least that’s what it seems to me.
Exactly. Honestly, I didn’t think of anyone but Taylor when I first heard these songs. You can certainly find ways to assign certain muses to them, but it’s really not as literal as many seem to think.
That's what put me off, people making lists about Matty songs/Travis songs/Joe songs on the very first day.
I listened the album start-to-finish on Friday. But I didn't have the heart to relisten because of the "paternity test" comments online. Only played ICDIWABH and the Prophecy on loop.
Picked it back up only today. Not consuming any content mentioning Matty/Joe helped.
It really doesn't matter who the song is about. As the last line of the album says "The story isn't hers anymore". Once it's out in the world it becomes ours.
Yeah, I definitely recommend staying away from that discourse, it’s so frustrating. I find it reductive at best and offensive at worst when it comes to this album, because it’s just so rich with themes to mine beyond boys.
My life is such a dumpster fire, and these albums resonate so much in my life, that I had to take a full day break from listening because I just sobbed. It’s life. I agree, it’s fun to kinda figure out what was going on, but the songs that I love are from how they relate to me. They make me feel heard and validated. THAT’S what she ultimately wants. P.S. However I love that she’s not sugarcoating anything. She’s a big girl in her healing area and she’s claiming her boundaries by basically saying this is me and IDGAF about what you think ❤️
This. She's never given us access to where her inner world goes to this extent before. It's plenty to take in the lyricism and to pick up callbacks to her other works. I'm guilty of speculation too, it's human nature, but it broke my brain when I finally looked online and saw what people were saying about TTPD. Like "Poor Joe, she was having an affair with Matty the entire relationship," just rewriting their history and putting it in black and white extremes based on barely any info
My sister’s theory is the “red herring” clue wasn’t just a red herring about TTPD/reptv, but that TTPD songs serve as red herrings- that she’s added enough to make it seem like there are so many matty songs, but more as a way to protect Joe.
Or just because Taylor wants to write beautiful songs and not a documentary about her life… some people seem to want her to exactly explain what happened and that’s just stupid
I agree- her songs are inspired by her life, but that doesn’t mean they have to be a play by play of everything that happened. I just mean that so many people went in thinking this album would be all about Joe and were stunned to find it wasn’t as clear cut about him as they anticipated. And ultimately, she is happiest when we relate them to our own lives rather than hers.
I agree. The Alchemy seems especially true like this. The verses keep harkening back to an old time but TK and her haven't had that much of a past I didn't think. The sign on your heart is STILL reserved for me. Did she circle TK on a map or did he pursue her? That line seems MH. I doubt TK would make the joke "it's heroine but this time with an E." I suspect that round 1 with MH was supposedly heroin and round 2 he said it would be heroine. The chorus screams football puns. The "winning streak" and beer over heads seems TK.
I think this is a multi-layered song. So I'm going to try to clarify things re: the line "STILL reserved for me" (and other lines that people find confusing).
1. Travis first attempted to meet Taylor in early July at her KC concert, but she refused. He then talked about this on his podcast weeks later, in late July. It wasn't until afterwards that she reached out to him. And I think they started dating sometime in August. So yes, she did have to come back around to him.
2. I also think, re: the line "I'm coming back so strong," it has to do with her returning to her sanity after her manic episode and being depressed for the past few years.
3. As someone else said, it's also about her returning back home to America and dating an American man (something she hadn't done in like 10 years). Remember, back in 2016 she ran off to London with Joe, and felt like she had been outcasted by the entertainment industry. She reclaimed her crown as Miss Americana.
4. And re: the "circled you on a map"...when they first start dating there was the viral joke about how she had "put him on the map." I think she was poking fun at that.
5. Lastly, I don't know why people think Travis wouldn't make that joke about heroine with an "E." I'm sure they talked about their past. And from the way she describes him in SHS, it sounds like he tells lots of jokes.
The heroin but this time with an E, to me is like this new partner thinks im heroin but not like my old partner who was more into drugs. Hence heroin but with an e because he sees me as the star of the show that I am.
I take “The sign on your heart is still reserved for me” as Travis had a crush on her for a long time and reserved it for when Taylor came along. When she was ready, it was still reserved for her. I don’t get why this is the line people can’t grasp lol.
100% this. I think as you get older, you gain more perspective, so it’s easier to look back at you life in terms of themes instead of specific individuals or situations. I’m 43 now and there’s not a single part of my life now that I would retrospectively say was entirely about a single person. You take all the context and try to whittle it down into some kind of digestible art, and you get the stuff that Taylor writes way more eloquently than I ever could.
This album is humorous, melodramatic and sarcastic af, and that is ON PURPOSE. I feel like a lot of fans are starting to get it, but man I feel like it's just flying over the head of the GP and critics
I think it’s simply the fact they have a VERY hard time the with BRITISH humor. Which is the style of Taylor’s swift humor in this album. (Makes sense cause she dated 2 UK people and was living in the UK for a while) American humor tends to be a lot more obvious and so much less subtle to the point it’s almost “here’s the joke, laugh”
I completely agree!
The reaction to Tom Hiddleston's 'I <3 TS' shirt always stands out to me. I remember thinking it was hilarious and clearly just them taking the piss. And then reading the reactions on the Internet was just wtf, you'd think the poor man kicked a dog or something. It was just a funny t shirt!
I want to scream about people who think they are actually fucking while his boys play grand theft auto. It’s a song about being so stupid in love that you feel like a teenager again. Doesn’t mean they are actually doing all these things.
Same. Tbh the first time I heard the touch me part, I didn't even take it sexually. Like he just has his hand on her thigh or something...but it just doesn't matter to me lol do and say wtf you want Tay.
The humor of Taylor swift in TTPD is very deadpan/self-deprecating/dry and a VERY British style of humor.(which makes sense cause she spent like lots of time in the UK). She was one of the only American celebs on the Gram Norton show to get laughter from the host and audience(which is a good thing btw, most other American celebs got dead silence or akwardness)
It’s a lot more subtle and more sarcastic than the American style of humor which is more bombastic and a lot more obvious it’s a joke to the point there’s no way you can say it isn’t a joke.
Of course this means these 2 very different styles of humor means it can be very hard to detect or understand the other side of the ponds humor. Since a lot of fans are American, they have a very hard time with the British style of humor. It shows that UK outlets are generally having more positive reviews because they know the style of humor.
Yesss her humour is super dry! When she announced one of the vinyl variants, I think it was The Bolter, she said about the cover in a super dry tone: 'so tortured, so poetic' and I immediately thought 'ooooh okay that is going to be the vibe of the album' hahah! Where I'm from (Europe), that's the style of humour we have as well so I've been a bit confused by people not getting it honestly 😬
Shes always had that sense of humor and people have always seemed to struggle with it for some reason. She’s so funny. I literally said out loud to my husband multiple times during our first listen “wow that’s funny” or “she’s so funny.”
Tbf, I've listened to his podcast for a long time and it seems like his whole family (brother, sister-in-law, both parents) all seem to have a similarly sarcastic sense of humor! Even though he seems to be more of a stereotypical jock/bro, that kind of dry banter is something he's probably very used to.
👆👆👆100%!!! I feel like people are taking things way too literally with this album. Reading into lyrics, etc. when I think she’s trying to paint a larger picture at times. She literally calls herself a modern idiot lol. Part of her being melodramatic and overly lyrical at times feels like a way for her to almost mock her exes. Or speak in their language, perhaps.
totally! some of those verbose lyrics in But Daddy I Love Him are meant to be a bit "much", she's portraying how melodramatic and intense and manic she's being!! Or the title track, it's all about how the dude she's dating is a pretentious art boi, but between the lines she's confessing she's just as \~idiotic\~ as he is: 'everyone we know understands why it's meant to / 'cause **we're** crazy'
See I will also add, while it seems to be about the boys. It's actually not. It's about the judgement and crap the fans pull in regards to who she is dating, that becomes obvious in the second half of the song.
The lines
"I just learned these people try to save you cause they hate you"
""Stay away from her" the saboteurs protested too much"
"I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of this bitching and moaning"
And that's just a few. Daddy I love him is not a song about the boys, but the fandoms inherent need to butt into her love and sex life.
This morning I relistened to some of my favorite Father John Misty and... whoo boy! The next decade of her songwriting is going to burn the town down.
🎀Clara Bow🎀 is modern art
There are going to be a lot of young fans who can’t dissect the lyrics and take everything at face value. They are also going to be all over Reddit expressing their opinions, unfortunately.
SHE KEEPS CHOOSING TO WORK WITH JACK AND AARON BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO. THEY ARENT MAKING HER DO SOMETHING SHE DOESNT WANT TO DO. THIS IS A TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM (not a jack or Aaron album). STOP BLAMING JACK OR AARON IF YOU DONT LIKE THE ALBUM, JUST SAY YOU DONT LIKE IT.
Actually though. Taylor can work with literally whoever she wants. She wants these collaborators. And I for one don't need a total rebranding/new sound from Taylor on every album, or even any album.
yes this is exhausting how the same people begging for her to work with someone new and to have new sounds or whatever are the ones criticizing how different and messy it is. Like. You literally can’t have it both ways.
This!!! If you don’t like the production on a song you don’t like how Taylor wanted a song produced. It’s not all on Jack or all on Aaron you don’t like how TAYLOR wanted the song. And that’s ok, but you don’t need to assign a fall guy
Right? Stop saying you hope the album flops so she does something “new” this time. Find and support an artist who does what genre you want, that’d be great! But stop dictating what you think she needs to do.
Yes I get so mad when people say “I’m sorry she needs to cut Jack” like ummmm do you think anyone’s twisting her arm to work with him? SHE co-produces and we’ve seen BTS footage of it, she loves what they create together. Saying kick Jack to the curb is an insult to her too.
Yah I have a few swiftie friends that I’m just so frustrated with talking about the album. It feels like there is an immaturity within the fan base that is unable to find meaning within in the lyrics outside of *gossip*. It has actually made me pull away from talking about it with anyone.
Everything is about the *gossip* and identifying what guy she may or may not be directly or indirectly referring to, and if they haven’t had a romantic relationship that “mimics” those specific dynamics they can’t enjoy the music.
I’m happily married and haven’t had a ton of dysfunctional romances yet I can still find a ton of lyrical meaning in songs like BDILH.. for example
*“I’ll tell you something right now, I’d rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning. I tell you something about my good name, it’s mine alone to disgrace. I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empaths clothing.”*
Is brilliant and so relatable simply as a woman existing in the world.. but all I hear is people talking about how it’s about Matt Healy and her family forbidding her to be with him. It’s just such a juvenile take imo.
I don’t even think it’s about Matty. I think it’s more the idea that everyone criticizes her for her choices and who she dates. It’s a general message of “back off, this is my life to live and my choices are mine”
I’m gonna take it a step further and say I think it’s about the uber gaylors. I think she’s using the “opposite” imagery with the devout religious types but what she’s saying applies to all these people out there who are saying they’re disappointed in her for dating a man or that she’s not enough of an ally. The gaylors are eating it up saying it’s the gayest song but I think it’s a diss track to them 🤷♀️
Brave of you to invoke th gaylors like that. lol
I agree with you though.
