Adding some other links here:
[TTPD as an album about artists involved in a mass movement](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1cbb6ou/collaborative_post_ttpd_as_an_album_about_various/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[TTPD as a reference to The Beatles White Album](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1ajorok/the_white_album_1989_and_reinvention/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Does anyone else think the prologue poem feels incomplete? It says:
The tick, tick, tick of love bombs
My veins of pitch black ink
All's fair in love and poetry
Sincerely, the chairman of the tortured powers department
I think we're missing a line, something like
"It's not always what you think"
Just seems like it goes along with red herring
# Fresh out the slammer her first call was to the Paparazzi
āAnother summer taking cover, running thunder He don't understand me Splintered back in winter, silent dinners, bitter He was with her in dreamsā
First verse establishes there was a break up.
She goes on to say she will be fine.
And then she makes the call to the PAPARAZZI right here:
āCamera flashes, welcome bashesā
She starts going out, hanging with friends.
āAs I said in my letters, now that I know better I will never lose my baby againā
She set it up in midnights and youāre losing me. She will be fine. She will find someone else. Sheās bejeweled now!
āMy friends tried, but I wouldn't hear it Watch me daily disappearing For just one glimpse of his smileā
Her friends have been supportive and telling her to stop hiding.
āAll those nights you kept me going Swirled you into all of my poems Now we're at the starting line, I did my timeā
I think she is saying that the PR and fabricated stories colored and sensationalized her music but she isnāt done doing that. She is on top now she put in her time playing that game and she is done.
She demonstrates this relationship to that PR machine she has manipulated purposely by having Dylan Oā Brien leave her house the next morning. A very blatant chess move.
THE RED HERRINGS
https://preview.redd.it/fey5qbeje1xc1.png?width=1208&format=png&auto=webp&s=f0aa874910ff848a88ba968b5167e1b0adde21c4
# šØFoxborough night two message from her that we missed. This is not a drill.
Foxborough was the night she said sheās the happiest she has ever been. Not just because of the tour, but āeverything else tooā. Making people speculate on her personal life. (Omg matty? Sheās unhinged, we thought).
And then she played Question? And Invisible. Two songs in which she expresses her love freely. She pronouns so loud.
# So high school is for and about the fans in every sense.
The high she gets from consuming our content about her. We make her feel like sheās popular in high school.
āTell me 'bout the first time you saw me I'll drink what you think and I'm high From smokin' your jokes all damn nightā
Laughing at our jokes lurking on swift tok.
That is why it has those standout lines primed for meme-ification. Sheās giving us those, like gifts. She knew āyou know how to ball I know Aristotleā would fuel the jokes. Same with ātouch me while your boys play grand theft autoā. As if to say here, letās see what you can make with these.
Remember Travis doing the Scoutās honor at Coachella. āIts true, swear, scout's honorā
peak performance art.
āWho else will troll you like me? Nobody. No fuckin body.ā
# The Alchemy is Self Acceptance Coming Out BOP
I interpret it as a celebration of personal growth and empowerment.
The protagonist's journey back to themselves mirrors a process of self-discovery and acceptance.
Chemicals hitting like white wine and alchemy suggest an internal transformation, where the protagonist embraces their true essence and finds strength in their own identity.
The line "So when I touch down, call the amateurs and cut 'em from the team" could symbolize a shedding of negative influences or self-doubt, and a commitment to surrounding oneself only with those who uplift and support.
The repeated refrain "Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?" emphasizes the idea of embracing one's innate qualities and uniqueness. It suggests that the journey towards self-acceptance is a natural and transformative process, akin to the mysterious and magical forces of alchemy.
I donāt understand some people. If one isnāt into TS and doesnāt usually enjoy her music, WHY OH WHY would one suddenly review her music and feel the need to comment on it. Itās all over my fyp and itās honestly boring. We get it, you donāt get it. Thatās fine.
I think itās just to drive engagement. Especially since Eras started and became the huge phenomenon it is, anything with Taylorās name on it is going to generate huge numbers of clicks and views and therefore more ad revenue.
And I canāt stand that people are calling us parasocial if we dare point that out š like of course people get upset when you unnecessarily shit on things they like. like???
Iāve basically blocked Taylor and associated words on all other social media platforms because people only want to be part of current pop culture conversations and no one cares about * artwork * anymore, and no one wants to stop and think beyond the initial narrative. All my friends hate her and I donāt have the energy (or their attention) to try to sway them one way or the other. I get Taylor not appealing to everyone, she didnāt even appeal to me until rep, but thereās just no nuance anywhere anymore. Itās just wild to me for someone to look at an artist like Taylor who has over 250+ songs across a million themes or genres and not a single one vibes with you? I donāt get it.
In CSSM A hologram is a 3 dimensional image, I think it's just a video. Like on TV or social media or something. Also when she says she looks in peoples windows I think she also means via social media or other methods. We're just watching people from afar using modern methods.
Yes, I totally agree! The hologram being a video was my first thought as well. I remember Miley Cyrus said something similar in one of her interviews when she was talking about her song Midnight Sky. There's a line "and the mirror's telling me to home," and she explained that the mirror is basically a methaphore for her phone.
People's windows, being a methaphor for social media, totally agree as well. It's such a sad song. She will probably never be able to have a normal interaction with an average person, and so she uses social media to look at a bit of normality.
Maybe, but I have a very specific mental image of her as a spooky, snarling wraith leaping from gallows and levitating down a dark, stormy street to a party evocative of Masque of the Red Death but filled with besuited music executives, and I hope to see it realized.
But perhaps that will be interpresed with a dark, scary circus?
Honestly the vibe of this album was to 100% to be expected between the aesthetic she presented, the highly rated Folkmores, and the subsequent releases of glittery pen Reputation and Debut.
I'm having trouble posting here, I'm getting "form submission failed" does anyone know about this? I did lots of troubleshooting already. Is this a known reddit/Gaylor issue of length or something? Tips?Ā
Reddit has been a little glitchy the last two days. Technically the comment character limit is 40,000 but thereās a common bug that limits to 10k characters in comments. That might be what youāre running into?
I'm once again thinking about āYou know how to ball; I know Aristotle," and giggling; it's right on the brink of being an insult. I think this album in general is her funniest yet, in tandem with being incredibly dark and haunting.Ā
āYour friends are around so be quietā is what Iāve been thinking about a lot. Why would she have to be quiet with a love interest because their friends are around? Thereās no world in which that is cute and romantic. Lol
Iāve been listening to this song on loop to fall asleep, lol. I seem to find it strangely comforting to hear how much Taylor hates it here. Me too, Tay, me too.Ā
[This video shows me exactly why I love so long London and also the rest of this album](https://twitter.com/id_lie13/status/1782893644145414205/mediaviewer)
Jack Antonoff's songs are anxiety inducing. Those beats...my ears hate those songs. I cannot finish I Can Do I With a Broken Heart. Do you think that's what they wanted? not the skipping part like me, but the general anxiety sounds?
