Taylor Swift is clueing fans in on the demise of her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn as well as her short-lived fling with The 1975 rocker Matty Healy in songs on her new album The Tortured Poets Department.
Fans rushed to stream the 16-track album when it was released to platforms on Thursday night so they’d finally learn the details of Swift’s latest failed romances.
Many fans had predicted that The Tortured Poets Department album would be the ultimate Joe/Taylor ‘breakup album’ as it’s been speculated the name was a direct dig at the British actor, who she dated from 2016 to early 2023.Â
Swift found herself in a whirlwind romance with Healy â though neither ever directly confirmed â that started in April 2023 after they were seen kissing in NYC.Â
But the fling ended as fast as it began after Healy’s ‘bad boy’ image and ‘racist’ remarks caused squeaky clean Swift to face backlash.
Swift is now happily in love with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce â but it’s clear she still has a few bones to pick with the ‘worst men’ in her life.
Track 1 – ‘Fortnight’
SUBJECT: Matt HealyÂ
‘Fortnight’ is the album’s lead single featuring rapper/singer Post Malone.
In it, Swift appears to to take aim at Healy â who she refers to as her ‘miracle move-on-drug’ â and how their toxic love was ‘ruining my life.’
She sings: ‘And no one here’s to blame/ But what about your quiet treason? /I took the miracle move-on-drug/ The effects were temporary/ And I love you, it’s ruining my life.’
The track’s title Fortnight, a British English word defined as ‘a period of two weeks,’ could be perceived as a direct nod to the British rocker as well as the brevity of their relationship.
Track 2 – ‘The Tortured Poets Department’
SUBJECT: Matt HealyÂ
The name of the album has long been speculated to be a jab at Joe, who previously revealed that he is part of a WhatsApp group chat with close pals Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott called The Tortured Man Club.
But the titular track featured plenty of lyrics that allude to her time with Healy.
Swift implies that Healy would be devastated if she left him and even appears to reference his close friend Lucy Dacus of the band boygenius.
She sings: ‘Sometimes I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me/ But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave’
‘And I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen/ Everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be’
The song also features the lyric:Â ‘Like, ‘Who uses typewriters anyway?’Â
Back in 2019, Healy was clowned online when he confessed to GQ that he ‘really likes’ using a typewriter.Â
Track 3 – ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys’
SUBJECT: Joe AlwynÂ
The album’s third track includes a lyric that could be about Joe as fans have long accused him of shying away from Swift’s spotlight and forcing her to be ‘secretive.’
‘Put me back on my shelf/ But first, pull the string and I’ll tell you that he runs because he loves me,’ the Pennsylvania native sings.
Later in the song, she talks of ‘playing pretend’ with a past lover and being left as ‘broken parts.’
The lyrics go: ‘I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens/ ‘Cause he took me out of my box/ Stole my tortured heart/ Left all these broken parts/ Told me I’m better off/ But I’m not’
Track 4 – ‘Down Bad’
SUBJECT: Joe AlwynÂ
In the fourth track, Swift admits to breaking down ‘crying at the gym’ and how the end of hers and Joe’s six-year relationship left her feeling ‘hollow.’
She sings: ‘Did you take all my old clothes just to leave me here naked and alone/ In a field in my same old town that somehow seems so hollow now’
Swift later accuses the past lover of abandoning her. ‘How dare you think it’s romantic/ Leaving me safe and stranded.’
Track 5 – ‘So Long, London’Â
SUBJECT: Joe AlwynÂ
This heartbreaking track details Swift’s raw heartache as she realizes that her long-term relationship with the British actor could not be saved.
‘I stopped trying to make him laugh/ Stopped trying to drill the safe,’ she sings.
She then talks of bidding farewell to ‘the house in the Heath.’
The couple famously hunkered down together in a rural location in the UK back in 2017 amid the fallout of her feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
Having spent six years together, Swift, now 34, talks about being ‘pissed off’ that her ex-boyfriend ‘let me give you all that youth for free.’
She also sings of feeling isolated in the relationship and that she felt as though she would ‘implode.’
‘Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years â I’ll never get that time back’Â
The song is 9 minutes and 28 seconds in length and Joe and Taylor were first confirmed to be dating on September 28, 2016.
Track 7 – ‘Fresh Out the Slammer’
SUBJECT: Joe AlwynÂ
Swift elaborates on the isolation she felt while weathering hers and Joe’s crumbling romance.
She also communicates that her ex no longer understood her and that that only worsened the divide.Â
‘Another summer taking cover/ Rolling thunder, he don’t understand me/ Splintered back in winter/ Silent dinner, bitter he was with her in dreams’
She then shifts focus to Matty as she recalls ‘running’ to another lover after the split.