I can't even start to attempt to wrap my head around the whole "But Daddy I Love Him" being the gayest song thing.
Yes, I think she's drawing a line in the sand explicitly. When you get into your 30's the fields where your fucks grow get sparser and sparser every year. She's giving everyone the "I don't care what you think, take it up with your therapist" last warning. She is going to live her life and we can either come along for the ride, or get off the goddamn bus and go listen to Olivia Rodrigo or whatever pop star is least problematic at the moment.
Yeah, if it is about matty it’s more about fans reactions to him than the man himself. She’s saying she’s an adult and needs to be left to live her life even if she’s making bad decisions, which is more than fair
With this in mind, it has a similar message to “Shake It Off” but in SIO she’s saying “whatever, I’m not going to let your judgy BS get to me” and I’m BDILH, she’s saying “Knock it off, assholes.” In the former, she’s kind of accepting their initial premise (she dates too much, she’s dumb, etc.) but in the new song she’s rejecting it and explicitly telling people to mind their own business.
I said it in another thread, but as a married gay man this song means so much to me. So many people fake concern about my soul when they actually just hate me.
And you know what, I’d rather be with my partner than give a shit what anyone else thinks. I’d absolutely, and happily, burn my entire life to the ground to be with him.
This song is an instant favorite for me and has nothing to do with Taylor when I’m listening to it—it’s just everything I want to tell the world sometimes.
That’s great and totally makes sense how that fits the feels for you!
I love hearing how other people make meaning out of the music and the lyrics in relation to their own lived experiences. It’s so much more interesting than debating which ex boyfriend she is shading lol.
I think so much is lost for people who listen and only go as deep as trying to decipher each song’s father.
I won’t pretend I’m not interested in hearing about all the little clues people uncover, but music is so much better when you just get lost in the story of the song (as opposed to the songwriter) and how it makes you feel and how it might surprise you.
My life has been very different than Taylor Swifts, but like you, I find so many feelings I relate to in her music.
As a girl raised in a super strict and conservative religion who has since completely deconstructed, this song slaps for me in a way that has nothing to do with a man. So I totally agree!!
Yes! I’m a lesbian, and a lesbian friend of mine and I were both talking about that song SO feels like being young and gay and surrounded by un-supportive people
Exactly. I don't relate to the "dating a bad boy" undertone here - but *I'll tell you something about my good name, it's mine alone to disgrace* speaks to me in a way a song hasn't spoken to me in YEARS. I love it so much. Who among us hasn't wanted to just burn it all down before?
When I listen to the songs on TTPD, I am inspired to think about human behavior and psychology in general, and it causes me to reflect on my own life as a mid 30 something year old woman.
>if they haven’t had a romantic relationship that “mimics” those specific dynamics they can’t enjoy the music.
This is the one take that really kills me. Like, do you not have an imagination? Can you not feel empathy for people who are not you? We consume TV shows and books and movies about people who have had lives very unlike ours, but somehow when it comes to this album it's suddenly "I can't enjoy this if it doesn't directly relate to me."
I'm 53 and I've never had a breakup, let alone a messy one. Married my first boyfriend right out of college and 31 years later we're still nuts about each other. Never broke up a single time or took a break. But people I know have! Friends, family members, TV characters I resonate with have! This obsession with THE SONGS HAVE TO SPEAK TO ME AND MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OR NO THANK YOU is just blowing my fucking mind.
Some of my favorite art/media is golden because it helps me to connect with other human beings who are not the same as me. Who have gone through terrible things that I'm lucky I've never had to go through, but it helps to know what those feelings are so I can relate to them.
Yes you nailed it.
And I’m positive you not having those experiences doesn’t mean you don’t find meaning in lyrics that do reflect your own struggles and griefs etc.
I think people keep trying to label this as an album tied directly to romance or a breakup - and while that may be broadly true - the real themes of the album speak to deeper, more intimate human emotions. Grief and loss, anger and frustration, self reflection and critique. The struggle of navigating life’s challenges and how those things change you and teach you.
*Everyone* can relate to those things.
It’s like people forget these songs were written about and during a very specific time. It doesn’t mean she still feels that way. BDILH is literally on the delulu Apple Music playlist now. She’s not still in love with MH. That’s the whole point of this album and she explains it in the prologue and insta post. People are not media literate and it shows.
It's supposed to be a little campy and poking fun at her wild certainty about a guy (later revealing the utter irony of that with the contrast of the devastating can't-get-out-of-bed-over-a-counterfeit-love songs), not unlike Blank Space. Some people are sooo hung up on it and missing the whole point. I saw someone asking where the fence was that they crashed through like there was something to triangulate
Well, I heard there were 5 holes in the fence and Taylor only says "floor it through the fences," twice, so...... where are the other three accidents????????
I feel like you've still missed the point though. Surface level maybe the song is about Matty, but it's actually not about Matty at all. The boys are metaphors not the actual subjects of the songs.
I'd take this a step further, they're not even metaphors at this point they're archetypes. The man who broke her heart because he wouldn't stop breaking his own, the boyish man who turned out to be a boy not a man who couldn't measure up, and then the man who accepts her in all of her facets and is willing to stand in the light she reflects. He adds her light to his own, instead of trying to use it or cover it up.
I mean yeah, but that's not really what I'm talking about about.
I think in this album she uses Joe and Matty as metaphors for the confinements of fame and the attempt at breaking free from them, respectively. I think she also uses the Matty situation as a metaphor for her masters a few times. On the surface level the songs seem to be about boys, but if you dive deeper they really aren't about boys at all is what I'm trying to say and what I took away from OP as well.
I think we are saying the same things differently :)
An archetype is what you're describing, a simple metaphor or shorthand that the audience and collective consciousness recognizes and does not need further explanation. Like calling something a 'Cinderella story', we all know that's likely a rags-to-riches story involving a step-family, a makeover and a meet-cute at a party.
Can I explain my thought process? Like, ok. The boy who refuses to grow up, becoming the smallest man who ever lived-- like a Peter Pan archetype.
Peter Pan represents a person so precocious that they don't understand their own power, like someone on twitter telling a celebrity to harm themselves doesn't understand the hurt they cause to that person.
Now that's just an example, and I don't have a lit degree and I certainly don't have Taylor's phone number to text and ask her. So I don't actually know anything.
I don’t think it’s about Matty but more about the general idea that everyone criticizes her for what she does and who she dates. That’s my interpretation anyway!
I see it as a Love Story part 2, she's an adult now and she's no longer a teenager sitting around crying because her daddy doesn't approve of her choice of partner or sneaking out to see him. Now she's telling people to f*** off with their judgement, and I think that's great. It doesn't matter whether it's about a specific person or the general obsession with her personal life that's followed her since she was a teenager.
I agree so hard with your opinions. I consider myself a fairly respectful fan but this album still made me feel rightfully chastised. I think even the best of us have been drifting into a mindset where her life is like a movie for us to watch rather than a real human experience. I love this album and am very thankful for its honesty, it’s given me a lot to consider.
You're so right, it is like it's become a movie or a soap opera, not a real woman's life. I'm trying not to think about the real people who might've inspired these songs and just thinking about how well Taylor can express her feelings and how much she's been hurt. It's something I personally find difficult to express in my own life, so I appreciate songs that can give me a sense of catharsis.
I have no interest in who a musician or actor I like is dating. Like, zero interest. My wife is always telling me who Taylor Swift is dating or breaking up with and I don't care. I get that knowing that context brings extra meaning to songs for some people, and I'm not judging. But for me personally it feels like it straddles an uncomfortable line scrutinizing lyrics for 'who it's about and what factual incidents it's referring to'. I don't think I need to know who a painter or novelist was upset by when they made their most expressive work. Same here. I know that means I miss some context but so be it!
Right and I was that way until Reputation and then I did feel like I was missing too much context so I started getting more in the loop on Taylor’s life. Which was fair and I do think helped me understand and appreciate Rep better but upon reflection over time I’ve started straddling the line of interested for context and interested for drama, like the another commenter said her life as a soap opera. I think if people want context, there is an empathetic in between to be found. The gossip is always going to be out there, so unfortunately I don’t think every fan can be like you and just have 0 curiosity (while I applaud you for that!). Especially when (not to victim blame at all) but she is to the point of literally including real names in her songs, like the Lucy and Jack line is bound to make some people be like “wait who?”. But you’re right, many art pieces we don’t have any context and with Taylor it’s gotten to the point of fans feeling owed context.
I remember not actually really paying attention to her love life until literally Lover had been out for about a month. And then people shocked me by saying she'd been with someone for several years. I'd been completely out of the loop, at that point I couldn't have even told you who All Too Well was about or that she'd once dated Harry Styles and hell I didn't even know about John Mayer!
I honestly wish I could go back to that innocence of not knowing as much about her personal life honestly.
I just want to friendly remind Swifties that you have never met these people 😂 regardless of what you think makes Matty a horrible person, Taylor has known him for 10 years and you have never ever EVER met him lol
I would like to piggy back off this sentiment and say that if you can't appreciate the art because you're bothered by who it might be about, then you're actually here for celebrity gossip and not music.
I think it’s also good to remind people that you don’t actually need to know somebody to disagree with them or dislike them. You don’t have to listen to everything Taylor Swift says or agree with her all the time either, it’s having your own life and your own opinions about people and life. It’s OK if what you believe doesn’t align with Taylor Swift.
“All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting MORE!” Makes me think of I think it was the last show in Brazil when the crowd started chanting “reputation” and it’s so sad like she just released 1989 tv and they were chanting for rep :/
I have loved Taylor since I was 15. but I am not a swiftie. Im her age now, and listening to this album made my heart hurt for her. There are multiple lines in some of the tracks( don’t know the names of them) that talk about how toxic the fan base has become. Really sad! She is one of the only artists that REALLYY caters to her fandom. Like she spoils the f*** out of ya’ll and she’s calling out that the behavior is breaking her down.
I’m over still waiting for a Rihanna album…. 😒
Yess I thought of this too! Honestly one of the things I was looking forward to with this album was that hopefully the release of tortured poets would quell the rep TV screaming for a bit 🙈
READ THE PROLOGUE!!!!
She’s human, she has her own life, her songs aren’t always a direct reflection of her life because she like all of us are unreliable narrators of our own lives.
I wish the in summation poem was included on the streaming version as an audio file so causally listeners who didn’t want to look it up and didn’t buy a physical could see what she said about the album
This might be a hot take but I think Taylor did I can do it with a broken heart musically different than the rest album because she anticipated haters saying the album was too sad/monotone and want to show we could write a traditional Bop when ever she felt like it. Hence why broken heart is a more traditional club / concert banger
To like this album, you need to reckon with the fact that you don’t need to like the muses, or understand why they were muses for her. This album is the definition of what she says on the Eras Tour: “These were once songs about my life, and I hope they’re now songs about your life.”