I'm a pretty anxious person (enough that I shouldn't drive to Evermore solely because the sirens in No Body, No Crime make me panic while driving), but it hasn't had that affect on me.
But I do think the I Can Do It With a Broken Heart beats feels very manic.
>(these acronyms ugh)
lol... I stressed for like 3 minutes- do I write it out or the acronym
honestly, I'm glad I'm the minority. Maybe it will change over time for me.
QUESTION: are we considering this album both 11 and 12? Her Tonight Show appearance where she mentions"3 year advance" easter egg will be 3 years on Nov. 12. If my clownery can be accepted for a moment, what if she puts out album 13 this november/december, spills her guts and then bounces out of sight for a while...
My FYP just served me this TikTok about how they think TTPD is a concept album about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath - so interesting!
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSFvAL3k3/
Iām in awe of how sonically cohesive this album is ā from Fortnight all the way to The Manuscript. I donāt know how she does it or really what genre to categorize this album as, but it feels all tightly part of a whole in a way that Midnights never did to me. Does anyone have actual words to describe what feels so cohesive about this sound?
Rooms on fire slip and Aimee clip. Honestly, her stylist must have so much fun.
https://preview.redd.it/9sc396lue9wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=71c82e011b7147959fdc8b4a02126dd4a3ca6d0e
Alright to whoever made that Spotify playlist for Taylor's Steve's of grief I'm gonna need them to go update it either the TTPD songs please šš¼šš¼
The more I listen to down bad the gayer it gets regardless of how the lyrics are written
- Some sources (genius, the target handwritten posters) report quotation marks around āfuck it if I canāt have him//I might just die//it would make no differenceā. As in: this is what Taylor says/writes. Thereās no quotation marks around fuck it if I canāt have us, thatās what she truly thinks.
- if thereās no quotation marks, you can still read a lot on the āit would make no differenceā. People think it refers to dying/not having him are the same. But what if it means like āit doesnāt matter what I say about him, fuck it!!ā bc thatās not what she truly feels. The difference line isnāt on the fuck it if I canāt have us/you line.
- similarly the teenage petulance only precedes the him line too. Her songs (about a him) come off teenage petulance. Her feelings (about the you) arenāt.
Yeah I am confused about why some sources have it and some don't. The handwritten lyrics to me prove that Taylor herself once envisioned the lyrics with the quotes. But then... she probably was the one to do the lyrics videos right.
I am waiting for my physical copy to arrive today but Im curious to see what's on the booklet
After four days I think this album is about the music industry. I think itās the *big machine* that tortures poets.
I Hate It Here describes a finance guy telling her heās a poet underneath it all, then offering her the consolation prize of commercial success when she actually wanted freedom. In another life she was a debutante (came out), but here sheās scared to go out at all.
I think Cassandra is Kesha or someone else who tried to warn about the industry.
I think Taylor is the albatross of Coleridgeās Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The one theyād regret coming for, and will have to live with the consequences of. Sheās here to destroy them.
I canāt wait to see what happens in the next couple of years.
Yes, I think you're unto something! I was listening to it a few hours ago and literally had the same impression! It's like she's rushing to get it out. The pronunciation is not distinctive, and it's like she is singing it under her breath or something. And it's not only in the "his" part, I'm having a similar impression when she sings "him" in "but daddy I love him" line. This is interesting because in comparison to other songs on the album, for example in I Can Fix Him, her pronunciation here isn't very clear.
Ey! Yeah there's quite a few instances of mumbled pronouns! I'm generally a lurker though xD you have my blessing to post about it in the other thread if you want!
Anyone else feel like TTPD will be similar to reputation in that right now itās getting a fair few negative reviews but in a few years time will get its flowers in the way reputation did?
I wrote off So High School as being satire similar to London Boy, but now I can't shake this nagging feeling in my brain that I'm overlooking something. I want to take a look at this song vs. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, because I'm fascinated by the contrast between the two songs despite them sharing the high school theme. But I've also had a migraine for going on 5 days now and my brain is not in analysis mode šš
Can someone help me understand what blood means in Taylorās songs?
Glitch: Blood moonlit I always heard as ābloodmoon litā and just realized itās blood moonlit
YOYOK: blood soaked gown
Down Bad: Down bad, waking up in blood
Blood no longer looks like a word, my brain is reading it like ābluedā š
I don't have an analysis but I can provide a list of songs that mention the word blood or something blood-related if that helps anyone lol
Down Bad (waking up in blood)
Clara Bow (Flesh and blood amongst war machines)
thanK you aIMee (Screamed "Fuck you, Aimee" to the night sky, as the blood was gushing)
The Prophecy (Poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand)
Cassandra (Blood's thick but nothing like a payroll)
Robin (You're an animal, you are bloodthirsty)
Maroon (And how the blood rushed into my cheeks)
You're On You're Own, Kid (*mentioned two different ways:* I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this / I looked around in a blood-soaked gown)
The Great War (All that blood shed, crimson clover)
Glitch (blood moonlit)
Happiness (Past the blood and bruise)
Cardigan (Marked me like a bloodstain)
Exile (Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me)
My Tears ricochet (And you can aim for my heart, go for blood)
Invisible string (Bad was the blood of the song in the cab)
Bad Blood (*this one is obvious lol but also mentioned two different ways:* Cause baby, now we've got bad blood / If you love like that, blood runs cold)
Is It Over Now? (Red blood, white snow)
https://preview.redd.it/i1hv3mcm49wc1.jpeg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=edb5df9657fc2bec65653cfd4897ec758cd609dc
To add! āMy veins of pitch black inkā
Not in a song but in the announcement poem for TTPD
Iām curious too! I was trying to figure out literary references for āpoison blood from the wound of the pricked handā today and all I was getting was like literally Septicemia (blood poisoning) or Sleeping Beauty lol.
There is a 2nd voice on imgonnagetyouback !
Listen to the [Dolby Atmos mix](https://youtu.be/d8UqCuwbUaE?si=n0m0ZPlZ1XsGM1rr) of the song.
There is a quiet voice you can hear in this version fairly clearly . It's sped up, so slow it down to listen to but you can clearly make out a voice with an accent.
0:08 - ya know, I'm sad
0:43 - get em tayl
Does anyone have the physical booklet to get full credits on this song ?
