Taylor Swift’s eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, includes a handwritten poem titled “In Summation”. In it, an unnamed artist defends a recent romance that she/he says was “not a love affair” but “mutual manic phase… self harm… house then cardiac arrest.” But there is no defeat here. Swift goes on: “A smirk creeps onto the poet’s face/ Because it’s the worst men that I write best.”

The album, which has a sound that elevates the dark electronica of 2022’s Midnights, then charts the course of a relationship with a lover who has brought “chaos” and “revelry” into the life of a good woman with a reputation to uphold. At times, the singer is carried away by their hazardous chemistry, protecting her self-destructive partner against detractors. “He only runs because he loves me,” she boasts. Other times, she’s left “crying at the gym,” devastated by the loss of her “cosmic love” and “twin.” Finally, he is labelled as a “conman” who sells “get-love-quick schemes.” “Mr. Steal Your Girl and Make Her Cry.”
When I link a pop star’s lyrics to happenings in their personal life, I get slammed on Twitter/X. To do so appears “unprofessional” – despite the fact that the artists plainly utilise their work to give, twist, or divert from the reality of their emotional entanglements. Fans spend years deciphering songs online, and songwriters like Swift play along by penning cryptic lyrics that seem like crossword puzzles. On this album, Swift even sings about reasons being “declassified” in 50 years. Ha!

So, at the risk of another social media mauling, I’m going to provide the average reader with the backstory here. Swift ended her six-year romance with English actor Joe Alwyn in 2023, and she briefly dated the hard-living, controversy-courting Matty Healy (frontman of The 1975), with whom she had previously been associated in 2014. According to several fans, Swift’s dalliance was brief and ill-advised, and they threatened to cancel the show because to Healey’s attitude. She has subsequently been in a high-profile relationship with NFL superstar Travis Kelce, which appears to be a fairytale love story.

 
The tracks on Tortured Poets, then, could be taken as autobiographical snatches from this period. The opener “Fortnight” (ft. Post Malone) appears to allude to the Healy love affair, while “So Long, London” (in which the singer is “pissed off you let me give you all that youth”) purports to reflect the conclusion of things with Alwyn.

But honestly, it’s more likely Swift is fictionalising a spectrum of good girl-bad boy situations; the singer who scored an early hit fawning over a guy who “made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter” definitely understands the dynamic makes great song fodder. Swift’s previous album, Midnights, seemed to bounce off glitchy words geared for TikTok, but this song relies heavily on her country heritage, spooling out longer tales and tassel-flicking out the sharp language.

Taylor Swift in artwork for ‘The Black Dog Edition’ of her 11th studio album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ (Beth Garrabrant).In keeping with the literary (if ungrammatical) album title, Swift is at her most piercingly polysyllabic here. In a year when pop music has been chastised by academics for dumbing down the youth, Swift will chart phrases like “rivulets” and “litany” while rolling her eyes at her own “teenage petulance”. She is not claiming any major titles for herself. On the title tune, she blasts all pretensions: “You’re not Dylan Thomas/I’m not Patti Smith/This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel…” “We’re modern idiots” – before countering that self-awareness with a real desire for love and connection. Her ability to deliver her words remains as engaging as ever. I defy anyone not to be drawn into Swift’s clearly charged narrative.The great Florence Welch adds dramatic ballast to her conversational tone in “Florida!!!”. Drums pound through the soothing synth backgrounds, and the English singer shouts about being ‘barricaded in the toilet with a bottle of wine/ Me and my ghosts had a hell of a time’. Welch can yowl threats where Swift’s smaller voice could only hiss – but that doesn’t mean Swift isn’t a strong lady in control of her abilities. The energy she gives to “But Daddy I Love Him” is exhilarating, as she grabs a few country cliches and charges her horses at online bullies. “I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing,” she tells followers, reminding them that her “good name” is hers to “disgrace” with a “wild boy” if she so desires. She sings that their “sanctimonious soliloquies” are “white noise to me”. Swift is likewise outspoken on “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”, a song in which she assures listeners that she is more than capable of defending herself. On the piano ballad “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” she sneers at a lover who seemed to scream like a lion and left her with the most bland goodbye.Tortured Poets is a record that tackles failure and accomplishment with the same melancholy tone. Swift admits that she can’t mend him on “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” and praises herself for sticking with her jazzhandsy day job despite personal despair on “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”. As with Midnights, these lyrical hooks take time to sink in. But believe me, they have anchors, designed to sink slowly and solidly into the mental seabed. The stories will captivate you, and you will be amazed to find yourself singing choruses for hours. Although vinyl versions will end with one of three extra songs, the standard album concludes with the perspective-grounding “Clara Bow,” on which Swift places her current mega-stardom in historical context, recalling the allure of the silent film star as well as that of “Stevie Nicks in ’75” (another reference to Healy’s band?) before imagining a future celebrity being compared to herself: “You look like Taylor Swift/ You’ve got edge she never did…”The entire album is a fantastic reminder of Swift’s ability to create emotional, personal connections through music. She fills arenas and dominates the news agenda because listeners can relate to her celestial dramas, which give their personal lives fresh life. She weaves marital hopes and false sexual fantasies into wonderfully empowering fiction. Whether fans are shrugging off their own Joe Alwyns, shagging their own Matty Healys, or cheering for their own Travis Kelces, the stereotypes are perfectly captured. The worst men leave some ladies with the best lines.