A Tortured Piece of Poetry: A Welcome Note To The Department

Part I || Background info, TTPD lore

Oct 15, 2024

The Tortured Poets Department. Where do I even begin with The Tortured Poets Department?

This album completely transformed the way I view Taylor Swift. It’s a complex masterpiece, presenting a version of her that’s raw, unfiltered, and broken. The Tortured Poets Department isn’t just an album, it’s a lifeline. It’s the kind of album that reveals something new every time I listen to it, but it’s not for casual fans—and even critics sometimes miss the depth of it.

I’ve always found Tortured Poets to be a fascinating record. So, I’ve decided to fully embrace my role as a member of “The Department” and break it down. From the lore to the main ideas, the aesthetic, and finally, the songs themselves, I’m going all in.

Obviously, Tortured Poets is heavy. It’s not the easiest album to process, which is why I’m splitting this article into a series: A Tortured Piece of Poetry, where I’ll dive into the album that forever changed my perception of Taylor Swift.

Tay-ble of Contents: A Tortured Piece Of Poetry

I. A Welcome Note From The Department

An introduction to TTPD
Boring but essential background info
The lore behind TTPD

II. The Chairman’s Delusion

What is actually the meaning of a “Tortured Poet”?
Taylor’s perception of TTPD vs. TTPD in reality
Breaking down the aesthetic

III. My Takes From TTPD

In summation…..

A Few Clarifications

Even though this is meant to be more of an official piece, I still have my own opinions. I strongly dislike Matty Healy, and I’m not the biggest fan of Joe Alwyn either. I’m allowed to have these opinions, just as you’re allowed to have yours, so please don’t judge me for them.
I also can’t help but speculate sometimes. I don’t know what happened between Taylor and the men she wrote TTPD about beyond what’s in her songs. I have my theories, but unless there’s solid evidence, I’m not sharing them. I’m not here to make invasive assumptions about Taylor’s life, but I will be sharing some controversial opinions and conclusions.
And lastly, I’m not responsible for any trauma this article may bring up regarding Matty Healy. Trust me, I’m still working through the same feelings. It’s tough to accept that Taylor was capable of loving someone like him, but remember—she’s in a much better place now, living her football fairytale. Matty is just another rat in the sewer now.

An introduction to TTPD

“At this hearing
I stand before my fellow members of the Tortured Poets Department
With a summary of my findings
A debrief, a detailed rewinding
For the purpose of warning
For the sake of reminding.”

With these words, Taylor Swift marked the beginning of an era. Yes, another era, the eleventh one in fact.

We’ve been through so many different phases, so many different times and periods in Taylor’s life which she chose to share as an album. Every time Taylor Swift releases something new, you know it is going to hit.

We’ve been through so many phases in Taylor’s life, each shared with us through an album. Every time she releases something new, we know it’s going to hit. From the country roots of Taylor Swift to the synth-pop brilliance of 1989 to the mystical stories of folklore and evermore—Taylor always reinvents herself.

The Tortured Poets Department tells the story of a woman whose heart has been broken too many times. A person who just wants to be loved but can’t seem to find the right person, a writer drowning in her words. This is classic Taylor, but with a twist. This time, she’s louder, angrier, and more unfiltered than ever. It’s an anthology of emotional outbursts, all culminating in one of the greatest tantrums of all time.

The Tortured Poets Department tells us the story of a woman whose heart was broken too many times. A person who just wants to be loved, and yet can’t find the right person to love them, a person engulfed in writing.

This is The Tortured Poets Department. No filters, no sugarcoating. Just Taylor Swift, raw and real.

Boring But Essential Background Info

The Tortured Poets Department is Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album. It was announced on February 4, 2024, at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, right after Taylor won her thirteenth Grammy.

The album was released on April 19, 2024. Initially, it had 16 tracks, but just two hours after its release, Taylor surprised all of us: it was actually a double album. The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology came with 15 more songs, bringing the total runtime to two hours.

The album was mostly produced by Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, and Taylor herself. So far, two singles have been released: Fortnight (feat. Post Malone) and I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.

There are four physical editions of the standard version of the album, each named after a bonus track: The Manuscript, The Bolter, The Albatross, and The Black Dog. Taylor revealed the last three during the Asian and Australian legs of the Eras Tour. A physical edition of The Anthology will be released on November 29th.