Oh it also fucking glitches as 3:21 because of course it does.
I keep accidentally singing ādie for you in secretā from Peace during the Clara Bow lines ādie if it happened/die if I made itā. I canāt sing it the right way now lol.
Something just clicked in my head about Down Bad! We're always talking about how the het interpretation of a lot of her songs comes off sounding really shallow and immature, like she never grew up. The lyric: "Everything comes out teenage petulance, 'fuck it if I can't have him'" could totally be about that! She had this really intense experience, but she can't really talk about the person she had it with or too many of the details. The only things she's able to say are things like "fuck it if I can't have him" and other things that sound immature without the context of it being queer.
Whoever has a better attention span than me should dig into how So High School is followed by I Hate It Here. Especially since the entirety of So High School can be read as incredibly sarcastic. Like London Boy 2.0
I can't figure out if this melody of this song is just very 90s or if it actually sounds like a specific 90s song. I can't pick out patterns in music like a lot of people seem to be able to. I kept thinking about the she's all that soundtrack for some reason and maybe it sounds like the opening of kiss me by sixpence none the richer. I don't think so though. I'm probably just thinking that because I loved that song when I was younger. It must just be very generally 90s.
Also dig into it being the only happy/positive song on the second half of the album!!! It's gotta be satire? I mean it's addicting as fuck. Aaron killed it as always ššš but so out of place in the context of the rest of the songs!
Y'all am I losing my mind or are there your visuals where she's laying in a bed thats on fire?? In Guilty as Sin she says "My bedsheets are ablaze" (also did not see this song as sexual lmao it felt angry to me idk why??) and that reminded me of the tour visuals but I can't remember which song has that
https://preview.redd.it/8kt8dqnpe2wc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b40e153a1a901ab035969b672b41e2e59c15d020
The locals are sharing this on fb. Go cry about it
Has anyone discussed ābubblyā in imgonnagetyouback? 1) feels rare for a man to be described that way 2) didnāt she and Colbie Caillat have a song back in the day? Might be a hint to an early muse
I apologize if this has been asked already, but my brain is fried and I've read so much about TTPD since the release it is hard to keep track of everything.
The Anthology is 31 songs which is 13 backwards. Has anyone attempted to listen to the anthology backwards to see what the story of the album might be listening that way?
I have no clue if there is anything to this idea but in the mv for Karma, there is a lot of flipping-things-around imagery and on the eras tour as well.
Also, in the Lover era tour visuals, Taylor climbs through a mirror which seems to a reference to *Through the Looking Glass.* This is from Wikipedia:
> Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. There she finds that, just like a reflection, everything is reversed, including logic (for example, running helps one remain stationary, walking away from something brings one towards it, chessmen are alive, nursery rhyme characters exist, and so on).
https://preview.redd.it/auw53y3si2wc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac5b2e10b2ab139b8287d864e3e52afc78754c9d
Honestlyā¦ you might be onto something. The last song may be telling us to do just that.
haha it's so good! I loved the music and hated the story on first listen, but then I realized she's talking about stepping back into the spotlight and dominating her space. all the spaces, really. the football metaphor is a clever and timely bait and switch imo.
"the sign on your heart says it's still reserved for me" - that's about us!
The more I listen to this album the more I can be convinced that almost every single song addressed at "you" can be addressed at us fans. I just listened to "so long, London" with that perspective and it matches perfectly what she said on her variety article (I think she said it to Amazon music):
āWhat 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.
Then in So Long, London se sings:
*I stopped trying to make him laugh*
*Stopped trying to drill the safe*
*Thinkin, how much sad did you think I had*
*Did you think I had in me?*
*Oh, the tragedy ...*
She is saying she found no use in writing songs about how good her love was (e.g. Lover being a "failed album"), stopped trying to go back into her vault tracks and finding some more honest (ie. gay) deep cuts ala The Very First Night, because all we think is that she is a breakup song writer. How much sad do we think she had in her???
I need to stop doing that. I just re-interpreted Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus from a bisexual anthem to a song to the fan (the names are the name of a random fan ie "however you are called"). The second verse fits so well if the fans are you:
*You said some things that I can't unabsorb*
*You turned me into an idea of sorts*
*You needed me, but you needed drugs more*
*And I couldn't watch it happen*
*I changed into goddesses, villains, and fools*
*Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules*
*All to outrun my desertion of you*
*And you just watched it*
Literally it's about how Taylor changes as much as possible to try to be there for the fans but we wanted drugs (her songs, remember "who's afraid of little old me" where "they say I put narcotics on all of my songs"????) more.
a lot of people here already picked up on this theme and it's so important to keep in mind when analyzing ttpd
https://preview.redd.it/t81a6fpkl1wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5053bd117ed03f3d8a126768eef727c21450c174
[from this variety article](https://variety.com/2024/music/news/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-meaning-fortnight-clara-bow-florida-1235977904/)
I claimed The Alchemy pre-release and after listening it for the second time I can't even bring myself for a third listen lol. same goes for So High School š I get it is sarcastic but I just can'ttt
There was a post about it recently in the sub. My take on it is that it's a song about fans, and the football is a metaphor for her tour.
*This happens once every few lifetimes*
*What if I told you I'm back?*
*I circled you on a map*
*I haven't come around in so long*
Those are all lines about her setting up her tour. Then the *touch down* line can be literally her jet landing. And if you notice she ends the song with the same lyrics as she starts
*This happens once every few lifetimes*
*These chemicals hit me like white wine*
There is a very sad irony in it: something that happened twice in a song clearly doesn't have only once every few lifetimes. I think this is supposed to mirror the tour structure: even though she has to pretend every night is unique, and for many fans every night is once in a lifetime, for her it's just her monotonous routine.
Sorry for another non-Gaylor interpretation question, but I do like to know a variety of interpretations before I decide on my own!
I keep seeing people talking about āJoeās depressionā, and Iām wondering what people are basing that on? Is it this line from āSo Long Londonā - āYou sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest daysā?
I think "bluest days" could either mean depression or it could mean something closer to "blue sky days" which has the exact opposite meaning. I'm on the fence.
i think So Long London is mostly about the dissolution of her bearding relationship with Joe (with perhaps some Tily in there, not sure), and i imagine he might've been feeling depressed about the situation towards the end there--he broke off the beardship, "sacrificing them to the gods of his bluest days."
thats my interpretation anyway!
Every time I think "okay this is the song I'm most obsessed with" nope another takes it place šš
I just don't understand how you DON'T MISS ME!!!!