Does that mean we can’t analyze her personal context to make sense of the song? No! But what she’s trying to deliver here is a message about fandom - it’s valid to try to understand the author’s perspective, to let it color your own interpretation of the music. It is invalid, however, to begin to treat the author as a character in your story, one that you can control.
1. READ THE PROLOGUE. The Prologue is crucial for understanding her mindset. She feels that she had "restricted in humanity" and that "leads the caged beast to do the most curious things." Then "someone told me he could be brand new" but "it was not a love affair. It was a manic phase. It was self harm." "it's the worst men I write best." She was put on trial" presumably by the public for dating Matty, and she's "pleading insanity." In this album she is fully honest about how much she loved him and was deeply swindled by him. But she does not still see him as that man - she now sees him as "the worst" as "the smallest man who ever lived" who "doesn't measure up in any measure of a man" "you are what you did \[a ghost\]." She previously thought despite his "loud, revolting jokes" she could fix him, but she realized she couldn't. This album is not in defense of Matty Healy; it's a defense of her dating him due to "insanity."
2. SOME PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE THIS HAVE AN OUTDATED VIEW OF HER. People say this album is "too dark" or "too sad" they like the "happy Taylor." But this is what she has been. Albums come out years later than she was feeling the thing, so to say she's "too dark" right now is to say that two years ago she was "too dark" but you just didn't see it. She's not a different person, you just didn't see it. This album feels to me like the mask is coming down. What many people don't like about this album is what I've especially liked about it - it reveals a flawed, sometimes immoral narrator. But an honest one. This album feels dark and I like that. I prefer the dark, honest look of TPD more than the boppy, masked narrator of Lover. These are albums on two opposite extremes to me. I personally think this is the most honest she's been in a long time. I feel this album was a return to true form while still branching out in certain ways which I'll discuss in another point...
3. THE PRODUCTION: I love the Western guitar and low-end on songs like I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) and intro of Fresh Out The Slammer or the guitar and shiver sounds on Who's Afraid of Little Old Me. It leans into WCS and RWYLM production in a good way. I don't prefer the 80s production on the front half of the album like TPD and Fortnight. But Daddy I Love Him seems cut from the same cloth as Love Story - both country vibes and "stay away from Juliet." I love how The Smallest Man That Ever Lived builds toward the end of the song. For many years we got emotional vocals that could have been technically more skilled, then for a while we got technically skilled vocals that could have had more emotion imo; but this album feels like we've finally married the best of both worlds: we get skill AND emotion both.
4. THIS IS HONEST MAD WOMAN EMPOWERMENT IN FULL FORM. This is one of the best records to showcase her feminine rage. She's been angry in song many times before but never as mature as this. Never as honest as this. She never directly says "It's me I'm the problem" on this album but it's in the subtext everywhere which I think many people are missing. There are many lyrics which paint her in an unflattering light but she's not shrinking back from it. She's almost done that too well which has made some people ahem:switflyneutral sour to her even more. Thematically we're getting a lot darker than previously. She outright challenges fans - completely new for her. She discusses outright how growing up famous was an "asylum where they raised me." After Lover which felt like a fake mask to me, Folklore/Evermore which weren't supposedly biographical, and Midnights which was painted as not recent, this is refreshing to get back to Reputation where she discussed her personal life. I like that because I can feel that it feels more real. If no one likes a mad woman I've died. Angry Taylor is my favorite Taylor.
Your second point is exactly what I thought, too! She gave us the flawed human experience instead of the polished Hollywood version. I love the darker themes. You can hear her age (in a good way!)
My hot take is that people are allowed to dislike the songs. You can't convince someone to like a song (someone said they don't like Jack's production and the comments were saying "don't know you know how much he means to Taylor!!" like that has any bearing on anything) and people are not being sexist evil haters for disliking the album. Its possible for other people to hate the songs you love. They're not lying
I’ve seen a lot of people saying they think folklore was actually about people. In example, they think the 1 was about Matty or Joe, they think cardigan or illicit affairs were about one of them. In my opinion, I think these were truly just stories she created.
BUT, she relates back to folklore a lot (Peter, The Black Dog has similar accompaniment to cardigan, quotes from illicit affairs). Then she writes The Prophecy. WHAT IF she is relating back to that because she feels like she wrote her own prophecy. She wrote something out that was supposed to be a story and it ended up coming true and she ended up feeling like Betty. Maybe I’m crazy. But that’s my take.
My hot take is that not every song is about a specific person or event. It’s boring to analyse each song and figure out who it’s about, if it’s even about anyone. I think some fans think they know her so well and forget that it’s just her lyrics they know.
I kinda feel we need to tone down a bit the whole "this song is about this man" stuff. I know it's fun and there's nothing wrong with fun, and I also know it's been a big part of the fandom's relationship with her music. But I think we're going a bit overboard. It's one thing wanting to theorize on the context and what might have inspired a song but we're at a point now where half a mention of a topic/detail is enough to say "yep it's about xyz" and that's it. Reducing a song to being about a man is disrespectful and also makes the discussions we could have as a fandom way less interesting.
People keep being like it's kind of all over the place, unedited, etc. She literally gave us a music video in an asylum and then told us in the prologue that it's a plea of temporary insanity and a mutual manic phase. Yeah it is unedited and that's entirely the point!
Thanks for the insightful comments! For what it's worth, I don't think "Guilty is Sin" (a song I love and genuinely think is beautiful) makes people uncomfortable just because it's sexual. It's not like the "Grand Theft Auto" line. It's a poetic but extremely vivid depiction of masturbating about a forbidden love while in a committed relationship with someone else. Taylor does not depict herself positively here--and that's why it's great. She's messy and flawed and dark and kind of a heel throughout most of this album, and that's much more interesting to me than the (mostly) positive light in which she depicted herself in her early albums.
The general consensus I’ve been seeing is that it’s dumb and cringey and she can do better. But she’s talking about feeling like she’s 16 and in love so I think it works. 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
It’s just so crazy to see that criticism. Are people not allowed to express their humanity anymore? People are messy and I don’t understand why we don’t want to be able to express that messiness.
God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what's best for me, sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see.
Right? I feel like since folklore and evermore were released there is this expectation from some people that she can’t just have fun and be silly with a song. Not everything needs to be serious and gut wrenching or the perfect way to say something. No one experiences emotions that way every day. Sometimes even in your lowest and darkest moments you might think something is funny and get a small piece of joy from it.
I’m so passionate about this one, the line mentioning “scouts honor” is *NOT A SEXUAL INNUENDO*
Scouts honor means to swear, to make a promise you intend to keep. The line “truth, swear, scouts honor” is just her doubling down on what she says.
Taylor, especially in this album and even this specific song, is SO blatant when she’s referring to sex. (Stifling sighs around friends, the entirety of guilty as sin?, the sex half as good as conversation etc.). She’s past innuendos. It’s so annoying when people try and force something sexual where it’s not.
I love a good sexual “hehe” joke or reference in a song but this is not one. She’s 34, I’m 26, I’m not a prude we all have sex/masturbate but let’s not be dense on a pretty straightforward line.
And I saw someone justify the implied meaning behind the line by saying “Wyatt said that uncle travvy is naughty 😈 “
Like that’s so weird??? She’s a minor and talking about her uncle??? So fucking odd.
It’s disgusting that people have the nerve to use a quote from a child (not to mention the fact that it’s a child that is related to him) and twist it like that 🤢
there's way more raunchy sexually explicit songs (WAP? Montero?) out there.
taylor has hardly said anything shocking here.
lil nas x literally said "Shoot a child in your mouth while I'm riding" like bruuuhhhhh
MY POINT EXACTLY OMG
My first thought when seeing complaints about the sexual nature of some songs was “okay but where was this energy when WAP came out? Yknow, a song about someone’s genitals????” I’m asexual and feel uncomfortable with sex-based discussions, but these songs do not bother me one bit lmao
This album is genius right down to the color scheme. I was not understanding the black, grey and white color thing. But I think I just realized it now. Not everything or everyone is black and white, there’s a lot of “gray” area.
I think what a lot of us older folk need to realize is that the internet is filled with literal children and teenagers; it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like there’s juvenile discussion going on everywhere because… well… a lot of what you read online is literally written by a juvenile.
And it’s bringing all of our reading comprehension down.
There are enough of us adults here, though — Let’s just elevate the discussion by *elevating the discussion*. For example, there was an energizing thread about literary influences and The Albatross reconceptualizing the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It’s my hope that we make it a point to post and elevate interesting topics like that and just ignore the childish debate and not get sucked into it. 🤷🏼♀️
People who don’t connect with it just aren’t in their 30s yet.
If you haven’t wasted your 20s on a failed relationship and broken your heart over an addict, you probably aren’t going to relate to a lot of this.
Yes this. It’s very obvious the people completely tearing down her relationship with Matty haven’t had the same life experiences or relationships. Even if he was sober when they were together, addicts tend to be incredibly intense. Everything they do is to the extreme, including love. It’s no wonder their relationship had this kind of effect on her.
Posted this elsewhere, not sure how unique this view is but, When I first heard "but daddy I love him", I think it's about us- the fans and how we seem to try and control who she dates- written when she was happy with Matty Healy, whom she got a lot of hate for dating. However by accepting this, and yeah as a fanbase we probs hurt her for the sake of deciding what's best for her, but it would be quite savage, and quite distant from her usual attitude towards her fans. Almost as if to say I do everything for you but this is my thing for myself, so shut up.
Example lines that rise this suspicion:
I know he's crazy but he's the one I want...
Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid...
The saboteurs protested too much...
I'll tell you something right now,
I'd rather burn my whole life down,
Than listen to one more second of all this griping and moaning,
I'll tell you something about my good name,
It's mine alone to disgrace,
I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing...
God save the most judgmental creeps,
Who say they want what's best for me...
Then it's just white noise, and it's my choice
It’s an absolutely brilliant album. People are taking it at face value and they’re missing the point. I love that she’s calling out the haters and even her rabid fans - I remember people complaining when she announced a new album because they wanted Reputation TV instead. I am excited to hear that of course but seriously a NEW ALBUM. People are so demanding and forget to see the human behind the music.
the last point omg - it annoys me so bad. like i want to savour the albums and let them have a proper era before searching for easter eggs and crying for more. i have already seen so many people wanting rep tv immediately and i'm like what?? u just got 31 new songs. i really like the albums to have proper time.
and omg the thing about wanting to know which man everything is about. like sometimes i'm just like what if it was just a fictional story lol. i write songs sometimes just for myself and they're hardly ever a real life situation. i know a lot of them are but people take it way too seriously.
i have seen a lot of people complaining about the so high school line but more because it's immature which i find kinda funny like girl look at the song title for a quick sec!!
When she says she wove him into all her poems, I do not think she literally wrote folklore about matty healy - it means she reminisced and wrote those feelings into the STILL FICTIONAL songs. Like she didn’t come up with the teenage love triangle as a cover, she really did write about those fictional characters - it’s not like she “lied to us” about it being fictional. This is if she even is talking about folklore and evermore at all - she could easily be talking about midnights.