‘Now we’re at the starting line / I did my time’
Track 9 – ‘Guilty As Sin’Â
SUBJECT: Matt HealyÂ
She continues to allude to Healy in the album’s ninth track.
She sings how a new lover swooped in and sent her ‘downtown lights’ as she was ‘drowning in the blue nile.’
Fans think that the ‘blue nile’ is a reference to Healy’s ‘favorite band’Â The Blue Nile.
Track 11 –Â I Can Fix Him’ (No Really I Can)
SUBJECT: Matt Healy
She seems to give fans a taste of her and Healy’s whirlwind love as she recalls her fascination with thinking she can ‘fix’ him
She sings: ‘The smoke cloud billows out his mouth/Like a freight train through a small town/The jokes that he told across the bar were revolting/And far too loud/
‘They shake their heads saying ‘God help her’ when I tell ’em he’s my man/But your good Lord doesn’t need to/I can fix him/No, really I can’
The Bad Blood songstress, 34 – who recently teased a ‘timetable’ to her fans ahead of the LP’s release – initially announced the album while attending the 2024 Grammys earlier this year in February.
The title of her latest work had caused fans to speculate that the name was aimed at her ex, Joe Alwyn. And earlier this week, Swift appeared to reference the actor as she shared lyrics from the album on X.
The Tortured Poets Department has a total of four versions, as well as a 16 songs and a bonus track titled The Manuscript.
Hours before the album dropped, Swift revealed that the album’s lead single would be Fortnight featuring rapper/singer Post Malone.
THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: TRACK-BY-TRACKÂ
FortnightÂ
A tuneful duet with Post Malone and a song seemingly about a two-week fling. The slow, electronic rhythms set the early tone.
The Tortured Poets Department
Another shimmering melody, and lyrics which suggest that Taylor, modestly, doesn’t see herself at the top table of tortured poets: ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, and I’m not Patti Smith.’
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
Written solely by Swift, this song’s dense electronic hum adds forceful notes. ‘Once I fix me, he’s gonna miss me,’ she vows.
Down Bad
‘Everything comes out teenage petulance,’ sings Taylor as she bitterly surveys the fallout from an old relationship.
So Long, London
The first track to be written with The National’s Aaron Dessner brings a change of pace, with a lovely, choral intro. ‘So long, London, you’ll find someone,’ sings Taylor.
But Daddy I Love Him
‘I know he’s crazy, but he’s the one I want,’ sings Swift, showing wry humour as she admits to falling for the bad boys. Produced, with real brightness, by Dessner.
Fresh Out The Slammer
Finger-picked acoustic guitar adds folky notes reminiscent of lockdown albums Folklore and Evermore.
Florida!!!
An album highlight, this theatrical duet with London singer Florence Welch is an uplifting song of escape â from small-town life and a bad romance.
Guilty As Sin?
A tale of unrequited love, and a superb slice of 1980s-style soft rock. It even mentions The Downtown Lights, a 1989 single by Scottish band The Blue Nile.
Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?
Big drums, a dramatic arrangement, and more dry humour in another song penned solely by Swift. ‘You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me,’ she snarls.
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
A moody, stripped-down number worthy of Lana Del Rey, who has also worked extensively with the song’s producer, Jack Antonoff.
Loml
‘You said I’m the love of your life,’ sings Taylor on this warm, resonant piano ballad. In a smart twist, the ‘loml’ ultimately becomes ‘the loss of my life’.
I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
More 1980s influences on an electronic pop track that sees Taylor vowing to remain a trouper, despite any romantic strife.
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
‘You didn’t measure up in any measure of a man,’ sings a disdainful Swift on a melodramatic ballad.
The Alchemy
Sporting metaphors aplenty suggest a track inspired by the singer’s current boyfriend, American football star Travis Kelce. ‘When I touch down, call the amateurs and cut them from the team,’ she sings.
Clara Bow
It’s tempting to think Taylor sees something of herself in a closing track inspired by an American actress of the 1920s who lived her life in the Hollywood goldfish bowl.
She also released a moody teaser for the song’s music video, which will be released Friday at 8pm EST.
As the album hit streaming platforms Thursday night, Swift published a lengthy statement on Instagram where she described it as ‘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.’Â
She continued: ‘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,’ concluded Swift, as she announced: ‘THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT is out now.’
Along with her thought provoking words, the lyricist shared a slideshow of gorgeous black-and-white portraits as part of the album’s artwork.
Taylor’s devout fanbase quickly flooded social media with their reactions – with many calling TTPD ‘the best album Taylor has made.’
Many admitted that they were ‘crying’ over the songs as they branded it a ‘masterpiece’ and praised her lyricism.
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Carly Johnson
