taking time with the tortured poets department
let's bask in the unknown
Dear Reader,
It’s been exactly one week since The Tortured Poets Department came out. I am astounded by how many opinions I’ve stumbled upon by accident, claiming a definitive stance on the album already. This is the nature of reviewing culture, of course, which is why I abandoned a momentary career in arts journalism. I’m so tired of talking about art in terms of ‘how good it is’, especially when it came out like, yesterday.
Open online platforms (like this one) make publishing more accessible than ever, allowing more voices in the discussion. With the tools to publish freely and readily, however, I encourage my fellow creators to claim this space on fresh terms. Let’s not compete for who’s first to comment on the next big thing. Let’s take our time. Let’s not confuse our desire to talk about art in the competitive, judgemental way that we’re used to seeing publications printing about it. Let’s be more creative and more thoughtful.
Last week I recorded a podcast gently responding to The Tortured Poets Department, four days after the album came out. I was excited to talk about it, but also hesitant to assert any opinions, because music takes time to land in my being. But the thing is, I want to be a voice in this discussion. I’m experimenting with being that voice in a way that honours my feelings in the present moment, while also advocating that we bask in the unknown.
In the past, I have experienced the temptation to sound smart by having opinions fully formed on something right away. These days, I would rather be wise than smart. Our fast-paced, instant gratification culture is overwhelming. My antidote to this is getting comfortable in the wonder of the unknown. Or, as Dr Taylor Alison Swift calls it, the Lavender Haze.
Below, you will not find a review rating the merits or criticising the failures of this album. You will find some current musings that this album, and Midnights before it, has struck in me.
Sincerely and Slowly,
Xandra
P.S. I’ve been enjoying discovering more likeminded listeners this week. @blabbertok on tiktok is my new favourite :)
One Poet’s Current Musings on The Tortured Poets Department, and on Midnights and reputation:
Let’s start where we left off in the letter above: The Lavender Haze.
Taylor began her career by sharing diaristic confessions from her inner world and her personal life. In recent years, she has since experimented with how to retain intimacy through her music while protecting her privacy. She can no longer be as open, because of her level of fame, and for the last seven years, to protect the sanctity of her relationship with an especially fame-avoidant partner.
Midnights was released in October 2022 and their breakup was announced in April 2023. Taylor’s very telling Midnights Vault track You’re Losing Me (with a limited release in May 2023) was written in December 2021, according to Jack Antonoff.
Taylor Swift’s albums are not only music: they are puzzles. Her public persona is a key element to decoding the fun.
She created a video explaining the meaning behind Lavender Haze, which she has since deleted (while all other Midnights videos remain). She led us to believe that this is a song about the haze of being in love. After announcing her breakup, the line “you aren’t even listening” takes on a contrasting meaning: from a lover who has eyes only for her and not her reputation, to a lover who won’t listen to her as she alerts him, “You’re Losing Me”. These are both valid interpretations of the song. She planted a double meaning, aware that her public image creates context for the character in the song. It is impossible to rate and review Midnights in October 2022 because our vision of that character was HAZY.
With The Tortured Poets Department, the papers are out of the filing cabinet and strewn onto the floor. She’s given us the key to decode cryptic references on Midnights, such as the blatant reference to “scarlet maroon” that connects the muse of Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus with the one in Maroon. It doesn’t matter who the song is about in her reality, but the deliberate clues linking these two songs is part of the story unfolding. To rate this album musically is a totally different game from the mystery she has woven.
This album settles in my mind like staring at a table of jigsaw pieces.
In time I’ll be more confident how they fit together, but for now, I am enjoying the game. I enjoy not quite knowing. I enjoy the aggravation of not remembering what song had the lyric confessing to have woven a lost lover into her albums! It’s definitely there but I can’t remember where! let me know if you do. Taylor’s discography, “like any real love, [is] ever changing”. That’s the beauty of it.
If you don’t relate to The Tortured Poets Department, good news: you’re not tortured.
Those who ‘don’t get it’ might not be so tortured, or not tortured in the way Taylor is on these songs. Or not so tortured right now. That’s how I felt, when reputation first came out. It took years for me to ‘get it’ because I was fortunate enough to not experience betrayal as deeply as she did in writing that record.
Taylor’s best work draws on specific pain points in her life. This album juxtaposes two major instances of a broken heart: the long fizzling out and the fresh sudden wound. For those who have experienced something like this, it is cathartic to feel seen in these songs. But there is an element of timing as well - there is no pressure to relate to this album (certainly not this intense album!) in this moment, when maybe it speaks more to a time in your past, or one in your future. This is what I love about the Eras Tour concept - which era are you in? It changes over time. (If you’re in your TTPD Era… I hope you’re ok!). Or, perhaps you will never have a TTPD Era, but now have an idea of what someone experiencing one is really going through, and the depth of that pain we don’t see on the surface.
She is successful because of her ability to speak to those who do get it.
Perhaps Taylor’s greatest challenge of all is shedding the role of “pathological people pleaser”. Her documentary, Miss Americana, centres her anxiety around being a ‘good girl.’ Take a look at older interviews she’s done, and the kind of accusatory questions she gets, to get an idea of why she presented herself in this way.
The more honest Taylor is with herself, the more powerful her songs become. This has nothing to do with genre. From Shake It Off to All Too Well (10 Minute Version) she transmutes personal experiences into art. Taylor herself didn’t seem ready to fully embrace the ‘villain mode’ that reputation presented. In an interview she claimed that the songs were about her own hurt, mixed with Game of Thrones. Fiction allows us to process emotions from a safe distance. This does not make it any less true or real. It is simply a way in - and she has many.
In The Tortured Poets Department, she paints herself in her least flattering light yet.
She voices inappropriate thoughts from wishing death on enemies to fantasising about an old flame. She asks “Is that a bad thing to say in a song?” and says it anyway. She has come to terms with the fact that she cannot control the public’s reaction to her. She plays with the shock value at her fingertips in But Daddy I Love Him heeheehee.
There’s a reason the patriarchy don’t want women to stay in the spotlight as they mature. It’s because they get wiser.
Beyond not caring what people think, she continues to embody the confidence that she is right. In this album, she has the reveals herself as vulnerable, ugly, and sad. It might make her look bad, but it doesn’t mean that she is bad. She also doesn’t take responsibility for making a show out of her hurt like she did in reputation, summed up in Look What You Made Me Do. This is not a criticism of reputation, but a reflection on that stage of her growth. Even in heartbreak, Taylor has firmer foundation than she did at that point of her career. She can rest her typewriter on the surface she’s built. It’s no longer about reclaiming the narrative. She now has the freedom to tell it how it is. The words speak for themselves, resonating with those who have been there too.
These are my raw thoughts on how I approach listening to a new Taylor Swift album. I look forward to the new gems of discovery that arrive as I take more time with it ☺️
X