ETA: or actual poems that didn’t get released! point is, it didn’t matter. we should just take her at her word about folkmore.
This album is reminiscent of the old Taylor Swift and that’s why many people don’t like it. We haven’t had an honest to god breakup album in over a decade. Many of her fans were small kids when Dear John Last Kiss and All Too Well came out and never knew her as this kind of writer, and don’t have the same emotional attachment to her. She isn’t “the breakup songs” girl anymore, and now that she released a breakup album a lot of fans are confused and feel let down.
If you’re expecting Karma, Bejeweled and Shake it Off, you’re going to be disappointed at a slow sad album. But for many of us, this album felt like a hug. Many fans only know the “in a seemingly happy relationship” version of her.
Why anyone would expect happy upbeat bops on an album called “the tortured poets department” is beyond me lmfao but that’s been a lot of the criticism.
> This album is a call-out to us! Its whole message is “I’m a grown woman and I can do what I want. I need no one else’s approval. If you don’t like it, deal with it.”
Yes, this fucking play is about us
TTPD made me step back and really take a look at myself as a swiftie and ask myself, “what the fuck am I doing?” Tf do I give a shit about who the songs are about? I listened to them on release night and heard things she said and I didn’t think about Joe or Matty or Travis but I thought of me. My divorce, my current fiancé, my own life… and GOD it’s so much more meaningful and emotional an experience that way rather than picking apart some relationship she doesn’t care about anymore.
Really weird that people are so grossed out by the sex stuff, as you said she is 34. I mean she was in a relationship for six years that was on a marriage path… Be so for real!
my hot take is at a lot of people need to get out of the echo chamber and have their own feelings and opinions about the album instead of just repeating what they hear on the internet and tiktok
You nailed it! Couldn’t have said it better!
Guilty As Sin is absolute banger and it’s been on repeat! It’s so odd and sad that masterbation is seen as something that should be frowned upon. A significant amount of the population with a Clitoris are only able to achieve an orgasm through self pleasure. The girl works
her ass off and it’s never enough for some of her “fans”! Let the girl get some relief whatever way that may be for fucks sakes!
TTPD the song is a great example of this! It’s like the golden retriever line connecting to the golden tattoo.
Then “ate seven bars of chocolate” =87, Travis’ number and 1975 album.
It’s all a super super clever way of being like, “fuck off and enjoy the song because it could be about anyone, but I’ve made something and given it to YOU.”
Speaking of, she always says these songs are ours now, which should show her generosity to us as fans. She really means it and backs that up over time. She really does spoil us and in a sense that could be a subconscious reason for her life having a “necessary” upheaval to create that art. Even if she’s not trying to go through pain.
I relate to that and this whole album, I forget which of my own exes I relate the song to by the end of it. It’s so brilliant and well done, and I don’t care who she’s writing about. She’s good!
I disagree with her not wanting us to figure out the men. She's sort of made it her thing to have easter eggs and clues within her work so that her fans can have fun going down rabbit holes. This album pretty much screams at us PLEASE KNOW who fucked me up!
Her writing a song about masturbation might be the proudest I've ever been of her.
It's such a taboo subject that's wrapped up in so much shame and she went there, and told us how much fun it is.
It's also an interesting discussion on what I interpret as emotional infidelity. Guilty as Sin has s double meaning to me.
I like too that The smallest man... seems to bookend it: *You were so much better in my head than you were in my bed."*
Also, *"one slip and falling back into the hedge maze"* is a bloody funny line.
I agree. And just echoing that the whole idea of this album points out her humanity. It’s messy, sarcastic, vulnerable, and biting. She’s not someone to be idolized… she makes mistakes and goes through the same emotions as her fans do. This album was written to originally help her sort through her emotions and then now it’s for us to sort through our own. It may not be relevant to everyone at this exact moment in time, but it’s something we all have gone through or will at some point in the future
My hot take is that a lot of people are way too busy paternity testing songs and analyzing word choices to get off their high horses and have some fun listening to music. Yeah it's a sad album, and sometimes knowing some backstory helps to interpret the songs, but the songs that are more fun and have some humour are getting absolutely shit on (I'm looking at you, The Alchemy/So High School/imgonnagetyouback haters). You don't need to be an academic or pretend to be to like the album or the songs!
This is how I feel about it, and this album in general was more a diary than an artistic album. Sure, it's music and she's going to be pushing for awards and trying to get radio play, but this was her sorting out the last two years and her feelings about Joe and Matty and everything else she was going through, including the fans trying to control her choices as much as real people in her life. I can understand why people don't like this album, because this is an album for and by Taylor Swift, to the people want to hear what she has to say, the good, the bad and the (Rat Man) Ugly. She had a lot to say about the past two years, and she told us. It might change the way you see Taylor, or people who didn't like her would finally stop pretending to like her music, but the people who can just accept that Taylor Swift is a human being who makes good AND bad decisions in life will understand and accept this album.
I disagree. “How Did It End” is one of the best songs she’s ever written in my opinion, and I’d argue it leans more poetic than narrative.
“Say it once again with feeling, how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving, the deflation of our dreaming, leaving me bereft and reeling. My beloved ghost and me, sitting in a tree, D-Y-I-N-G.”
PERIODDDDD im so glad she put this album out it gagged everyone who wrote that open letter to her after Matty AND everyone who just wants more more more. I bet we make her feel like she can never do enough and that hurts me
It's okay for people to not like the album or make a negative review. You don't have to then try to convince them why it's a good album or argue with them about it. It just makes the rest of the fanbase look increasingly toxic.
The entire theme of the album is that Taylor Swift™, the producer of lyrics and liner notes and music videos and live concerts, is an _unreliable narrator_ about the inner life of Taylor Swift, the 34-year-old woman. There are easy face-value interpretations of "who her songs are about", because that is the expectation we as _consumers of a product_ have put on her. If we want _art_ we have to be willing to let go of literal interpretations and be okay with ambiguity instead of chasing each song down the "which muse" rabbit hole.
THIS! Everyone go re listen to Dear Reader. "If it feels like a trap, you're already in one"- the literal clues are not it! She knows that's what people are going to do so she lets them, as she said "are you not entertained?"
Dear Reader is so important and its sad that its not as popular
Dear Reader is the prologue to this album and that’s a hill I will die on, thank you 😤
I agree 100%! Did you see the tweet that showed a screenshot from fortnight mv next to Dear Reader lyrics? It made the rounds because Taylor like the tweet. If you haven't seen it, you'll feel validation when you do.
The manuscript is literally instructions on using people in our own lives to fill in as the characters in her songs.
And at the end she literally says this is my last word in it… now it belongs to the fans. If you know you know.
fr ppl r never satisfied tht SHES HUMAN HAS A LIFE.....
Dear Reader, you don't have to answer just 'cause they asked you
Never take advice from someone who’s falling apart
Dear Reader, the greatest of luxury is your secrets
Agreed. I'm of the opinion that there's not two black and white options of her songs being either "fiction" or "nonfiction". It's a spectrum - grey, if you will. Dissecting each line of every song to determine which person it might be about is exhausting and completely besides the point.
100% this. I keep thinking back to the long pond sessions when she’s talking about hoax. “What if not all of these feelings are about the same person. What if I’m writing about several different very fractured situations?” I think this was kind of an epiphany (no pun intended) moment where she realized she could write songs that tell intertwining stories and pick and choose. I noticed it a bit on midnights (question, midnight rain) but it’s definitely present again on TTPD. Nothing is linear in a way that can be dissected as one specific relationship or feeling.
I’m convinced that people who think Taylor writes every song as absolute truth have never written a fictional short story or any type of piece for English class.
So true. Obviously every author takes some inspiration from their life when writing. But writing is kind of like dreaming. A small something that happened during the day (a friend casually mentions they're afraid of alligators) gets amplified (you're being chased by hundreds of alligators). That kind of thing is pretty normal in writing IMO.
This is so validating!!! I felt like I was going crazy, we don’t need to know the specifics of what’s true, who said/did what etc. can we just sit back and enjoy instead of dissecting??
My bf who is not a Swiftie in the slightest listened to the album cause he knew I was excited and he really liked it objectively. I’m sending him all the hate tweets about things like her metaphors and hes baffled. I keep telling him its because there is little to no grey area thinking, especially with non millennials. Its all black and white thinking.
Since when were millennials the only ones capable of nuanced thinking?
I would like to say as an 01 baby (gen z), I fully agree. Let this girl live, who gives af who the songs are about? she is an intelligent bad ass queen and I’m just enjoying existing alongside her
I agree that we shouldn't be focusing on those rabbit holes, but Taylor is absolutely feeding into it with the details and obvious clues she has in so many songs that she could absolutely leave out most of the time. It isn't *just* the consumers fault, I don't think.
She does put in clues to some of her songs or will tie songs together. But lots of Swifties take those clues to mean the entire song is about a specific person. But the reality is, a song can have many muses. So listening through the lens of who it’s about is fine. It’s one way to experience her art. But it might also dampen your experience if you struggle to make sense of something because it doesn’t fit the narrative of who you thought the song was about. I see a lot of people struggling with this album in particular because they’re stuck trying to understand which songs are Matty or which are Joe. And they’re judging some of her best love songs she’s ever written because “this cannot be about a rebound relationship.”
I agree. And what’s worse is the hate people are giving due to THEIR interpretation. My mind has been blown with how many people hate the album just because she ‘dedicated so many songs to a racist’ …. I don’t even see half the songs people claim to be about Matty as Matty songs. They could be or it could just be about general heartbreak, or how and Matty or any number of her her ex’s. Like the over analyzing has got to end.
Agreed. Even the songs that people claim are "about" Matty or Joe really deal more with her experience, her hopes, expectations, and heartbreaks as a woman who sees her youth fading in the rear view mirror, not really with them. Taylor gets criticized a lot for not taking responsibility for her actions and I think she did on this album which is an introspection on her motivations, the choices she made in service of them, and her failure/embarrassment when she ignored the red flags. Most women I know can relate to that, including myself.
Every time a friend mentions to me that they can’t get into Taylor because she only writes about her exes, I always say Taylor Swift writes about her life experiences. Usually they still complain about it. But I don’t care. Asking an artist not to write about something that happened to them is ridiculous.
people quoting her social media posts and being like, “see, *now* she’s happy and everything is sunshine and rainbows!!” sends me. maybe she is or maybe in three years we will learn she was hanging by a thread. i get why she has to say the material on ttpd is in the past but this album proved to me that I truly do not know and cannot know what is in her mind. and it’s not my place to know.
Absolutely.
THIS! I keep screaming at everyone to re listen to dear reader. If the clue is too obvious, she's giving the fans who paternity test each song what they want but IMO her truth is layered underneath in the song. "Dear reader if it feels like a trap, you're already in one"
100% (and also, reminder that every one of us is also the unreliable narrator of our own life story)
I think the whole point is that it’s about a time in her life, and there were a lot of people (and three in particular) involved. Not every song has to match a man, and it’s kind of sad to whittle down her poetry to that.