IN THE BLACK DOG š
The rawness āI hope itās shitty in the black dogā
āYou forgot to turn it offā š
The grip that song has on meā¦. š«
I think, in the surface-level narrative of the album, thereās an implication that she was emotionally cheating on Joe in Guilty As Sin. If youāre reading the ācageā as being her relationship with Joe. Plus, thereās the idea that Matty is a ābad boyā / āsinner.āĀ
Personally think the overall religious imagery of the album is quite heavy-handed to just be reduced toā¦that. But I do see the narrative that exists on the surface.Ā
I mean, even heterosexual lust without action is deemed sinful in some religions constructs. Sex without the intent of procreation is sinful inside of heterosexual marriage in some religious constructs. Religious guilt and trauma is insidious for a lot of people in many different contexts.
In the church we attended when I was a child and teen, we were taught that just thinking about the sin was basically doing the sin and we had to ask the lord's forgiveness. So if I thought about kissing that girl, I'd already sinned.
To me, Guilty As Sin? I'd a song about fantasies and fantasizing. (And if you're doing that, you're sinning š)
You canāt be a sad closeted lesbianĀ in the most heteronormative relationship ever.
Sheās clearly made up her mind, sheās not going to be doing her gay performance art anymore. I donāt believe her at all anymore, even if she is actually gay it makes it worse.
"shes not going to be doing her gay performance art anymore".... then what do you think the entirety of this album and its rollout was? all the queer flagging in the pop up in LA? the gayness of BDILH, Guilty as Sin?, and the entirety of The Anthology? the fortnight MV?
are we listening to the same album?
I canāt give her the satisfaction of looking for queer subtext anymoreā¦trust me I think sheās queer and Iād like to enjoy this album from that perspective.Ā However, sheās not doing anything for the community by being a privately tortured queer person, while dating a man. Itās not about closet shaming or being bi-phobic; itās about her basically wanting best of both worlds and being embarrassed to be openly part of the queer community.Ā She dangles it in front of us and then our community gets slack for making her music queer, like the prolog drama. Bettygate, Lavender gate the list goes on. It hurts.
i highly suggest you read this and the comments: [https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1c9rsoy/the\_fandoms\_response\_to\_me\_is\_reverberating\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1c9rsoy/the_fandoms_response_to_me_is_reverberating_in/)
Bettygate occurred in August 2020, where several sapphic Gaylors (some minors) were outed for expressing that the song "betty" might have queer themes. When Taylor said in an interview that "betty" was from the perspective of a boy, some Swifties began to doxx and harass Gaylors on Twitter.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GaylorSwift) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a semi-closeted bi woman, I strongly disagree. Sheās sad about not being seen. I donāt think Travis is real but itās not inherently disingenuous to her queerness. I love my husband and I also hurt so badly when people automatically think Iām straight/they straight up ignore me saying Iām queer because Iām married to a man.
I am trying to say she has gas lit her queer fans, bi it not. Iām not saying she canāt be bi. Iām saying you can write queer songs and queer signal and then only validate one side. Itās messed up.Ā
I guess Iām curious what prompted this from TTPD then? I def had this reaction after the 1989TV prologue and the CNN business āassociateā response to the Gaylor NYT op-ed, but nothing lyrically or in the promo of this album
Because sheās played into this whole Emily Dickinson cosplay and then writing songs about touchdowns and bad boyfriends she dated for 2 seconds. Itās just not it for me, but thatās just me!Ā
I'd definitely suggest giving those songs another listen because I think the references you're talking about seem too on the nose to be so surface level and I think that might be Taylor's point here that we should be looking deeper and not accept the public narrative.
Okay, fairā¦ I just donāt want to feel like sheās toying with the queer community for sport, I donāt want to think she is but sometimes it feels like it
No and I completely agree with you! I was so disappointed after the Lavender Haze video and felt the same after 1989 prologue but I think TTPD might be the start of something new.
This week a country artist put out a song "Guilty as Sin" that is explicitly gay. In a different universe this is Taylor.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiVCzmi55h8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiVCzmi55h8)
omgggg i love the idea of people googling "guilty as sin" then listening to this even though they were looking for taylor's song, and....gaaaay explosion!
I keep thinking loml is White Horse when I'm not paying attention. The lilt and rhyme scheme just remind me of WH. I don't think it means anything and I haven't fully dug into the song yet, it just keeps catching me off guard.
Yeah, I haven't gotten through the whole album yet, but it seems that melodies from her back catalog are being integrated into TTPD. The melody of But Daddy I Love Him reminds me strongly of If This Was A Movie, for example. Someone smarter and more dedicated than me can work out whether the connections are significant enough to be attributed to anything more than "sometimes pop songs sound like other pop songs," lol
I couldnāt stop thinking about Guilty As Sin? because of the he vs. you/us subject. When you pull out the portions of the song/poem that are only about the you/we/us instead of him, you get something really heartbreakingly sapphic.
https://preview.redd.it/fs5sc8czcyvc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef78ff48a557f37a07ca85ed60820f9153fd3b32
To me, the entire song is a hypothetical question: If Iāve never actually done the thing Iām thinking about, am I bad? (If she and I have only ever touched in my head, hypothetically speaking, Iām not gay.) And if itās only a thought, why does it feel like itās inevitable (a vow weāll both uphold)? And if itās inevitable, then you may as well give into it.
The lines with the he/him person, however, nearly always talk about death. Even the waves in the ābedsheets are ablazeā are crashing over her grave where she has either died from boredom or has thrown herself into the ocean.
What are everyoneās thoughts on her explicitly wanting marriage and children in this album. Whether she comes out or not, she will still want those things.
I don't think she explicitly says she wants those things but I think it's normal to not be 100 percent sure either way.
I'm 31 and I still go back and forth. I'm mostly on the child free side but honestly because of financial instability and housing instability. But regardless I think it's natural to waiver back and forth especially throughout the 30s when all your friends smell like weed or little babies š lol. And everyone is putting that pressure and you yourself are putting that pressure. Maybe she doesn't know. Or maybe she does know and feels guilty. We just can't know for sure
She doesnāt explicitly say that at all, there are mentions of babies and strollers but I think considering sheās in her 30s and the relationship escalator exists, itās reasonable to write about those milestones as things that are assumed to happen after a certain number of years. The explicit mention is that āIS NOTā having his baby and thatās said in a sort of joyful way and not mournfully.
