Two years ago, a newly released album changed my life.
It sounds dramatic and maybe even a little parasocial, but The Tortured Poets Department came into my life at exactly the moment I needed something to put into words what I was feeling.
On the evening of April 18, 2024, in the middle of my senior year of high school, I sat on FaceTime with my friend Mia, waiting anxiously for Taylor Swift to release her 11th studio album. In the middle of a stressful and uncertain time, when I had no idea where life was taking me and my college plans weren’t unfolding the way I’d imagined, it felt comforting to know I had something to ground me.
Music has always been how I process life. I connect memories, emotions, and moments to lyrics that say what I cannot. From the moment the tracklist for The Tortured Poets Department was announced, I knew this album would understand me and probably break my heart all at once.
But all is fair in love and poetry.
Now, two years later, I sit here as another tortured poet reflecting on why this album still means so much to me. I know it sounds cliché to say that I felt understood through Taylor Swift’s music. It’s not that I think I know her personally, it’s that this album gave language to emotions I didn’t know how to articulate.
That is why I keep listening to it on repeat. Without fail, at least two of the songs have appeared in my Spotify Wrapped Top Five for the past two years.
People love to say that replaying sad music means “wallowing.” But for me, these songs don’t trap me in sadness; they help me process and embrace it. The thoughts that these songs resonate with help them become something poetic and understandable.
Before this album, I had favorite songs and favorite artists, but I had never loved an entire album the way I love The Tortured Poets Department. Across its songs, it explores heartbreak, obsession, healing, and above all, self-reflection.
One of the most powerful ways Taylor Swift conveys the aforementioned is through the unlimited questions.
Throughout the album, Taylor asks question after question, not always expecting answers, but forcing reflection. Those questions create space for listeners to sit with their own emotions and uncertainties.
In “Fortnight,” she asks, “What about your quiet treason?” – a question that captures the unspoken betrayals that happen in relationships.
In “The Tortured Poets Department,” she asks, “Who else decodes you? Who’s gonna know you, if not me?” These questions capture the devastation of losing someone who knew you deeply, and the fear that no one will ever understand you that way again.
In “So Long, London,” she asks, “How much sad did you think I had in me?”– a heartbreaking reflection on how much pain someone can endure before breaking.
In “The Black Dog,” she asks, “Do you hate me?”– a question that exposes the insecurity and self-doubt that heartbreak leaves behind.
And in “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” she asks, “Was any of it true?” This is a devastating question that captures what betrayal feels like when trust is shattered. This song especially feels like one of the most poetic pieces on the album and has been my favorite. From the moment I heard it, I kept it on repeat. It captures the spiral of trying to make sense of deception and wondering if anything was ever real, or if every moment was part of a lie.
Side note: The performance of it at the Eras Tour is so perfect with raw emotion and sentiment.
That is what The Tortured Poets Department does so well: It asks the questions we are often too afraid to ask ourselves.
Other questions to note from more tracks:
- “Will I always wonder?” (“Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus”)
- “Am I allowed to cry?” (“Guilty as Sin?”)
- “Who’s gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames, if we know the steps anyway?” (“loml”)
- “How did it end?” (“How Did it End?”)
- “Is it something I did?” (“Peter”)
- Even without answers, asking those questions matters. They accept uncertain endings that allow for new beginnings.
Besides the questioning that resonates with Taylor Swift’s audience, this album changed my life. It allowed me to see the poetry of the unknown. During a very stressful senior year of high school, the album gave me language when I had none. It helped me understand my own hopes and validated the questions I carried about myself and my future.
Two years later, I still return to it, not because it keeps me stuck in those feelings, but because it reminds me that even confusion and heartbreak can be turned into something meaningful.
That’s what poetry does.
And that’s what The Tortured Poets Department did for me.
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