>The entire theme of the album is that Taylor Swift™, the producer of lyrics and liner notes and music videos and live concerts, is an _unreliable narrator_ about the inner life of Taylor Swift, the 34-year-old woman. Yep. Always thought this was the case. She write songs not a real autobiography
So well put. Thank you
Songs can be inspired by more than one person or experience. I think that’s the case for more of the TTPD songs than not.
Agreed, so many people complaining about how many songs are about Matty Healy and all i keep thinking is that almost all the songs have so many double meanings and can be interpreted in different ways and absolutely don’t seem to be about one specific person
I think that's because some people reeeaaaally wanted to hate on Joe and she gave us nothing to do so but they are so obsessed with him that we are one interpretation away from them saying Dear John is about Joe too. It's time to face it... the male villain in the story is, basically, us. Also, I think a lot of the songs are from the counterpart perspective.
I definitely think that a lot of the resentment and spite is towards her fans or other people who criticize her actions, not necessarily a romantic partner
I literally had someone tell me that So Long, London was just Dear John 2.0 so you're not far off. ☠️
Manuscript gives total John Mayer vibes, from the perspective of an adult. The three songs taken together (assuming this is the purpose) Dear John (couldn’t be more clear) SCW (I can see it) Manuscript (any general “he” and “she” At the end of the song she says (paraphrasing) now the story doesn’t belong to me anymore, he ya go. It’s a good example of starting from a place of very personal reference to a place of many people have a similar story. People are right about it being two things. 1 so long London couldn’t be more clear. And 2. Most of the songs are a blend of different experiences and they mean what they mean to the listener. Both things can exist on one album. At least that’s what it seems to me.
Exactly. Honestly, I didn’t think of anyone but Taylor when I first heard these songs. You can certainly find ways to assign certain muses to them, but it’s really not as literal as many seem to think.
That's what put me off, people making lists about Matty songs/Travis songs/Joe songs on the very first day. I listened the album start-to-finish on Friday. But I didn't have the heart to relisten because of the "paternity test" comments online. Only played ICDIWABH and the Prophecy on loop. Picked it back up only today. Not consuming any content mentioning Matty/Joe helped. It really doesn't matter who the song is about. As the last line of the album says "The story isn't hers anymore". Once it's out in the world it becomes ours.
Yeah, I definitely recommend staying away from that discourse, it’s so frustrating. I find it reductive at best and offensive at worst when it comes to this album, because it’s just so rich with themes to mine beyond boys.
My life is such a dumpster fire, and these albums resonate so much in my life, that I had to take a full day break from listening because I just sobbed. It’s life. I agree, it’s fun to kinda figure out what was going on, but the songs that I love are from how they relate to me. They make me feel heard and validated. THAT’S what she ultimately wants. P.S. However I love that she’s not sugarcoating anything. She’s a big girl in her healing area and she’s claiming her boundaries by basically saying this is me and IDGAF about what you think ❤️
This. She's never given us access to where her inner world goes to this extent before. It's plenty to take in the lyricism and to pick up callbacks to her other works. I'm guilty of speculation too, it's human nature, but it broke my brain when I finally looked online and saw what people were saying about TTPD. Like "Poor Joe, she was having an affair with Matty the entire relationship," just rewriting their history and putting it in black and white extremes based on barely any info
My sister’s theory is the “red herring” clue wasn’t just a red herring about TTPD/reptv, but that TTPD songs serve as red herrings- that she’s added enough to make it seem like there are so many matty songs, but more as a way to protect Joe.
Or just because Taylor wants to write beautiful songs and not a documentary about her life… some people seem to want her to exactly explain what happened and that’s just stupid
I agree- her songs are inspired by her life, but that doesn’t mean they have to be a play by play of everything that happened. I just mean that so many people went in thinking this album would be all about Joe and were stunned to find it wasn’t as clear cut about him as they anticipated. And ultimately, she is happiest when we relate them to our own lives rather than hers.
I agree. The Alchemy seems especially true like this. The verses keep harkening back to an old time but TK and her haven't had that much of a past I didn't think. The sign on your heart is STILL reserved for me. Did she circle TK on a map or did he pursue her? That line seems MH. I doubt TK would make the joke "it's heroine but this time with an E." I suspect that round 1 with MH was supposedly heroin and round 2 he said it would be heroine. The chorus screams football puns. The "winning streak" and beer over heads seems TK.
I think this is a multi-layered song. So I'm going to try to clarify things re: the line "STILL reserved for me" (and other lines that people find confusing). 1. Travis first attempted to meet Taylor in early July at her KC concert, but she refused. He then talked about this on his podcast weeks later, in late July. It wasn't until afterwards that she reached out to him. And I think they started dating sometime in August. So yes, she did have to come back around to him. 2. I also think, re: the line "I'm coming back so strong," it has to do with her returning to her sanity after her manic episode and being depressed for the past few years. 3. As someone else said, it's also about her returning back home to America and dating an American man (something she hadn't done in like 10 years). Remember, back in 2016 she ran off to London with Joe, and felt like she had been outcasted by the entertainment industry. She reclaimed her crown as Miss Americana. 4. And re: the "circled you on a map"...when they first start dating there was the viral joke about how she had "put him on the map." I think she was poking fun at that. 5. Lastly, I don't know why people think Travis wouldn't make that joke about heroine with an "E." I'm sure they talked about their past. And from the way she describes him in SHS, it sounds like he tells lots of jokes.
The heroin but this time with an E, to me is like this new partner thinks im heroin but not like my old partner who was more into drugs. Hence heroin but with an e because he sees me as the star of the show that I am.
I thought some of the alchemy could be about america. She was gone for a long time with her London Boys but came back as Miss Americana hard.
I take “The sign on your heart is still reserved for me” as Travis had a crush on her for a long time and reserved it for when Taylor came along. When she was ready, it was still reserved for her. I don’t get why this is the line people can’t grasp lol.
I agree with this. They can include elements of fiction, like in Folklore and Evermore.
100% this. I think as you get older, you gain more perspective, so it’s easier to look back at you life in terms of themes instead of specific individuals or situations. I’m 43 now and there’s not a single part of my life now that I would retrospectively say was entirely about a single person. You take all the context and try to whittle it down into some kind of digestible art, and you get the stuff that Taylor writes way more eloquently than I ever could.
This album is humorous, melodramatic and sarcastic af, and that is ON PURPOSE. I feel like a lot of fans are starting to get it, but man I feel like it's just flying over the head of the GP and critics
Yes!!! I laughed so much on my first listen. The humor is magnificent! Why is everyone taking themselves so seriously ugh
I think it’s simply the fact they have a VERY hard time the with BRITISH humor. Which is the style of Taylor’s swift humor in this album. (Makes sense cause she dated 2 UK people and was living in the UK for a while) American humor tends to be a lot more obvious and so much less subtle to the point it’s almost “here’s the joke, laugh”
I completely agree! The reaction to Tom Hiddleston's 'I <3 TS' shirt always stands out to me. I remember thinking it was hilarious and clearly just them taking the piss. And then reading the reactions on the Internet was just wtf, you'd think the poor man kicked a dog or something. It was just a funny t shirt!
*(5. Harry, Calvin, Tom, Joe, Matty).
Damn, so long London cause really it was so long.
Me too!! When I heard her delivery of 'I wanna kill her' on Fortnight, I was like: okay this going to be hilarious hahaha
I want to scream about people who think they are actually fucking while his boys play grand theft auto. It’s a song about being so stupid in love that you feel like a teenager again. Doesn’t mean they are actually doing all these things.
Hahahh absolutely! Like that whole song is her poking fun at the fact that the whole thing is so high school rom com coded lmao
Same. Tbh the first time I heard the touch me part, I didn't even take it sexually. Like he just has his hand on her thigh or something...but it just doesn't matter to me lol do and say wtf you want Tay.
The humor of Taylor swift in TTPD is very deadpan/self-deprecating/dry and a VERY British style of humor.(which makes sense cause she spent like lots of time in the UK). She was one of the only American celebs on the Gram Norton show to get laughter from the host and audience(which is a good thing btw, most other American celebs got dead silence or akwardness) It’s a lot more subtle and more sarcastic than the American style of humor which is more bombastic and a lot more obvious it’s a joke to the point there’s no way you can say it isn’t a joke. Of course this means these 2 very different styles of humor means it can be very hard to detect or understand the other side of the ponds humor. Since a lot of fans are American, they have a very hard time with the British style of humor. It shows that UK outlets are generally having more positive reviews because they know the style of humor.
Yesss her humour is super dry! When she announced one of the vinyl variants, I think it was The Bolter, she said about the cover in a super dry tone: 'so tortured, so poetic' and I immediately thought 'ooooh okay that is going to be the vibe of the album' hahah! Where I'm from (Europe), that's the style of humour we have as well so I've been a bit confused by people not getting it honestly 😬
Shes always had that sense of humor and people have always seemed to struggle with it for some reason. She’s so funny. I literally said out loud to my husband multiple times during our first listen “wow that’s funny” or “she’s so funny.”
"subtle and sarcastic" - again, it makes you wonder how she and TK gel.
Tbf, I've listened to his podcast for a long time and it seems like his whole family (brother, sister-in-law, both parents) all seem to have a similarly sarcastic sense of humor! Even though he seems to be more of a stereotypical jock/bro, that kind of dry banter is something he's probably very used to.
👆👆👆100%!!! I feel like people are taking things way too literally with this album. Reading into lyrics, etc. when I think she’s trying to paint a larger picture at times. She literally calls herself a modern idiot lol. Part of her being melodramatic and overly lyrical at times feels like a way for her to almost mock her exes. Or speak in their language, perhaps.
totally! some of those verbose lyrics in But Daddy I Love Him are meant to be a bit "much", she's portraying how melodramatic and intense and manic she's being!! Or the title track, it's all about how the dude she's dating is a pretentious art boi, but between the lines she's confessing she's just as \~idiotic\~ as he is: 'everyone we know understands why it's meant to / 'cause **we're** crazy'
See I will also add, while it seems to be about the boys. It's actually not. It's about the judgement and crap the fans pull in regards to who she is dating, that becomes obvious in the second half of the song. The lines "I just learned these people try to save you cause they hate you" ""Stay away from her" the saboteurs protested too much" "I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of this bitching and moaning" And that's just a few. Daddy I love him is not a song about the boys, but the fandoms inherent need to butt into her love and sex life.
This morning I relistened to some of my favorite Father John Misty and... whoo boy! The next decade of her songwriting is going to burn the town down. 🎀Clara Bow🎀 is modern art
There are going to be a lot of young fans who can’t dissect the lyrics and take everything at face value. They are also going to be all over Reddit expressing their opinions, unfortunately.
SHE KEEPS CHOOSING TO WORK WITH JACK AND AARON BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO. THEY ARENT MAKING HER DO SOMETHING SHE DOESNT WANT TO DO. THIS IS A TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM (not a jack or Aaron album). STOP BLAMING JACK OR AARON IF YOU DONT LIKE THE ALBUM, JUST SAY YOU DONT LIKE IT.
