I'm A Tortured Poet, Sue Me

Reflecting on Taylor Swift's "The Tortured Poets Department" one year after its release.

When Taylor Swift dropped The Tortured Poets Department one year ago, it seemed like the view of the pop icon shifted into a perspective that sensed a bit more harsh. Critics and fans alike had divided opinions, not knowing how to take in the heavy 31-song project Swift released on April 19th, 2024. Even my own review for the album, which I punched out just a few days after the album release, shows my shock at what she just released, translating more into frustration. I stated, “Swift has not vocally challenged herself in a very long time, and her wordplay is starting to get the best of her, linking words and concepts together that lack the punch to remain memorable,” and “Swift needs to realize that just because she has the songs to make an album does not necessarily mean she needs to put one out.” I look back on that review and laugh because I clearly have no idea what I’m talking about. The Tortured Poets Department is a great album, and it’s time to wake that up.

'The Tortured Poet's Department' and the Current State of Taylor Swift's Career.

I was a few months into being nineteen when this album dropped. I was just starting my first real job, and my mind still loomed in the high school realm of the past. Now, I’m twenty, and life has become real. Very real. I look back at the events of my life this past year, and I remember all the times I would turn to this album to soothe me. An album that first bored me suddenly became a life vest for getting me through moments of toughness and pain. Swift’s music has always assisted me in various life experiences, but I saw myself only reaching for this album over the past year, discovering that maybe I heavily misunderstood its story. The Tortured Poets Department is not a Taylor Swift pop album with a broad audience reach. It’s for the people who have grown from their teenage years but still yearn for the idealistic ideas of adolescence. It’s for the hopeless romantics. It’s for the tortured souls who take life’s complexities and try to make the most sense of it, grabbing onto any thread that possibly might make sense of a situation. It’s for the manics that care.

What strikes me the most from this Swift record is how angsty it is, feeling more teenage-influenced than the lyrical prose of her previous albums. For instance, let’s take a look into “Down Bad.”

Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym
Everything comes out teenage petulance
"Fuck it if I can't have him"
"I might just die, it would make no difference"
Down bad, wakin' up in blood
Starin' at the sky, come back and pick me up
Fuck it if I can't have us
I might just not get up, I might stay

Many people, including myself, made fun of this song when it first came out. I mean, the line “Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym” just did not sound natural. That was until life had me down bad, crying out tears of teenage petulance. A song I hated had made it on repeat, realizing that Swift was just dealing with natural human emotions. Swift wants to do any act she can to demonstrate her value to her lover, proving to him that she is worthy of being with him because she’ll just move on and die without him. That’s me, I fear. 

It is easy to forget that Swift started really young in the business, releasing her debut album at sixteen. Her life was on display for everyone to see while she was still a teenager, meaning tabloids could pick apart her love affairs and appearance because she had reached celebrity status. She didn’t have the typical “high school romance” so many of her non-famous peers did. She explores this idea more subliminally in the song “So High School.”

And in the blink of a crinklin' eye
I'm sinkin', our fingers entwined
Cheeks pink in the twinklin' lights
Tell me 'bout the first time you saw me
I'll drink what you think and I'm high
From smokin' your jokes all damn night
The brink of a wrinkle in time
Bittersweet sixteen suddenly

I'm watchin' American Pie with you on a Saturday night
Your friends are around, so be quiet
I'm tryin' to stifle my sighs
'Cause I feel so high school every time I look at you
But look at you

This song is about her romance with football player Travis Kelce. Digging deeper, however, reflects the grander depths of Swift’s career. She is feeling the “high school romance” sentiments that sound so stereotypical, yet show that is what she desires. She feels those charming clichés with Kelce. Many people hated the lyrics of this song when it first came out, stating how corny and childish some of it sounded. Listeners paired similar thoughts of dislike with other songs like “Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me” and the title track. Of course, I was one of those people at first, yet I have grown to realize that the way Swift pens her thoughts on this album speaks volumes. She has endured so much pain in romance that the madness of life spews out in confused absurdism, where life appears not to make sense, yet she has to keep pushing forward because she is a massive pop star. She thought she had found the one, yet it slowly faded out of her hands. It takes a considerable toll on a person, and I don’t think people understand that aspect of the album because I certainly did not when it came out a year ago. 

(Editing me is cutting in to say how incredible the song below is)

That is a big issue with music criticism these days, both from critics and fans. Nobody allows breathing room to process the material given to them. There is a reason I have stopped doing full-on reviews for newer movies, instead focusing on pieces that explore songs or films that have been out for years. If I write an article on fresh media, I am more centered on analyzing rather than reviewing it—yes, there is a difference. The Tortured Poets Department received so much criticism that lacked a proper intake of the album, and there was also so much forced love that it felt like people were not genuinely appreciating what Swift was expressing.

Over the past year, a soul who once streamed “So High School” endlessly transformed into one who resonated more with “So Long London.” It’s almost like this album release marked a shift in my life, only realizing it in the months that were to come as life got more complex. I found myself putting more of my emotions into the craft of my writing, focusing more on the life I live right now and how the world around me affects my body and mind. I get every sentiment Taylor Swift put in every song, bringing out that life is absurd, almost non-controllable. We take on new challenges and experiences each day, sometimes for the world to see and sometimes more personally. People delve into these emotions in various ways, like in writing, where a soul can be so afflicted and pressed by the ways of life that only the angsty petulance of poetry can escape from the hands of the pen. One could say they are a tortured poet.