As Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department’s release approaches, we begin to reflect on her ever-evolving storytelling and narratives from her early-country days to her current pop, mainstream sound. This album has been described as something comparable to her album Red and Folklore that have more intricate storytelling and a softer sound with acoustic instruments, rather than a deep electronic dance bass. Because of this, the album is anticipated by all who wish to gain insight to the superstar’s tumultuous love life following her breakup from the British actor, Joe Alwyn, who she dated for six years, someone the public believed she would eventually marry as he has been the muse of her past 5 studio albums. He also has co-writing credits on many of the songs on these albums when they would write together during the pandemic.
Taylor Swift has not released a breakup album since her 2012 release of Red, even though the public looks at Midnights as an emerging breakup album based on its vagueness and melancholic songwriting. With this, we must note that her confessional songwriting always gets to the heart of her innermost insecurities and anxieties, and this is why people find her writing so relatable, especially from a young age when she would write about young teenage love like in “Love Story” or “You Belong with Me.”
Taylor Swift categorizes her songs into three categories based on the varying lyricism and purpose of each song. There are quill pen songs, fountain pen songs, and glitter gel pen songs. Specifically, quill pen songs are wholly literary with complex lyrics and storytelling that may not directly correlate to her own life experiences. This can be found on songs like “The Last Great American Dynasty,” “hoax,” and “ivy,” just to name a few. Fountain pen songs are confessional and pertain to Taylor’s life specifically. These contain lines that get to the heart of emotion in a specific way. This is seen on songs like “All Too Well” and “White Horse.” Lastly, glitter gel songs are upbeat and pop-focused, such as with “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “Blank Space.”
Based on various Easter Eggs by Taylor herself, there will be only quill and fountain pen songs on this album, meaning we are in for an emotional, deep ride with heart wrenching, beautifully written lyrics. However, as we listen to her albums and look at her narrative songwriting, it is clear that the public has a fascination with the unreliable narrator.
An unreliable narrator is someone who is not telling the audience or reader the whole truth. Examples of an unreliable narrator include: Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, Forrest Gump in the titular Forrest Gump, or Rue in Euphoria. Usually, these characters are multifaceted and going through much conflict that causes them to be an untrustworthy narrator. However, we continue to be fascinated with trying to deconstruct the reason why they are unreliable to begin with. Through a culture critical lens, we can consider and argue that Taylor Swift is an unreliable narrator through her past albums, which are literary works in their own right.
First, her albums Folklore and Evermore are described as depicting fictional stories, rather than following her usual diaristic narrative writing in her past albums that she is known for. During the pandemic, she explains in an interview with Zane Lowe, that her “world felt opened up creatively” where she could continue to experiment with her writing and sound. For instance, Folklore has an imaginary love triangle created within a fictional landscape, and Evermore consists of two characters that are tied together romantically in”‘tis the damn season” and “dorothea.”
However, fans are beginning to see that on songs like “evermore” and “tolerate it,” there are signs in her writing that her relationship with Joe was not doing well. Also, her album, Lover, an album that is supposed to be about the happiest moments in her life with the one she loves, consists of songs filled with dread, anxiety, and internal guilt associated with her relationship with Joe shown on songs like “Afterglow,” “Cornelia Street,” and “Death by a Thousand Cuts.” This last song is actually one she also promoted based on fictional elements, but it causes us to reevaluate in the grand scheme of things.
To promote her upcoming album, Taylor released Apple Music playlists where she put songs from her past discography aligning with the various 5 stages of grief when a breakup occurs. This has fueled speculation and conjecture before the release of the album, a genius marketing move to get people to listen to her new music.
Taylor Swift wishes to portray herself in a specific way when she is in public, and she deliberately does this with what she picks and chooses the public to know in her songs. We see this especially with the release of the vault songs with her re-recorded albums that are left off albums, such as “Nothing New” that goes into harrowing, sorrowful details about her experience as a young girl in Hollywood. Her songs are unfiltered, but promoted to the public in a filtered view where we believe what she says about what certain songs are about, even when they could be about something else entirely. This may be because like all humans Taylor does not want to admit the flaws and faults in her lift, but would rather hide from them.
Swifties see her recent albums in a new light based on the breakup, and how things were falling apart before the public announcement. It causes us to question what is true, and what is pure coincidence. Her recent vague songwriting on Midnights felt as if she was trying to cover up what was truly going on, causing us to consider her an unreliable narrator. However, it seems The Tortured Poets Department will grant us clarity into what happened, and her journey with overcoming the loss of such a long relationship in her life that began during a tumultuous period for her when she was canceled in 2016.
As a longtime Swiftie, I am so excited to get the raw emotion and storytelling that cuts deep, something that felt like it was missing on Midnights. The English major in me cannot wait to dissect the story and fallout, while also supporting our queen along the way as she releases an album about heartbreak when she is in a loving relationship with Travis Kelce. A true juxtaposition, if I ever saw one, which I believe is very fitting for Taylor.