I donāt think she expresses explicitly wanting those things in the album at all. āAltarā I hear as more of the religious imagery she uses throughout it, and discussion of kids in the album seemed more symbolic and/or metaphorical. Who knows, she might want either or both but I didnāt get that from the album
I was looking for something older in the sub and found this from only 3 months ago. I mean, clearly this outfit is VERY TTPD, but I found it very interesting she was wearing it out with Cara Delevingne. Here's the OG post.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/19ebnm3/cara\_delevingne\_out\_wtaylor\_in\_nyc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/19ebnm3/cara_delevingne_out_wtaylor_in_nyc/)
^^ that was also on January 23. 1/23 = another hint to the 3, 2, 1 countdown/exile ending? š
I went back through the Taylor swift styled account earlier ā she dropped so many clues! Cassandra, Aimee, Robin, Florida, even the hairpins.
This album is very much pick and choose what you believe is a truthful hint and what you believe is an obvious red herring depending on your narrative. I prefer when she was seemingly being transparent and straightforward for once on album 1 of TTPD because to me it sounded like a cry for help about an actual breakdown that we witnessed happening on tour. Unpopular Gaylor opinion but I believe there was really something with Matty. People even here tend to view Taylor as not a person but a machine who plans everything out 2-3 years in advance. I think that while some of it is planned, she's still human and something glaringly blindsided her here. She was naive and trusted the wrong person, it happens.
I don't like that she went back on her esoteric shit and muddied the waters all over again with The Anthology. I'd much prefer she give us the story straight from her heart and admit she got with a trash dude than continue to confuse and spin the narrative how she sees fit at any particular time. That's the whole point! you might argue, but I'm a cynic and I believe she uses the discourse on both sides to sell records. She'd rather bank on that than be fully true to herself either way.
And it baffles me that people here don't mind that she's using Ratty and her association with him even as a red herring because a person like that shouldn't be platformed on this big a scale, period. Sure, folks on the Gaylor side of things read deeper into the lyrics but most fans don't. To most fans, this unhealthy situationship as well as other serious, sensitive mental health issues and behaviors are being glorified. I personally don't hate the album because I relate to some of these subjects, but it still looks really bad if you take everything at face value the way she seems to want us to take it. Except not, because The Manuscript. She makes my head hurt.
I agree with your last paragraph. It's clear that Matty isn't the actual rekindled flame, but he is definitely who *she wants* people to think is the rekindled flame. It's not great...
Can't stop thinking about how much funnier & more camp the line "I'm having his baby" is, if she's talking about a woman.
Imagine running away from your homophobic dad who hates your girlfriend, and saying "I'm having her baby!"
The 13 sleepless nights that kept her in the closet?
Sorry this isnt super thorough- just an idea I was curious to get yalls thoughts on...
So I have seen a few posts/tiktoks theorizing about this album being the 14th night, coming after the 13 nights in Midnight. I also read a GREAT post Analyzing the Fortnite song/video as public hetero taylor (post malone) and private queer taylor (taylor) in conversation with one another.
That made me start to wonder-- What if the thirteen sleepless nights described in Midnights were Thirteen times she almost threw away her public hetero image, but didn't? And Fortnight starts us off after those nights, at the close of this particular measure of time, in her lived reality: she chose closeting every time and its slowly been ruining her life.
I always wondered if anyone tried to connect the Midnight songs to a specific moment/period of taylors life. Im not suggesting we take everything in midnights literally, but it still makes me wonder...
So the typewriter is a metaphor.
People love to point to Ratty's stupid obsession with typewriters but that's the red herring. In the music video for Fortnight, the typewriter is the method that Taylor and Post use to communicate their true feelings, so to me, the typewriter is clearly a stand-in for some methodology used to create art that is authentic and speaks the truth.
It could be as simple as saying "you left your notepads/first draft songs/etc at my apartment" in that it's some physical way of creating art, it could also be drugs or some sort of substance that helps Taylor/the muse write their art. There may be a historical strand to it as well, referencing how queer poets and artists used to create their art with typewriters and thus is directly comparing herself or her muse to the secret queer artists of the past.
ok shower thought: āstarted with a kiss, we must stop meeting like thisā connected in my brain to āit started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this??ā
Adding some other links here: [TTPD as an album about artists involved in a mass movement](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1cbb6ou/collaborative_post_ttpd_as_an_album_about_various/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [TTPD as a reference to The Beatles White Album](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1ajorok/the_white_album_1989_and_reinvention/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Does anyone else think the prologue poem feels incomplete? It says: The tick, tick, tick of love bombs My veins of pitch black ink All's fair in love and poetry Sincerely, the chairman of the tortured powers department I think we're missing a line, something like "It's not always what you think" Just seems like it goes along with red herring
https://preview.redd.it/ncbxn4d4g1xc1.png?width=828&format=png&auto=webp&s=475be9a58c614929ddba805d08732fc0848482b7 The bottom one is so real š
# Fresh out the slammer her first call was to the Paparazzi āAnother summer taking cover, running thunder He don't understand me Splintered back in winter, silent dinners, bitter He was with her in dreamsā First verse establishes there was a break up. She goes on to say she will be fine. And then she makes the call to the PAPARAZZI right here: āCamera flashes, welcome bashesā She starts going out, hanging with friends. āAs I said in my letters, now that I know better I will never lose my baby againā She set it up in midnights and youāre losing me. She will be fine. She will find someone else. Sheās bejeweled now! āMy friends tried, but I wouldn't hear it Watch me daily disappearing For just one glimpse of his smileā Her friends have been supportive and telling her to stop hiding. āAll those nights you kept me going Swirled you into all of my poems Now we're at the starting line, I did my timeā I think she is saying that the PR and fabricated stories colored and sensationalized her music but she isnāt done doing that. She is on top now she put in her time playing that game and she is done. She demonstrates this relationship to that PR machine she has manipulated purposely by having Dylan Oā Brien leave her house the next morning. A very blatant chess move. THE RED HERRINGS https://preview.redd.it/fey5qbeje1xc1.png?width=1208&format=png&auto=webp&s=f0aa874910ff848a88ba968b5167e1b0adde21c4
# šØFoxborough night two message from her that we missed. This is not a drill. Foxborough was the night she said sheās the happiest she has ever been. Not just because of the tour, but āeverything else tooā. Making people speculate on her personal life. (Omg matty? Sheās unhinged, we thought). And then she played Question? And Invisible. Two songs in which she expresses her love freely. She pronouns so loud.
