Taylor Swift revealed some of the inspirations behind The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD).
In a special, track-by-track experience, available to stream on Amazon Music, the pop star, 34, provided some insight to her latest record as she recalled her mindset during the creation process.
Following her 11th album’s release on Friday, the 14-time Grammy winner described TTPD as ‘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,’ she told her fans. ‘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.’
She concluded: ‘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.’
Two hours later, she announced The Tortured Poets Department was a ‘secret DOUBLE album’ as she had ‘written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years’ and couldn’t resist sharing ‘it all.’
Below find everything Swift has said about her songs including Fortnight with Post Malone, Clara Bow, Florida!!! with Florence + the Machine, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me, Down Bad and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.
Taylor Swift revealed some of the inspirations behind The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), which has broke multiple records on Spotify and other music streaming platforms
Florida!!! (feat Florence + The Machine)
‘I’m always watching Dateline. People have these crimes that they commit; where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida,’ she tease of what inspired her to write the tune inspired by the Sunshine State.
She continued: ‘They try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in. I think when you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks, ‘I want a new name. I want a new life. I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all.”
And so that was the jumping off point. Where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? Florida!’
‘I’m always watching Dateline. People have these crimes that they commit; where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida,’ she tease of what inspired her to write the tune inspired by the Sunshine State
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me was a song I wrote alone, sitting at the piano in one of those moments when I felt bitter about just all the things we do to our artists as a society and as a culture,’ the Cardigan hitmaker said on the interlude.
She continued: ‘There’s a lot about this particular concept on THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. What do we do to our writers, and our artists, and our creatives?’
‘We put them through hell. We watch what they create, then we judge it. We love to watch artists in pain, often to the point where I think sometimes as a society we provoke that pain and we just watch what happens,’ she reflected.
‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me was a song I wrote alone, sitting at the piano in one of those moments when I felt bitter about just all the things we do to our artists as a society and as a culture,’ the Cardigan hitmaker said on the interlude
Fortnight (feat Post Malone)
‘Fortnight is a song that exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album,’ Swift explained.
‘One of which being fatalism—longing, pining away, lost dreams. I think that it’s a very fatalistic album in that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death. ‘I love you, it’s ruining my life.’ These are very hyperbolic, dramatic things to say. It’s that kind of album.’
In addition to making Fortnight the lead single, she released an emotional music video, alongside Malone as her ex-lover.
Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles, who starred in Dead Poets Society, also made a cameo.
After releasing the video, she wrote on social media: ‘I wanted to show you the worlds I saw in my head that served as the backdrop for making this music. Pretty much everything in it is a metaphor or a reference to one corner of the album or another.’
‘For me, this video turned out to be the perfect visual representation of this record and the stories I tell in it. Post Malone blew me away on set as our tortured tragic hero and I’m so grateful to him for everything he put into this collaboration,’ she concluded.
‘Fortnight is a song that exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album,’ Swift explained.
Clara Bow
‘Clara Bow is a song that I wrote as a commentary on what I’ve seen in the industry that I’ve been in over time,’ Swift said. ‘I used to sit in record labels trying to get a record deal when I was a little kid. And they’d say, ‘you know, you remind us of’ and then they’d name an artist, and then they’d kind of say something disparaging about her, ‘but you’re this, you’re so much better in this way or that way.’
She added: ‘And that’s how we teach women to see themselves, as like you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you.’
Swift, who references Bow, an actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s, and Stevie Nicks, explained she ‘picked women who have done great things in the past and have been these architypes of greatness in the entertainment industry’ to namedrop.
‘Clara Bow was the first ‘it girl.’ Stevie Nicks is an icon and an incredible example for anyone who wants to write songs and make music,’ the Cats actress raved.
‘Clara Bow is a song that I wrote as a commentary on what I’ve seen in the industry that I’ve been in over time,’ Swift said
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
‘It’s a metaphor from the perspective of a child’s toy; being somebody’s favorite toy until they break you and then don’t want to play with you anymore,’ she said of the breakup track.
She continued: ‘Which is how a lot of us are in relationships where we are so valued by a person in the beginning, and then all of the sudden, they break us or they devalue us in their mind.’
‘We’re still clinging on to ‘No no, no. You should’ve seen them the first time they saw me. They’ll come back to that. They’ll get back to that,” she recalled.
‘It’s a metaphor from the perspective of a child’s toy; being somebody’s favorite toy until they break you and then don’t want to play with you anymore,’ she said of My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
Down Bad
‘The metaphor in Down Bad is that I was comparing sort of the idea of being love bombed, where someone rocks your world and dazzles you and then just kind of abandons you,’ she said said in a recording that aired on iHeartRadio at an album premiere event.
She then likened it to a girl being ‘abducted by aliens’ but ‘she wanted to stay with them and then when they drop her off back in her hometown she’s like, ‘Wait, no, where’re you going? I liked it there. It was weird but it was cool. Come back.”
‘The character in the song felt like, ‘I’ve just been exposed to a whole different galaxy and universe I didn’t know was possible. How can you just put me back where I was before?” she told listeners.
‘The metaphor in Down Bad is that I was comparing sort of the idea of being love bombed, where someone rocks your world and dazzles you and then just kind of abandons you,’ she said said in a recording that aired on iHeartRadio at an album premiere event (seen in the studio while recording the track with Jack Antonoff)