The main themes of TTPD are loss and heartbreak. Taylor wrote most of it during a dark time in her personal life. She described it as a lifeline, an album she “needed to make.”

The Lore Behind TTPD

If you’re a casual Swiftie listening to The Tortured Poets Department, you might think Taylor’s gone a little mad. And if you don’t know the context of all of the songs, you are probably a sane person.

Every Taylor Swift album comes with its own lore: a backstory that informs its creation. With TTPD, you really need to understand the whole story to appreciate the album fully.

This story is tied to the unfortunate events of 2023, which caused the creation of this 31-track long emotional storm of an album. This story changes everything, and many people don't fully understand it.

Here is the full lore behind The Tortured Poets Department, from the British men who broke Taylor’s heart to the football player who mended it.

It’s Joe(ver)

Joe Alwyn, also known as Yogurt Boy, is a British actor who dated Taylor Swift between 2016 and 2023. The two met at the 2016 Met Gala and started dating a few months later.

They began their relationship during a time when the whole world hated Taylor and hid in London. Even after Taylor released reputation and reclaimed her title as the queen of the music industry, she and Joe kept a very low profile. They avoided talking about each other in interviews and were rarely seen together in public. Joe was generally introverted and had a complicated relationship with fame.

In 2022, Taylor released her tenth studio album, Midnights. Some tracks in its deluxe version, such as The Great War, hinted that not everything was perfect between the two. This speculation only increased when Joe did not attend any Eras Tour shows, and Taylor looked heartbroken while performing. Their split was officially announced on April 8th, 2023. Taylor’s representatives told media outlets that the breakup was “not dramatic” and that the relationship simply ran its course.

Taylor remained alone, touring with a broken heart. She seemed to suffer on stage and struggled to sing the songs she wrote about him. She was angry and hurt, and it appeared that the breakup was far from the “not dramatic” narrative presented to us.

In November 2023, Taylor made You’re Losing Me, a song that was previously a bonus track, available on streaming platforms. The song was clearly about Joe and how she felt their relationship was falling apart because he didn’t want to marry her and didn’t see her. This was not even the most shocking revelation about Taylor and Joe’s relationship. Taylor’s best friend and producer, Jack Antonoff, revealed that You’re Losing Me was actually written in December 2021, almost a year and a half before the couple officially split. Marriage rumors immediately began to circulate, but Taylor’s reps quickly shut them down: Joe and Taylor were never married.

After The Tortured Poets Department was announced, everyone immediately thought Joe should run. We all speculated that the album’s title referenced the name of Joe’s group chat with his friends, “The Tortured Man Club.” Oh, TTPD was going to be the end of him, we were sure.

However, Joe was saved by an unexpected (anti)hero: none other than the rat himself, The 1975’s lead vocalist, Matty Healy.

The Princess And The Rat

2023 brought many fortunate events upon us, but the events of May 2023 were not among them. Even over a year later, Taylor Swift and Matty Healy’s relationship has remained a traumatic memory for the Swiftie community.

For those who don’t know, Matty Healy is a British singer and the lead vocalist of the band The 1975. Matty is a very problematic person. He has a reputation for being racist, saluting Hitler on stage, eating raw meat, and making many controversial statements that I will not repeat.

However, Taylor and Matty’s history starts long before the real drama unfolded. In fact, they have been linked since 2014. They were seen wearing each other’s merch, complimenting one another, and interacting many times (example). Many people thought that something was going on between them, not a serious relationship but definitely a situationship.

After the 1989 era ended and Taylor began dating Joe, she and Matty lost touch and hadn’t seen each other for years. When they finally met at the 2020 NME awards, they hugged and seemed genuinely happy to see one another.

At the end of 2021, both of them worked on an album with Jack Antonoff around the same time of year. As we all know, when Taylor was writing Midnights with Jack, she and Joe were not on the best terms (You’re Losing Me only proves that). Many people speculated that Matty and Taylor would collaborate on Midnights, but thankfully, it didn’t happen.

It is known that the two reconnected while working with Jack, and their interactions definitely increased around the release date of Midnights. Matty supported Taylor publicly and even confirmed that they worked on the album together, but again, thankfully, the versions they made didn’t make the cut.

In January 2023, Taylor made a surprise appearance at The 1975's show in London. Later in that show, Matty said, "I'm not kissing anybody in front of Taylor Swift, have some respect. In front of the queen? Not happening." Matty has a history of randomly kissing people on stage, and the fact that he avoided doing it in front of Taylor seems a little suspicious to me.