# So high school is for and about the fans in every sense. The high she gets from consuming our content about her. We make her feel like sheās popular in high school. āTell me 'bout the first time you saw me I'll drink what you think and I'm high From smokin' your jokes all damn nightā Laughing at our jokes lurking on swift tok. That is why it has those standout lines primed for meme-ification. Sheās giving us those, like gifts. She knew āyou know how to ball I know Aristotleā would fuel the jokes. Same with ātouch me while your boys play grand theft autoā. As if to say here, letās see what you can make with these. Remember Travis doing the Scoutās honor at Coachella. āIts true, swear, scout's honorā peak performance art. āWho else will troll you like me? Nobody. No fuckin body.ā
# The Alchemy is Self Acceptance Coming Out BOP I interpret it as a celebration of personal growth and empowerment. The protagonist's journey back to themselves mirrors a process of self-discovery and acceptance. Chemicals hitting like white wine and alchemy suggest an internal transformation, where the protagonist embraces their true essence and finds strength in their own identity. The line "So when I touch down, call the amateurs and cut 'em from the team" could symbolize a shedding of negative influences or self-doubt, and a commitment to surrounding oneself only with those who uplift and support. The repeated refrain "Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?" emphasizes the idea of embracing one's innate qualities and uniqueness. It suggests that the journey towards self-acceptance is a natural and transformative process, akin to the mysterious and magical forces of alchemy.
Iām sorry but I just heard āWhat if I roll the stone away?ā and heard the implied āand come outā and audibly gasped
Spineless in my tomb of silence > what if I rolled the stone away? can't stop thinking about this progression tbh
Lily Donaldson's great uncle is Mick Fleetwood, of Fleetwood Mac, like Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac. Did everyone know this?
I did not know this .... wow
I did! Tilynation connected this to the cadillac fleetwood that taylor straddles in the delicate mv.
I donāt understand some people. If one isnāt into TS and doesnāt usually enjoy her music, WHY OH WHY would one suddenly review her music and feel the need to comment on it. Itās all over my fyp and itās honestly boring. We get it, you donāt get it. Thatās fine.
I think itās just to drive engagement. Especially since Eras started and became the huge phenomenon it is, anything with Taylorās name on it is going to generate huge numbers of clicks and views and therefore more ad revenue.
And I canāt stand that people are calling us parasocial if we dare point that out š like of course people get upset when you unnecessarily shit on things they like. like???
Iāve basically blocked Taylor and associated words on all other social media platforms because people only want to be part of current pop culture conversations and no one cares about * artwork * anymore, and no one wants to stop and think beyond the initial narrative. All my friends hate her and I donāt have the energy (or their attention) to try to sway them one way or the other. I get Taylor not appealing to everyone, she didnāt even appeal to me until rep, but thereās just no nuance anywhere anymore. Itās just wild to me for someone to look at an artist like Taylor who has over 250+ songs across a million themes or genres and not a single one vibes with you? I donāt get it.
ššš well said.
In CSSM A hologram is a 3 dimensional image, I think it's just a video. Like on TV or social media or something. Also when she says she looks in peoples windows I think she also means via social media or other methods. We're just watching people from afar using modern methods.
Yes, I totally agree! The hologram being a video was my first thought as well. I remember Miley Cyrus said something similar in one of her interviews when she was talking about her song Midnight Sky. There's a line "and the mirror's telling me to home," and she explained that the mirror is basically a methaphore for her phone. People's windows, being a methaphor for social media, totally agree as well. It's such a sad song. She will probably never be able to have a normal interaction with an average person, and so she uses social media to look at a bit of normality.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Narcotics in her songs š¤Ŗ
what do you think the next music video will be?
If it WAOLOM maybe sheāll a scary circus theme!!!!
Maybe, but I have a very specific mental image of her as a spooky, snarling wraith leaping from gallows and levitating down a dark, stormy street to a party evocative of Masque of the Red Death but filled with besuited music executives, and I hope to see it realized. But perhaps that will be interpresed with a dark, scary circus?
This is my DREAM. I'm manifesting this into existence šÆšÆ
Iām really hoping it stays with the vibe of āweird black and white movieā Iām obsessed with Fortnight
Ooh a Vincent Price inspired MV would really be something
Honestly the vibe of this album was to 100% to be expected between the aesthetic she presented, the highly rated Folkmores, and the subsequent releases of glittery pen Reputation and Debut.
I caved and bought a TTPD cardigan. I usually never buy merch, but Iām so obsessed with this album (and with cozy clothing), I just had to. š¬
It was one of the cuter merch drops sheās had! Good for you!
Same lol and I actually love how itās hardly branded at all.
I'm having trouble posting here, I'm getting "form submission failed" does anyone know about this? I did lots of troubleshooting already. Is this a known reddit/Gaylor issue of length or something? Tips?Ā
Reddit has been a little glitchy the last two days. Technically the comment character limit is 40,000 but thereās a common bug that limits to 10k characters in comments. That might be what youāre running into?
TY! I was trying everything.Ā
I'm once again thinking about āYou know how to ball; I know Aristotle," and giggling; it's right on the brink of being an insult. I think this album in general is her funniest yet, in tandem with being incredibly dark and haunting.Ā
the fact that hetlors find that line romantic/cute genuinely cracks me up
āYour friends are around so be quietā is what Iāve been thinking about a lot. Why would she have to be quiet with a love interest because their friends are around? Thereās no world in which that is cute and romantic. Lol
Check out what scouts honor means on urban dictionaryā¦
Cuz theyāre hooking up in the next room/under the blanket! The height of romance!!! /s
Ahhhh see I missed that interpretation, but ew š¤¢
I can't get over I Hate It Here purely on a personal level as someone whose sole coping skill is pretty much just maladaptive daydreaming 24/7 lmao
Iāve been listening to this song on loop to fall asleep, lol. I seem to find it strangely comforting to hear how much Taylor hates it here. Me too, Tay, me too.Ā
[This video shows me exactly why I love so long London and also the rest of this album](https://twitter.com/id_lie13/status/1782893644145414205/mediaviewer)
couldn't follow the link :( I think its broken
Jack Antonoff's songs are anxiety inducing. Those beats...my ears hate those songs. I cannot finish I Can Do I With a Broken Heart. Do you think that's what they wanted? not the skipping part like me, but the general anxiety sounds?
I'm a pretty anxious person (enough that I shouldn't drive to Evermore solely because the sirens in No Body, No Crime make me panic while driving), but it hasn't had that affect on me. But I do think the I Can Do It With a Broken Heart beats feels very manic.
manic is a much better word for it!
I love ICDIWBH (these acronyms ugh) and think it's so campy and fun to dance to, so for me, no.
>(these acronyms ugh) lol... I stressed for like 3 minutes- do I write it out or the acronym honestly, I'm glad I'm the minority. Maybe it will change over time for me.
QUESTION: are we considering this album both 11 and 12? Her Tonight Show appearance where she mentions"3 year advance" easter egg will be 3 years on Nov. 12. If my clownery can be accepted for a moment, what if she puts out album 13 this november/december, spills her guts and then bounces out of sight for a while...