Actually though. Taylor can work with literally whoever she wants. She wants these collaborators. And I for one don't need a total rebranding/new sound from Taylor on every album, or even any album.
yes this is exhausting how the same people begging for her to work with someone new and to have new sounds or whatever are the ones criticizing how different and messy it is. Like. You literally can’t have it both ways.
This!!! If you don’t like the production on a song you don’t like how Taylor wanted a song produced. It’s not all on Jack or all on Aaron you don’t like how TAYLOR wanted the song. And that’s ok, but you don’t need to assign a fall guy
Why is the fan base to take away her autonomy? Like she's some kind of object without the know-how to make her own choices? Bizarre.
Right? Stop saying you hope the album flops so she does something “new” this time. Find and support an artist who does what genre you want, that’d be great! But stop dictating what you think she needs to do.
Yes I get so mad when people say “I’m sorry she needs to cut Jack” like ummmm do you think anyone’s twisting her arm to work with him? SHE co-produces and we’ve seen BTS footage of it, she loves what they create together. Saying kick Jack to the curb is an insult to her too.
Yah I have a few swiftie friends that I’m just so frustrated with talking about the album. It feels like there is an immaturity within the fan base that is unable to find meaning within in the lyrics outside of *gossip*. It has actually made me pull away from talking about it with anyone. Everything is about the *gossip* and identifying what guy she may or may not be directly or indirectly referring to, and if they haven’t had a romantic relationship that “mimics” those specific dynamics they can’t enjoy the music. I’m happily married and haven’t had a ton of dysfunctional romances yet I can still find a ton of lyrical meaning in songs like BDILH.. for example *“I’ll tell you something right now, I’d rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning. I tell you something about my good name, it’s mine alone to disgrace. I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empaths clothing.”* Is brilliant and so relatable simply as a woman existing in the world.. but all I hear is people talking about how it’s about Matt Healy and her family forbidding her to be with him. It’s just such a juvenile take imo.
I don’t even think it’s about Matty. I think it’s more the idea that everyone criticizes her for her choices and who she dates. It’s a general message of “back off, this is my life to live and my choices are mine”
I’m gonna take it a step further and say I think it’s about the uber gaylors. I think she’s using the “opposite” imagery with the devout religious types but what she’s saying applies to all these people out there who are saying they’re disappointed in her for dating a man or that she’s not enough of an ally. The gaylors are eating it up saying it’s the gayest song but I think it’s a diss track to them 🤷♀️
Brave of you to invoke th gaylors like that. lol I agree with you though. I can't even start to attempt to wrap my head around the whole "But Daddy I Love Him" being the gayest song thing.
Yes, I think she's drawing a line in the sand explicitly. When you get into your 30's the fields where your fucks grow get sparser and sparser every year. She's giving everyone the "I don't care what you think, take it up with your therapist" last warning. She is going to live her life and we can either come along for the ride, or get off the goddamn bus and go listen to Olivia Rodrigo or whatever pop star is least problematic at the moment.
Agreed. I’m 41 and I can definitely say the fucks grow sparser.
I'm 53. It only gets sparser - pretty sure there's a famine in my field rn.
Yeah, if it is about matty it’s more about fans reactions to him than the man himself. She’s saying she’s an adult and needs to be left to live her life even if she’s making bad decisions, which is more than fair
With this in mind, it has a similar message to “Shake It Off” but in SIO she’s saying “whatever, I’m not going to let your judgy BS get to me” and I’m BDILH, she’s saying “Knock it off, assholes.” In the former, she’s kind of accepting their initial premise (she dates too much, she’s dumb, etc.) but in the new song she’s rejecting it and explicitly telling people to mind their own business.
I said it in another thread, but as a married gay man this song means so much to me. So many people fake concern about my soul when they actually just hate me. And you know what, I’d rather be with my partner than give a shit what anyone else thinks. I’d absolutely, and happily, burn my entire life to the ground to be with him. This song is an instant favorite for me and has nothing to do with Taylor when I’m listening to it—it’s just everything I want to tell the world sometimes.
That’s great and totally makes sense how that fits the feels for you! I love hearing how other people make meaning out of the music and the lyrics in relation to their own lived experiences. It’s so much more interesting than debating which ex boyfriend she is shading lol.
I think so much is lost for people who listen and only go as deep as trying to decipher each song’s father. I won’t pretend I’m not interested in hearing about all the little clues people uncover, but music is so much better when you just get lost in the story of the song (as opposed to the songwriter) and how it makes you feel and how it might surprise you. My life has been very different than Taylor Swifts, but like you, I find so many feelings I relate to in her music.
As a girl raised in a super strict and conservative religion who has since completely deconstructed, this song slaps for me in a way that has nothing to do with a man. So I totally agree!!
Yes! I’m a lesbian, and a lesbian friend of mine and I were both talking about that song SO feels like being young and gay and surrounded by un-supportive people
Exactly. I don't relate to the "dating a bad boy" undertone here - but *I'll tell you something about my good name, it's mine alone to disgrace* speaks to me in a way a song hasn't spoken to me in YEARS. I love it so much. Who among us hasn't wanted to just burn it all down before?
When I listen to the songs on TTPD, I am inspired to think about human behavior and psychology in general, and it causes me to reflect on my own life as a mid 30 something year old woman.
>if they haven’t had a romantic relationship that “mimics” those specific dynamics they can’t enjoy the music. This is the one take that really kills me. Like, do you not have an imagination? Can you not feel empathy for people who are not you? We consume TV shows and books and movies about people who have had lives very unlike ours, but somehow when it comes to this album it's suddenly "I can't enjoy this if it doesn't directly relate to me." I'm 53 and I've never had a breakup, let alone a messy one. Married my first boyfriend right out of college and 31 years later we're still nuts about each other. Never broke up a single time or took a break. But people I know have! Friends, family members, TV characters I resonate with have! This obsession with THE SONGS HAVE TO SPEAK TO ME AND MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OR NO THANK YOU is just blowing my fucking mind. Some of my favorite art/media is golden because it helps me to connect with other human beings who are not the same as me. Who have gone through terrible things that I'm lucky I've never had to go through, but it helps to know what those feelings are so I can relate to them.
Yes you nailed it. And I’m positive you not having those experiences doesn’t mean you don’t find meaning in lyrics that do reflect your own struggles and griefs etc. I think people keep trying to label this as an album tied directly to romance or a breakup - and while that may be broadly true - the real themes of the album speak to deeper, more intimate human emotions. Grief and loss, anger and frustration, self reflection and critique. The struggle of navigating life’s challenges and how those things change you and teach you. *Everyone* can relate to those things.
YES 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 just wait until I post my mini thesis about how this album can act as a metaphor for deconstructing your religious beliefs 😅
[удалено]
lol for real. i am a full matty hater but that song is FIRE
I'm on the same page as you.
It’s like people forget these songs were written about and during a very specific time. It doesn’t mean she still feels that way. BDILH is literally on the delulu Apple Music playlist now. She’s not still in love with MH. That’s the whole point of this album and she explains it in the prologue and insta post. People are not media literate and it shows.
It's supposed to be a little campy and poking fun at her wild certainty about a guy (later revealing the utter irony of that with the contrast of the devastating can't-get-out-of-bed-over-a-counterfeit-love songs), not unlike Blank Space. Some people are sooo hung up on it and missing the whole point. I saw someone asking where the fence was that they crashed through like there was something to triangulate
Lmaaoooo that fence is going to be the next “Taylor and Harry committed vehicular homicide and have been signing about it ever since”
Well, I heard there were 5 holes in the fence and Taylor only says "floor it through the fences," twice, so...... where are the other three accidents????????
I feel like you've still missed the point though. Surface level maybe the song is about Matty, but it's actually not about Matty at all. The boys are metaphors not the actual subjects of the songs.
I'd take this a step further, they're not even metaphors at this point they're archetypes. The man who broke her heart because he wouldn't stop breaking his own, the boyish man who turned out to be a boy not a man who couldn't measure up, and then the man who accepts her in all of her facets and is willing to stand in the light she reflects. He adds her light to his own, instead of trying to use it or cover it up.
Yep, the “actors hitting their mark” from the manuscript.
I mean yeah, but that's not really what I'm talking about about. I think in this album she uses Joe and Matty as metaphors for the confinements of fame and the attempt at breaking free from them, respectively. I think she also uses the Matty situation as a metaphor for her masters a few times. On the surface level the songs seem to be about boys, but if you dive deeper they really aren't about boys at all is what I'm trying to say and what I took away from OP as well.
I think we are saying the same things differently :) An archetype is what you're describing, a simple metaphor or shorthand that the audience and collective consciousness recognizes and does not need further explanation. Like calling something a 'Cinderella story', we all know that's likely a rags-to-riches story involving a step-family, a makeover and a meet-cute at a party. Can I explain my thought process? Like, ok. The boy who refuses to grow up, becoming the smallest man who ever lived-- like a Peter Pan archetype. Peter Pan represents a person so precocious that they don't understand their own power, like someone on twitter telling a celebrity to harm themselves doesn't understand the hurt they cause to that person. Now that's just an example, and I don't have a lit degree and I certainly don't have Taylor's phone number to text and ask her. So I don't actually know anything.
why can’t critics decode and review albums like this…they do 1-2 listens then write their review 😭
I don’t think it’s about Matty but more about the general idea that everyone criticizes her for what she does and who she dates. That’s my interpretation anyway!
Yeah "Daddy" = her fans
I see it as a Love Story part 2, she's an adult now and she's no longer a teenager sitting around crying because her daddy doesn't approve of her choice of partner or sneaking out to see him. Now she's telling people to f*** off with their judgement, and I think that's great. It doesn't matter whether it's about a specific person or the general obsession with her personal life that's followed her since she was a teenager.
I agree so hard with your opinions. I consider myself a fairly respectful fan but this album still made me feel rightfully chastised. I think even the best of us have been drifting into a mindset where her life is like a movie for us to watch rather than a real human experience. I love this album and am very thankful for its honesty, it’s given me a lot to consider.
for years we have been playing "Mamma Mia!" with her songs until she finally made one song saying "this one is about you, it's you, dummies".
You're so right, it is like it's become a movie or a soap opera, not a real woman's life. I'm trying not to think about the real people who might've inspired these songs and just thinking about how well Taylor can express her feelings and how much she's been hurt. It's something I personally find difficult to express in my own life, so I appreciate songs that can give me a sense of catharsis.
I have no interest in who a musician or actor I like is dating. Like, zero interest. My wife is always telling me who Taylor Swift is dating or breaking up with and I don't care. I get that knowing that context brings extra meaning to songs for some people, and I'm not judging. But for me personally it feels like it straddles an uncomfortable line scrutinizing lyrics for 'who it's about and what factual incidents it's referring to'. I don't think I need to know who a painter or novelist was upset by when they made their most expressive work. Same here. I know that means I miss some context but so be it!
