The Tortured Poets Department is Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album, set to release on April 19th, 2024. This album- which is allegedly the official break-up album for Swift’s relationship with Joe Alwyn- was created following the release of her 10th studio album, Midnights, and throughout her record-breaking Eras Tour. It has 16 songs and several bonus tracks, and now that the track titles have been released, I’m gonna go through them one by one and share what I think each song is about.
Track 1: “Fortnight (feat Post Malone)”
There have been some jokes online using sounds from the video game Fortnite, but I highly doubt that that’s what this song is about. The word “fortnight” means fourteen days or 2 weeks, and is most commonly used in British English. Her former boyfriend Joe Alwyn is English. I think this is going to be about an event that happened between Swift and Alwyn within the time frame of 2 weeks. Now, the Post Malone feature is a bit confusing, but both artists have written about longing, regret, and doomed love affairs, so it makes sense for the duo to start the album with a song that follows those themes.
Track 2: “The Tortured Poets Department”
Around half of Swift’s albums don’t have a title track. When the album was announced, Swift released a snippet of lyrics, though she did not identify which song they come from:
“And so I enter into evidence
My tarnished coat of arms
My muses, acquired like bruises
My talismans and charms
The tick, tick, tick of love bombs
My veins of pitch black ink.”
And then separately:
“All’s fair in love and poetry…
Sincerely,
The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department.”
I believe these lyrics are from this song.
Track 3: “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”
This, I believe, is Swift calling out Alwyn for thinking of her as a toy and that he breaks her when she is giving him nothing but love.
Track 4: “Down Bad”
“Down bad” is a slang term that means “in a bad state or condition.” This could be about Swift in a state of depression or generally in bad condition after having broken up with Alwyn.
Track 5: “So Long, London”
If you’ve been a fan of Swift for any amount of time, then you know Track 5 is very important to her. It’s usually the most heartbreaking song on the entire album- take “Dear John,” “All Too Well,” and “tolerate it,” for example. I think that this song is going to be the exact opposite of her song “London Boy” from Lover. Swift is going to be saying goodbye to London, where she previously lived with Alwyn. It could also represent Swift letting Alwyn go since their break up. This is definitely going to be one to watch out for.
Track 6: “But Daddy I Love Him”
There are two running theories for this song. The first is that the song title is referring to a quote from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Swift dressed up as the movie’s protagonist, Ariel, for Halloween in 2019. This could be Swift saying that her parents didn’t like Alwyn and she had to convince them that she loved him. The second theory is that this is a reference to a shirt that Harry Styles wore with that same quote. Even then, the message is still the same: convincing an authoritative figure (or yourself) that emotion outweighs logic.
Track 7: “Fresh Out the Slammer”
This is going to be THE song of the summer. The allusion to jail can refer to being trapped in a relationship and then being released.
Track 8: “Florida!!! (feat Florence + the Machine)”
There’s been a video circulating social media recently of Swift at her show in Tampa, Florida where she wipes away a tear during the transition from her song “Lover” to “The Archer.” So it might be safe to say that this is going to somehow involve that weekend and the reason why she was crying. Florence + the Machine is an English indie rock band, but they’ve dipped into a couple of other genres like rock and soul. Still, I think hat this is more likely to be a folk/indie song.
Track 9: “Guilty as Sin?”
If you listen to Swift like I do, you know that “guilty as sin” is a lyric from her song “Carolina,” which she wrote for the movie Where the Crawdads Sing. With this in mind, I think that the song could mean that Alwyn is guilty of something either Swift or the world considers a sin. Before the news broke of their break-up, a co-star of Alwyn’s posted photos where it looked like the two of them were hanging out by themselves. Could that have been a date? Could he have been cheating?
Track 10: “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
“If guys don’t want me to write bad songs about them then they shouldn’t do bad things” is a direct quote from Swift in her early years. I think this song is going to straight up show Alwyn that he did something bad and now Swift feels the need to expose that to the entire world.
Track 11: “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”
This mentality is a sign of a toxic relationship. I think that this song is going to be Swift saying that she felt controlled by Alwyn and put down when with him.
Track 12: “loml”
There are two people that this song could be about: Travis Kelce and Joe Alwyn. This means that it’s either a break-up song or a love song. If Swift has been writing this throughout the Eras Tour, then it could be a song about Kelce, whom she met and started dating while on tour.
Track 13: “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
Swift has had an extraordinary career, with 10 albums, 4 re-released albums (and 2 more pending), 3 documentaries, and multiple world tours. 13 is Swift’s favorite number, so her Track 13 means something. I believe that this song is going to be Swift talking about how she has done so much of this while battling heartbreak.
Track 14: “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
Saying someone is “small” is putting them down, calling them ordinary, and the addition of “Who Ever Lived” means that that the person is insignificant and even insecure. It’s Swift saying that Alwyn was irrelevant before dating her. I don’t know if this rumor is true or not, but some say that there might be a songwriting credit for William Bowery, which is a pseudonym that Alwyn has previously used.
Track 15: “The Alchemy”
Alchemy is an old form of science focused on trying to find a prolonged or indefinite life. Swift could be saying that she thought the relationship was going to last forever but ended up failing.
Track 16: “Clara Bow”
Clara Bow was an American actress who appeared in silent films. Directors used her to help fill movie seats because anyone would watch her movies. This could refer to Alwyn using his relationship with Swift to make him more popular.
Bonus Track: “The Manuscript”
To me, this gives off “Dear Reader” vibes, but there are theories that this could be a voice track of Swift just talking. She did this back on the original 1989 album, where she released voice memos about her songwriting process.
Bonus Track 2: “The Bolter”
Swift announced this new track at Night 2 of her Eras Tour stop in Melbourne, Australia. Throughout their 6 years of dating, Alwyn and Swift were rarely seen together; if they were out on a date, Alwyn would grab Swift and bolt out the door to their car, making sure paparazzi took as few photos of them as possible. Is this Swift referring to how they were almost exclusively ever seen together bolting to the car?
Swift is a big fan of easter eggs and there is no doubt we’ll be seeing more throughout this album, but the biggest easter egg we have so far is a group chat Alwyn is in called the “tortured man’s club,” which most likely helped create the title for this album. Either way, Swift is dishing out something worse than what has been called the “Harry Styles treatment.” This is bound to be another album of the year.