We took a closer look at Taylor's new songs for you

Taylor announced her 11th Studio Album at this year’s Grammy Awards and Swifties all around the world couldn’t wait for the release of her newest tracks. Having already generated a lot of buzz with the various song titles, fans can now finally listen to the sounds behind the cryptic titles.
 

Already hinting at trouble in paradise with songs like “Hits different”, “The Great War” and most recently “You’re losing me”, we can now get more insight into her relationship and break up with British actor Joe Alwyn last year. It literally took Swifties five minutes to figure out that the title “The Tortured Poets Department” could be a reference to Joe Alwyn's WhatsApp group with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott called "The Tortured Man Club". 
 

Swift started writing songs for the new album pretty much right after finishing “Midnights” and states: "I have never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets." 

Is this Taylor Swifts rawest and most emotional album yet? Let’s just say - fans are in for a wild ride! 
 

About her new album Taylor writes: “The Tortured Poets Department. An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”

The Tortured Poets Department features 16 songs and 15, yes 15! Bonus tracks on the Deluxe version called The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology including collaborations with the American rapper Post Malone on “Fortnight” and the English indie rock band Florence and the Machine for “Florida!!!” So Swifties in total have 31 new songs to add to their playlist.

Fortnight is also the album’s first single:

Surprising her fans with a 2 am double album drop Taylor says:

“It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album. ✌️ I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”

The two album versions sound significantly different with Jack Antonoff producing the majority of the main album and Aaron Dessner the added tracks on The Anthology, 

Apart from songs around her 6-year relationship, surprised Swifties quickly noticed that Taylor also seemingly hinted in quite a few tracks at her romance with the controversial 1975 singer Matty Healy whom the star briefly dated after her break up with Joe 👀. 

Songs like “I can fix him (No really I can)” and “The smallest man who ever lived” suggests that he might’ve played a more important role in her life than previously suspected.

On this note, in “But Daddy I love him” Taylor also seems to call out some of her fans for getting a little too involved in her love life: 

“I’d rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching 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, sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see”

Swifties be like:

Aside from some serious and sad themes on the album, some of her lyrics also have a bit of an unserious and almost humorous tone to them like “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.”,  “my friends all smell#ing] like weed or little babies” and “"But, daddy, I love him", I'm having his baby, no, I'm not
But you should see your faces”

31 Songs are a lot to take in and it will take a while for fans to get to the bottom of some songs.

What does our Community Team think?

Antje:  Wow, Taylor never ceases to surprise her fans! Some of these lyrics are crazy ☕ I actually love the songs from the deluxe version which give me folklore/evermore vibes! 

Chloe: A few songs feel quite familiar to her old albums and I don’t have massive favourites yet but Florida!!! has a new feel to it, probably thanks to Florence Welch’s contribution and beautiful harmonies. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? is quite cool too, giving us an introspection about her fame (“You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me”).

Fabio: I listened to Taylor’s album, it felt like I listened to 31 of the same songs. The part about living in 1830... hmmm sounded really strange. I don’t deny Taylor’s influence, but something more mature would be good for her career.

Jaime: I have to be honest, I am far from being a Swiftie and the only song that caught my eye was Florida, because I am a fan of Florence + The machine. I think it is a really cool collab. 

Alfredo: Nice vibe and nice tunes! Taylor keeps growing as an artist. I particularly liked the whole album and I can see it being number 1 again! 

Leonidia: Upon listening to Taylor’s new album the only song that stood out to me was Fresh Out Of The Slammer. Although I am not a big fan of her, the song shares her reflection on the events that took place in the past, giving us her thoughts and feelings about her experiences.

Taylor's Eras tour continues in May, so which songs from the new album do you think deserve a live performance?