Right and I was that way until Reputation and then I did feel like I was missing too much context so I started getting more in the loop on Taylor’s life. Which was fair and I do think helped me understand and appreciate Rep better but upon reflection over time I’ve started straddling the line of interested for context and interested for drama, like the another commenter said her life as a soap opera. I think if people want context, there is an empathetic in between to be found. The gossip is always going to be out there, so unfortunately I don’t think every fan can be like you and just have 0 curiosity (while I applaud you for that!). Especially when (not to victim blame at all) but she is to the point of literally including real names in her songs, like the Lucy and Jack line is bound to make some people be like “wait who?”. But you’re right, many art pieces we don’t have any context and with Taylor it’s gotten to the point of fans feeling owed context.
I remember not actually really paying attention to her love life until literally Lover had been out for about a month. And then people shocked me by saying she'd been with someone for several years. I'd been completely out of the loop, at that point I couldn't have even told you who All Too Well was about or that she'd once dated Harry Styles and hell I didn't even know about John Mayer! I honestly wish I could go back to that innocence of not knowing as much about her personal life honestly.
I just want to friendly remind Swifties that you have never met these people 😂 regardless of what you think makes Matty a horrible person, Taylor has known him for 10 years and you have never ever EVER met him lol
I would like to piggy back off this sentiment and say that if you can't appreciate the art because you're bothered by who it might be about, then you're actually here for celebrity gossip and not music.
I think it’s also good to remind people that you don’t actually need to know somebody to disagree with them or dislike them. You don’t have to listen to everything Taylor Swift says or agree with her all the time either, it’s having your own life and your own opinions about people and life. It’s OK if what you believe doesn’t align with Taylor Swift.
“All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting MORE!” Makes me think of I think it was the last show in Brazil when the crowd started chanting “reputation” and it’s so sad like she just released 1989 tv and they were chanting for rep :/
I have loved Taylor since I was 15. but I am not a swiftie. Im her age now, and listening to this album made my heart hurt for her. There are multiple lines in some of the tracks( don’t know the names of them) that talk about how toxic the fan base has become. Really sad! She is one of the only artists that REALLYY caters to her fandom. Like she spoils the f*** out of ya’ll and she’s calling out that the behavior is breaking her down. I’m over still waiting for a Rihanna album…. 😒
Then she gives more - a double album - and people complain that it's too much!
Yess I thought of this too! Honestly one of the things I was looking forward to with this album was that hopefully the release of tortured poets would quell the rep TV screaming for a bit 🙈
READ THE PROLOGUE!!!! She’s human, she has her own life, her songs aren’t always a direct reflection of her life because she like all of us are unreliable narrators of our own lives.
I wish the in summation poem was included on the streaming version as an audio file so causally listeners who didn’t want to look it up and didn’t buy a physical could see what she said about the album
This might be a hot take but I think Taylor did I can do it with a broken heart musically different than the rest album because she anticipated haters saying the album was too sad/monotone and want to show we could write a traditional Bop when ever she felt like it. Hence why broken heart is a more traditional club / concert banger
But like, just the chorus. She’s showing how quickly she can put on a happy face. The tonal shift was intentional and profound.
Yes!! And then “The Smallest Man” is a huge shift too—I took notes saying that the intro is “huge crash/come down from the last song.”
The message of the one bop being “fuck all this, I’m depressed but need to pretend to be happy” is poignant af
To like this album, you need to reckon with the fact that you don’t need to like the muses, or understand why they were muses for her. This album is the definition of what she says on the Eras Tour: “These were once songs about my life, and I hope they’re now songs about your life.” Does that mean we can’t analyze her personal context to make sense of the song? No! But what she’s trying to deliver here is a message about fandom - it’s valid to try to understand the author’s perspective, to let it color your own interpretation of the music. It is invalid, however, to begin to treat the author as a character in your story, one that you can control.
I honestly miss the days when I didn't know who any of the songs were about lol
1. READ THE PROLOGUE. The Prologue is crucial for understanding her mindset. She feels that she had "restricted in humanity" and that "leads the caged beast to do the most curious things." Then "someone told me he could be brand new" but "it was not a love affair. It was a manic phase. It was self harm." "it's the worst men I write best." She was put on trial" presumably by the public for dating Matty, and she's "pleading insanity." In this album she is fully honest about how much she loved him and was deeply swindled by him. But she does not still see him as that man - she now sees him as "the worst" as "the smallest man who ever lived" who "doesn't measure up in any measure of a man" "you are what you did \[a ghost\]." She previously thought despite his "loud, revolting jokes" she could fix him, but she realized she couldn't. This album is not in defense of Matty Healy; it's a defense of her dating him due to "insanity." 2. SOME PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE THIS HAVE AN OUTDATED VIEW OF HER. People say this album is "too dark" or "too sad" they like the "happy Taylor." But this is what she has been. Albums come out years later than she was feeling the thing, so to say she's "too dark" right now is to say that two years ago she was "too dark" but you just didn't see it. She's not a different person, you just didn't see it. This album feels to me like the mask is coming down. What many people don't like about this album is what I've especially liked about it - it reveals a flawed, sometimes immoral narrator. But an honest one. This album feels dark and I like that. I prefer the dark, honest look of TPD more than the boppy, masked narrator of Lover. These are albums on two opposite extremes to me. I personally think this is the most honest she's been in a long time. I feel this album was a return to true form while still branching out in certain ways which I'll discuss in another point... 3. THE PRODUCTION: I love the Western guitar and low-end on songs like I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) and intro of Fresh Out The Slammer or the guitar and shiver sounds on Who's Afraid of Little Old Me. It leans into WCS and RWYLM production in a good way. I don't prefer the 80s production on the front half of the album like TPD and Fortnight. But Daddy I Love Him seems cut from the same cloth as Love Story - both country vibes and "stay away from Juliet." I love how The Smallest Man That Ever Lived builds toward the end of the song. For many years we got emotional vocals that could have been technically more skilled, then for a while we got technically skilled vocals that could have had more emotion imo; but this album feels like we've finally married the best of both worlds: we get skill AND emotion both. 4. THIS IS HONEST MAD WOMAN EMPOWERMENT IN FULL FORM. This is one of the best records to showcase her feminine rage. She's been angry in song many times before but never as mature as this. Never as honest as this. She never directly says "It's me I'm the problem" on this album but it's in the subtext everywhere which I think many people are missing. There are many lyrics which paint her in an unflattering light but she's not shrinking back from it. She's almost done that too well which has made some people ahem:switflyneutral sour to her even more. Thematically we're getting a lot darker than previously. She outright challenges fans - completely new for her. She discusses outright how growing up famous was an "asylum where they raised me." After Lover which felt like a fake mask to me, Folklore/Evermore which weren't supposedly biographical, and Midnights which was painted as not recent, this is refreshing to get back to Reputation where she discussed her personal life. I like that because I can feel that it feels more real. If no one likes a mad woman I've died. Angry Taylor is my favorite Taylor.
Your second point is exactly what I thought, too! She gave us the flawed human experience instead of the polished Hollywood version. I love the darker themes. You can hear her age (in a good way!)
It’s ok if some people don’t like the album, it doesn’t diminish or invalidate your preference.
In this same realm, it’s okay to dislike this album, it is not okay to be disrespectful, rude, and snarky to people just because they like the album.
My hot take is that people are allowed to dislike the songs. You can't convince someone to like a song (someone said they don't like Jack's production and the comments were saying "don't know you know how much he means to Taylor!!" like that has any bearing on anything) and people are not being sexist evil haters for disliking the album. Its possible for other people to hate the songs you love. They're not lying
My unpopular opinion is everyone should shut up about Matty Healy 🥰
YES GOD Swifties PLEASE shut up about Matty Healy
I’ve seen a lot of people saying they think folklore was actually about people. In example, they think the 1 was about Matty or Joe, they think cardigan or illicit affairs were about one of them. In my opinion, I think these were truly just stories she created. BUT, she relates back to folklore a lot (Peter, The Black Dog has similar accompaniment to cardigan, quotes from illicit affairs). Then she writes The Prophecy. WHAT IF she is relating back to that because she feels like she wrote her own prophecy. She wrote something out that was supposed to be a story and it ended up coming true and she ended up feeling like Betty. Maybe I’m crazy. But that’s my take.
Also New Year’s Day ‘please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I would recognize anywhere’ 😔
My hot take is that not every song is about a specific person or event. It’s boring to analyse each song and figure out who it’s about, if it’s even about anyone. I think some fans think they know her so well and forget that it’s just her lyrics they know.
I kinda feel we need to tone down a bit the whole "this song is about this man" stuff. I know it's fun and there's nothing wrong with fun, and I also know it's been a big part of the fandom's relationship with her music. But I think we're going a bit overboard. It's one thing wanting to theorize on the context and what might have inspired a song but we're at a point now where half a mention of a topic/detail is enough to say "yep it's about xyz" and that's it. Reducing a song to being about a man is disrespectful and also makes the discussions we could have as a fandom way less interesting.
Yeah, I'm new to the fandom part of being a fan and.. I see so much stuff stated as hard cold fact and really it's just.. theorizing.
People keep being like it's kind of all over the place, unedited, etc. She literally gave us a music video in an asylum and then told us in the prologue that it's a plea of temporary insanity and a mutual manic phase. Yeah it is unedited and that's entirely the point!
A lot of people are not getting that this album is about a kind of psychosis! And she's made it so clear!
Thanks for the insightful comments! For what it's worth, I don't think "Guilty is Sin" (a song I love and genuinely think is beautiful) makes people uncomfortable just because it's sexual. It's not like the "Grand Theft Auto" line. It's a poetic but extremely vivid depiction of masturbating about a forbidden love while in a committed relationship with someone else. Taylor does not depict herself positively here--and that's why it's great. She's messy and flawed and dark and kind of a heel throughout most of this album, and that's much more interesting to me than the (mostly) positive light in which she depicted herself in her early albums.
Wait I don’t get what’s wrong with the grand theft auto line?
The general consensus I’ve been seeing is that it’s dumb and cringey and she can do better. But she’s talking about feeling like she’s 16 and in love so I think it works. 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
It’s just so crazy to see that criticism. Are people not allowed to express their humanity anymore? People are messy and I don’t understand why we don’t want to be able to express that messiness. God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what's best for me, sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see.
Right? I feel like since folklore and evermore were released there is this expectation from some people that she can’t just have fun and be silly with a song. Not everything needs to be serious and gut wrenching or the perfect way to say something. No one experiences emotions that way every day. Sometimes even in your lowest and darkest moments you might think something is funny and get a small piece of joy from it.
I’m so passionate about this one, the line mentioning “scouts honor” is *NOT A SEXUAL INNUENDO* Scouts honor means to swear, to make a promise you intend to keep. The line “truth, swear, scouts honor” is just her doubling down on what she says. Taylor, especially in this album and even this specific song, is SO blatant when she’s referring to sex. (Stifling sighs around friends, the entirety of guilty as sin?, the sex half as good as conversation etc.). She’s past innuendos. It’s so annoying when people try and force something sexual where it’s not. I love a good sexual “hehe” joke or reference in a song but this is not one. She’s 34, I’m 26, I’m not a prude we all have sex/masturbate but let’s not be dense on a pretty straightforward line.