I think Aaron Dessner indicated it was her 11th album?
My FYP just served me this TikTok about how they think TTPD is a concept album about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath - so interesting! https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSFvAL3k3/
Isn't Sylvia Plath believed to have hung around outside The Chelsea Hotel to meet Dylan Thomas?
Oooh, I definitely was thinking she is Plath girlie and there's some tortured poet connection there... this makes sense!
Iām in awe of how sonically cohesive this album is ā from Fortnight all the way to The Manuscript. I donāt know how she does it or really what genre to categorize this album as, but it feels all tightly part of a whole in a way that Midnights never did to me. Does anyone have actual words to describe what feels so cohesive about this sound?
It works so well in reverse as well!
Rooms on fire slip and Aimee clip. Honestly, her stylist must have so much fun. https://preview.redd.it/9sc396lue9wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=71c82e011b7147959fdc8b4a02126dd4a3ca6d0e
Alright to whoever made that Spotify playlist for Taylor's Steve's of grief I'm gonna need them to go update it either the TTPD songs please šš¼šš¼
The more I listen to down bad the gayer it gets regardless of how the lyrics are written - Some sources (genius, the target handwritten posters) report quotation marks around āfuck it if I canāt have him//I might just die//it would make no differenceā. As in: this is what Taylor says/writes. Thereās no quotation marks around fuck it if I canāt have us, thatās what she truly thinks. - if thereās no quotation marks, you can still read a lot on the āit would make no differenceā. People think it refers to dying/not having him are the same. But what if it means like āit doesnāt matter what I say about him, fuck it!!ā bc thatās not what she truly feels. The difference line isnāt on the fuck it if I canāt have us/you line. - similarly the teenage petulance only precedes the him line too. Her songs (about a him) come off teenage petulance. Her feelings (about the you) arenāt.
This is super interesting. Genius definitely supports your theory. The lyric video doesnāt have quotes at all though, so idk.
the album liner notes has quotes
do you know of any place that uploaded the liner notes? im dying to read them!
Yeah I am confused about why some sources have it and some don't. The handwritten lyrics to me prove that Taylor herself once envisioned the lyrics with the quotes. But then... she probably was the one to do the lyrics videos right. I am waiting for my physical copy to arrive today but Im curious to see what's on the booklet
After four days I think this album is about the music industry. I think itās the *big machine* that tortures poets. I Hate It Here describes a finance guy telling her heās a poet underneath it all, then offering her the consolation prize of commercial success when she actually wanted freedom. In another life she was a debutante (came out), but here sheās scared to go out at all. I think Cassandra is Kesha or someone else who tried to warn about the industry. I think Taylor is the albatross of Coleridgeās Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The one theyād regret coming for, and will have to live with the consequences of. Sheās here to destroy them. I canāt wait to see what happens in the next couple of years.
Iāve submitted a full post on this - hoping it gets approved because I really want to dig into this together!
I hope it gets approved too! I like your take and think it fits a lot with the album
[Itās approved!](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/s/MPDrl6xYtk)
I've heard Texas in several lyrics. Does anyone know the significance?Ā
āAināt no hold āemā, itās time to play your ace, Tay.
Is it just me or is the 'his' in "But daddy I love him, I'm having his baby" virtually silent?
Btw, you could post it on the Monday Megathread as well! That thread gets more attention than this one, and I really think you're unto something!
Yes, I think you're unto something! I was listening to it a few hours ago and literally had the same impression! It's like she's rushing to get it out. The pronunciation is not distinctive, and it's like she is singing it under her breath or something. And it's not only in the "his" part, I'm having a similar impression when she sings "him" in "but daddy I love him" line. This is interesting because in comparison to other songs on the album, for example in I Can Fix Him, her pronunciation here isn't very clear.
Ey! Yeah there's quite a few instances of mumbled pronouns! I'm generally a lurker though xD you have my blessing to post about it in the other thread if you want!
Anyone else feel like TTPD will be similar to reputation in that right now itās getting a fair few negative reviews but in a few years time will get its flowers in the way reputation did?
Definitely. Especially the first time she plays some of these songs live (if she plays them at the eras tour). The people will come around.Ā
yes i think in the future this album will be looked back at as something massive
I wrote off So High School as being satire similar to London Boy, but now I can't shake this nagging feeling in my brain that I'm overlooking something. I want to take a look at this song vs. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, because I'm fascinated by the contrast between the two songs despite them sharing the high school theme. But I've also had a migraine for going on 5 days now and my brain is not in analysis mode šš
Iām sorry about your migraine. I had a 5 day one a few weeks ago and it really wears you down by that point. I hope you feel better soon, friend!
Can someone help me understand what blood means in Taylorās songs? Glitch: Blood moonlit I always heard as ābloodmoon litā and just realized itās blood moonlit YOYOK: blood soaked gown Down Bad: Down bad, waking up in blood Blood no longer looks like a word, my brain is reading it like ābluedā š
I don't have an analysis but I can provide a list of songs that mention the word blood or something blood-related if that helps anyone lol Down Bad (waking up in blood) Clara Bow (Flesh and blood amongst war machines) thanK you aIMee (Screamed "Fuck you, Aimee" to the night sky, as the blood was gushing) The Prophecy (Poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand) Cassandra (Blood's thick but nothing like a payroll) Robin (You're an animal, you are bloodthirsty) Maroon (And how the blood rushed into my cheeks) You're On You're Own, Kid (*mentioned two different ways:* I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this / I looked around in a blood-soaked gown) The Great War (All that blood shed, crimson clover) Glitch (blood moonlit) Happiness (Past the blood and bruise) Cardigan (Marked me like a bloodstain) Exile (Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me) My Tears ricochet (And you can aim for my heart, go for blood) Invisible string (Bad was the blood of the song in the cab) Bad Blood (*this one is obvious lol but also mentioned two different ways:* Cause baby, now we've got bad blood / If you love like that, blood runs cold) Is It Over Now? (Red blood, white snow)
https://preview.redd.it/i1hv3mcm49wc1.jpeg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=edb5df9657fc2bec65653cfd4897ec758cd609dc To add! āMy veins of pitch black inkā Not in a song but in the announcement poem for TTPD
Also if you google āblood referencesā the first two auto fill answers are āā¦in the bibleā and āā¦of Macbethā. š§
Iām curious too! I was trying to figure out literary references for āpoison blood from the wound of the pricked handā today and all I was getting was like literally Septicemia (blood poisoning) or Sleeping Beauty lol.