At this point in time, Matty still had a girlfriend. She mentioned that they were doing really well until he suddenly decided to ghost her (which is apparently something he’s an expert at) at the end of March.

On April 7th, 2023, Matty followed Taylor on Instagram. One day later, he celebrated his birthday, and Joe and Taylor’s split was announced. On that same day, Matty talked about how happy he was with his life.

Two days later, Matty deactivated his social media accounts and stated, "Everything happens in eras. The 1975 is a very eras band. And I think that the era of me being a f***ing assh**le is gonna come to an end... I perform all the time and it’s my job and I love doing this, but I can’t perform off the stage anymore as I just want to be a bloke."

April 2023 was a month full of dating rumors and cryptic behaviors from Matty's side. He was caught saying "I love you" during a song rumored to be about Taylor (About You) and kept mentioning how well his love life was going.

Finally, the unfortunate day came. On May 3rd, 2023, The Sun reported that Matty and Taylor were officially dating. That same day, Matty mouthed, "This is about you, you know who you are. I love you," while playing About You. The next day, he was seen mouthing "I love you" before writing the letter T on the camera lens.

On 5/5/23, Matty attended Night 1 of the Eras Tour in Nashville. During cardigan, Taylor mouthed, "This is about you, you know who you are. I love you," just like Matty had done two days earlier. He also attended N2 and N3.

The week after, they were spotted on a date in NYC. Matty also attended Taylor’s shows in Philly. The two of them were spotted at Electric Lady Studios in New York and seemed to be spending a lot of time together.

During one of her shows in Foxborough, Taylor stated, "I want you all to know that I've never been this happy before in my life. It’s not just with the tour, I just sort of feel like my life finally feels like it makes sense. And so I thought I’d play this song, which brings me a lot of happy memories." She played Question…?, a song produced by Jack Antonoff (probably back at those 2021 sessions), which means that there is a high chance that Matty was around when she wrote it.

Two and a half weeks later, on June 5th, the couple’s breakup was announced. People magazine released an article saying there was no drama between them and that they were still friends. In July, rumors circulated that Taylor and Matty were back together, but these were quickly shut down.

The thing about Matty and Taylor is that, right after they broke up, it seemed like the relationship wasn’t too serious—they dated for just a month and were pretty chill the whole time. However, as you dive into their past, you realize how much history they have. Matty is the true victim of The Tortured Poets Department, he was the one Taylor mercilessly slaughtered.

The Guy On The Chiefs

Don’t worry, the story has a happy ending! Joever and the Matty situation definitely caused so much heartbreak for Taylor, but she was saved from all that pain by a certain guy on the Chiefs, also known as Travis Kelce.

Travis and Taylor started dating around August 2023, after Travis attended an Eras Tour show in Kansas City and shared his failed attempt to give Taylor a friendship bracelet with his number on it. She reached out to him, and they started hanging out. The two have been dating ever since, and it’s definitely a relief that Taylor found a normal guy after Matty.

Since Travis and Taylor met when she was already finalizing The Tortured Poets Department, there aren’t many songs about him on the album, but he makes some appearances throughout.

I created this series of articles to celebrate The Tortured Poets Department. Recently, it feels like we've been so focused on theories about reputation and TS12 that we've overlooked this masterpiece of an album, which was only released six months ago. The TTPD era has been blissful so far, and I’m genuinely enjoying my time as a Swiftie right now. Writing this article was a lot of fun (even though I discovered Matty and Taylor worked together on my favorite album).

I’m hoping to publish the following parts in the coming weeks. I’m sorry for going off the radar for so long. I had a lot of pressure from school and had no motivation to write. With the Eras Tour on break, I didn’t have my usual weekly recaps for each city, which created significant gaps between my posts. But hey, I’m back now (hopefully), and the Eras Tour starts again this weekend, so it’s all good!

In addition to that, over the past few weeks, I've been losing subscribers and views. I've put so much time and effort into this blog, so I would really love if you could share it with any Swiftie you know. Thank you for still sticking with me and taking the time to read this this, I truly appreciate it 🤍

P.S.: Eras Tour book AND The Anthology vinyl???? Currently crying in international Swiftie (don’t worry, I’m going to get my hands on that book, no matter what it takes. That’s the compensation I’m giving myself for Vienna.)