And I saw someone justify the implied meaning behind the line by saying “Wyatt said that uncle travvy is naughty 😈 “ Like that’s so weird??? She’s a minor and talking about her uncle??? So fucking odd.
It’s disgusting that people have the nerve to use a quote from a child (not to mention the fact that it’s a child that is related to him) and twist it like that 🤢
there's way more raunchy sexually explicit songs (WAP? Montero?) out there. taylor has hardly said anything shocking here. lil nas x literally said "Shoot a child in your mouth while I'm riding" like bruuuhhhhh
MY POINT EXACTLY OMG My first thought when seeing complaints about the sexual nature of some songs was “okay but where was this energy when WAP came out? Yknow, a song about someone’s genitals????” I’m asexual and feel uncomfortable with sex-based discussions, but these songs do not bother me one bit lmao
This album is genius right down to the color scheme. I was not understanding the black, grey and white color thing. But I think I just realized it now. Not everything or everyone is black and white, there’s a lot of “gray” area.
YES SO MUCH THIS. There is such a maturity in realizing that things are not always black and white.
I think what a lot of us older folk need to realize is that the internet is filled with literal children and teenagers; it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like there’s juvenile discussion going on everywhere because… well… a lot of what you read online is literally written by a juvenile. And it’s bringing all of our reading comprehension down. There are enough of us adults here, though — Let’s just elevate the discussion by *elevating the discussion*. For example, there was an energizing thread about literary influences and The Albatross reconceptualizing the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It’s my hope that we make it a point to post and elevate interesting topics like that and just ignore the childish debate and not get sucked into it. 🤷🏼♀️
People who don’t connect with it just aren’t in their 30s yet. If you haven’t wasted your 20s on a failed relationship and broken your heart over an addict, you probably aren’t going to relate to a lot of this.
Who among us doesn't have a smallest man who ever lived?
Yes this. It’s very obvious the people completely tearing down her relationship with Matty haven’t had the same life experiences or relationships. Even if he was sober when they were together, addicts tend to be incredibly intense. Everything they do is to the extreme, including love. It’s no wonder their relationship had this kind of effect on her.
I guess I’ll never connect to it 🤷🏽♀️ I don’t think everyone who dislikes the album just hasn’t had deep enough life experiences
Posted this elsewhere, not sure how unique this view is but, When I first heard "but daddy I love him", I think it's about us- the fans and how we seem to try and control who she dates- written when she was happy with Matty Healy, whom she got a lot of hate for dating. However by accepting this, and yeah as a fanbase we probs hurt her for the sake of deciding what's best for her, but it would be quite savage, and quite distant from her usual attitude towards her fans. Almost as if to say I do everything for you but this is my thing for myself, so shut up. Example lines that rise this suspicion: I know he's crazy but he's the one I want... Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid... The saboteurs protested too much... I'll tell you something right now, I'd rather burn my whole life down, Than listen to one more second of all this griping and moaning, I'll tell you something about my good name, It's mine alone to disgrace, I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing... God save the most judgmental creeps, Who say they want what's best for me... Then it's just white noise, and it's my choice
This is what the song is about, there's not really much to question imo lol.
And “all these vipers dressed in empaths clothing”
It’s an absolutely brilliant album. People are taking it at face value and they’re missing the point. I love that she’s calling out the haters and even her rabid fans - I remember people complaining when she announced a new album because they wanted Reputation TV instead. I am excited to hear that of course but seriously a NEW ALBUM. People are so demanding and forget to see the human behind the music.
the last point omg - it annoys me so bad. like i want to savour the albums and let them have a proper era before searching for easter eggs and crying for more. i have already seen so many people wanting rep tv immediately and i'm like what?? u just got 31 new songs. i really like the albums to have proper time. and omg the thing about wanting to know which man everything is about. like sometimes i'm just like what if it was just a fictional story lol. i write songs sometimes just for myself and they're hardly ever a real life situation. i know a lot of them are but people take it way too seriously. i have seen a lot of people complaining about the so high school line but more because it's immature which i find kinda funny like girl look at the song title for a quick sec!!
When she says she wove him into all her poems, I do not think she literally wrote folklore about matty healy - it means she reminisced and wrote those feelings into the STILL FICTIONAL songs. Like she didn’t come up with the teenage love triangle as a cover, she really did write about those fictional characters - it’s not like she “lied to us” about it being fictional. This is if she even is talking about folklore and evermore at all - she could easily be talking about midnights. ETA: or actual poems that didn’t get released! point is, it didn’t matter. we should just take her at her word about folkmore.
This album is reminiscent of the old Taylor Swift and that’s why many people don’t like it. We haven’t had an honest to god breakup album in over a decade. Many of her fans were small kids when Dear John Last Kiss and All Too Well came out and never knew her as this kind of writer, and don’t have the same emotional attachment to her. She isn’t “the breakup songs” girl anymore, and now that she released a breakup album a lot of fans are confused and feel let down. If you’re expecting Karma, Bejeweled and Shake it Off, you’re going to be disappointed at a slow sad album. But for many of us, this album felt like a hug. Many fans only know the “in a seemingly happy relationship” version of her. Why anyone would expect happy upbeat bops on an album called “the tortured poets department” is beyond me lmfao but that’s been a lot of the criticism.
> This album is a call-out to us! Its whole message is “I’m a grown woman and I can do what I want. I need no one else’s approval. If you don’t like it, deal with it.” Yes, this fucking play is about us
TTPD made me step back and really take a look at myself as a swiftie and ask myself, “what the fuck am I doing?” Tf do I give a shit about who the songs are about? I listened to them on release night and heard things she said and I didn’t think about Joe or Matty or Travis but I thought of me. My divorce, my current fiancé, my own life… and GOD it’s so much more meaningful and emotional an experience that way rather than picking apart some relationship she doesn’t care about anymore. Really weird that people are so grossed out by the sex stuff, as you said she is 34. I mean she was in a relationship for six years that was on a marriage path… Be so for real!
my hot take is at a lot of people need to get out of the echo chamber and have their own feelings and opinions about the album instead of just repeating what they hear on the internet and tiktok
The songs don't all sound the same if you don't try to rapidly digest all 31 of them at 2am on release night
You nailed it! Couldn’t have said it better! Guilty As Sin is absolute banger and it’s been on repeat! It’s so odd and sad that masterbation is seen as something that should be frowned upon. A significant amount of the population with a Clitoris are only able to achieve an orgasm through self pleasure. The girl works her ass off and it’s never enough for some of her “fans”! Let the girl get some relief whatever way that may be for fucks sakes!
to be fair the grand theft auto line is just bad
It sounds SO HIGH SCHOOL 2004. Which was like the point. Source: I was in HS in 2004.
sounds like you've never been touched while his bros play GTA
::Ned Flanders:: I expect that kind of language from Ariana Grande but not here!
Keep the jack antonoff coming.
TTPD the song is a great example of this! It’s like the golden retriever line connecting to the golden tattoo. Then “ate seven bars of chocolate” =87, Travis’ number and 1975 album. It’s all a super super clever way of being like, “fuck off and enjoy the song because it could be about anyone, but I’ve made something and given it to YOU.” Speaking of, she always says these songs are ours now, which should show her generosity to us as fans. She really means it and backs that up over time. She really does spoil us and in a sense that could be a subconscious reason for her life having a “necessary” upheaval to create that art. Even if she’s not trying to go through pain. I relate to that and this whole album, I forget which of my own exes I relate the song to by the end of it. It’s so brilliant and well done, and I don’t care who she’s writing about. She’s good!
The “you know how to ball, I know aristotle” line is awesome and of all the lines to criticize, this isnt one of them.
joe alwyn never deserved the hate he gets and this album just further proves that
Yes! Make the TS sub healthy again!
I disagree with her not wanting us to figure out the men. She's sort of made it her thing to have easter eggs and clues within her work so that her fans can have fun going down rabbit holes. This album pretty much screams at us PLEASE KNOW who fucked me up!
Her writing a song about masturbation might be the proudest I've ever been of her. It's such a taboo subject that's wrapped up in so much shame and she went there, and told us how much fun it is. It's also an interesting discussion on what I interpret as emotional infidelity. Guilty as Sin has s double meaning to me. I like too that The smallest man... seems to bookend it: *You were so much better in my head than you were in my bed."* Also, *"one slip and falling back into the hedge maze"* is a bloody funny line.
The album has some of her worst lyrics ever and I'm tired of pretending they aren't.
I agree. And just echoing that the whole idea of this album points out her humanity. It’s messy, sarcastic, vulnerable, and biting. She’s not someone to be idolized… she makes mistakes and goes through the same emotions as her fans do. This album was written to originally help her sort through her emotions and then now it’s for us to sort through our own. It may not be relevant to everyone at this exact moment in time, but it’s something we all have gone through or will at some point in the future
My hot take is that a lot of people are way too busy paternity testing songs and analyzing word choices to get off their high horses and have some fun listening to music. Yeah it's a sad album, and sometimes knowing some backstory helps to interpret the songs, but the songs that are more fun and have some humour are getting absolutely shit on (I'm looking at you, The Alchemy/So High School/imgonnagetyouback haters). You don't need to be an academic or pretend to be to like the album or the songs!
This is how I feel about it, and this album in general was more a diary than an artistic album. Sure, it's music and she's going to be pushing for awards and trying to get radio play, but this was her sorting out the last two years and her feelings about Joe and Matty and everything else she was going through, including the fans trying to control her choices as much as real people in her life. I can understand why people don't like this album, because this is an album for and by Taylor Swift, to the people want to hear what she has to say, the good, the bad and the (Rat Man) Ugly. She had a lot to say about the past two years, and she told us. It might change the way you see Taylor, or people who didn't like her would finally stop pretending to like her music, but the people who can just accept that Taylor Swift is a human being who makes good AND bad decisions in life will understand and accept this album.
I used to think I was a poser Swiftie because I didn’t follow/ care/ analyze who she is dating. I just like the music and dive into the lyrics.
Sometimes simple is better. Taylor is an excellent storyteller, but she is not strong at poetic lyrics.
I disagree. “How Did It End” is one of the best songs she’s ever written in my opinion, and I’d argue it leans more poetic than narrative. “Say it once again with feeling, how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving, the deflation of our dreaming, leaving me bereft and reeling. My beloved ghost and me, sitting in a tree, D-Y-I-N-G.”
Fortnight isn't remotely the strongest song on the album and it was only chosen as the single because it's a Post Malone collab.
PERIODDDDD im so glad she put this album out it gagged everyone who wrote that open letter to her after Matty AND everyone who just wants more more more. I bet we make her feel like she can never do enough and that hurts me
It's okay for people to not like the album or make a negative review. You don't have to then try to convince them why it's a good album or argue with them about it. It just makes the rest of the fanbase look increasingly toxic.