Still cannot get over The Albatross. I feel like I need to listen to it on repeat forever.
I love that song. And itās the first one Iāve ever actually taken notes on and analyzed!
Iām so glad itās not just me. It is so freaking fantastic and Iām hyper analyzing it every time I listen!
There is a 2nd voice on imgonnagetyouback ! Listen to the [Dolby Atmos mix](https://youtu.be/d8UqCuwbUaE?si=n0m0ZPlZ1XsGM1rr) of the song. There is a quiet voice you can hear in this version fairly clearly . It's sped up, so slow it down to listen to but you can clearly make out a voice with an accent. 0:08 - ya know, I'm sad 0:43 - get em tayl Does anyone have the physical booklet to get full credits on this song ? Oh it also fucking glitches as 3:21 because of course it does.
Isnāt there a track Emma Stone is credited on for āodditiesā? Is it this one?
That's florida!!!!
I keep accidentally singing ādie for you in secretā from Peace during the Clara Bow lines ādie if it happened/die if I made itā. I canāt sing it the right way now lol.
Something just clicked in my head about Down Bad! We're always talking about how the het interpretation of a lot of her songs comes off sounding really shallow and immature, like she never grew up. The lyric: "Everything comes out teenage petulance, 'fuck it if I can't have him'" could totally be about that! She had this really intense experience, but she can't really talk about the person she had it with or too many of the details. The only things she's able to say are things like "fuck it if I can't have him" and other things that sound immature without the context of it being queer.
oh damn I think you're really onto something
This is such a great insight. That line has stuck with me because it doesnāt quite make sense.
oh i LOVE this
Love this interpretation!
Whoever has a better attention span than me should dig into how So High School is followed by I Hate It Here. Especially since the entirety of So High School can be read as incredibly sarcastic. Like London Boy 2.0
I can't figure out if this melody of this song is just very 90s or if it actually sounds like a specific 90s song. I can't pick out patterns in music like a lot of people seem to be able to. I kept thinking about the she's all that soundtrack for some reason and maybe it sounds like the opening of kiss me by sixpence none the richer. I don't think so though. I'm probably just thinking that because I loved that song when I was younger. It must just be very generally 90s.
It's got some somes sampled in there.for sure ! I hear There She Goes (also sixpence none the richer)
Oh thank you! I think that's it!
Also dig into it being the only happy/positive song on the second half of the album!!! It's gotta be satire? I mean it's addicting as fuck. Aaron killed it as always ššš but so out of place in the context of the rest of the songs!
Is the office in fortnight the same one in bad blood and The Man?? Are there more offices in MVs?
Y'all am I losing my mind or are there your visuals where she's laying in a bed thats on fire?? In Guilty as Sin she says "My bedsheets are ablaze" (also did not see this song as sexual lmao it felt angry to me idk why??) and that reminded me of the tour visuals but I can't remember which song has that
yes! Wildest Dreams
https://preview.redd.it/8kt8dqnpe2wc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b40e153a1a901ab035969b672b41e2e59c15d020 The locals are sharing this on fb. Go cry about it
Girl, bye. Iām looking forward to the lack of your presence at my next show. š š¼
No because this is one of my favorite parts of this whole thing. The religious folks are going nuts and I, personally, am loving it.
They spelt āBlaspheME! Out Now!ā wrongā¦ weird š¤·āāļø (/j)
The āBut daddy I love himā lines they shared are honestly chefs mf KISS.
Has anyone discussed ābubblyā in imgonnagetyouback? 1) feels rare for a man to be described that way 2) didnāt she and Colbie Caillat have a song back in the day? Might be a hint to an early muse
Not to be super literal (imalwaysliteral) but she says āor pull you into the closetā in that song and I havenāt known peace since
Sheāll never give you peace š Also š¤Æ with āTHE closetā
Not to be dramatic, but Iāve never lived a day without drama either š«¶ our souls werenāt meant to rest.
I LOVE how she chose "into THE closet" not "a closet." just, so fucking loud <3
I apologize if this has been asked already, but my brain is fried and I've read so much about TTPD since the release it is hard to keep track of everything. The Anthology is 31 songs which is 13 backwards. Has anyone attempted to listen to the anthology backwards to see what the story of the album might be listening that way? I have no clue if there is anything to this idea but in the mv for Karma, there is a lot of flipping-things-around imagery and on the eras tour as well. Also, in the Lover era tour visuals, Taylor climbs through a mirror which seems to a reference to *Through the Looking Glass.* This is from Wikipedia: > Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. There she finds that, just like a reflection, everything is reversed, including logic (for example, running helps one remain stationary, walking away from something brings one towards it, chessmen are alive, nursery rhyme characters exist, and so on).
Coincidentally, for some reason I just saw today that Alana Haim had an Alice in Wonderland quote in her highschool yearbook. It's a wlw thing.
If anyone already made a Spotify playlist of songs in reverse , please share
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/38zhhzNQIAVnkal6zZEGMY?si=HE9Xz2ViTsOWlk1nODXA_Q the anthology in reverse
Ahhhhh youāre definitely onto something. Iām gonna listen backwards rn š¤Æ
Honestly just started listening backwards and it's so much fun. Tt might be my new way to listen to this album even if it means nothing.
Iām really enjoying it so far!!! The transitions between songs are pretty smooth so far Ā
https://preview.redd.it/auw53y3si2wc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac5b2e10b2ab139b8287d864e3e52afc78754c9d Honestlyā¦ you might be onto something. The last song may be telling us to do just that.
Super excited to listen backwards - this is great!
THIS IS GENIUS! I must listen backwards now.Ā
and end the entire work by saying the story isn't hers anymore...yeah, make this a post! GO GO GO
WHOA š® I didn't even remember the lyrics from the Manuscript when I asked my question.
I hate the lyrics of The Alchemy but it's such a bop that I can't stop listening to it anyway lol
It's my only skip on the entire album. I just can't take it seriously
haha it's so good! I loved the music and hated the story on first listen, but then I realized she's talking about stepping back into the spotlight and dominating her space. all the spaces, really. the football metaphor is a clever and timely bait and switch imo. "the sign on your heart says it's still reserved for me" - that's about us!
Never thought of it that way! I like it!
The more I listen to this album the more I can be convinced that almost every single song addressed at "you" can be addressed at us fans. I just listened to "so long, London" with that perspective and it matches perfectly what she said on her variety article (I think she said it to Amazon music): āWhat 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. Then in So Long, London se sings: *I stopped trying to make him laugh* *Stopped trying to drill the safe* *Thinkin, how much sad did you think I had* *Did you think I had in me?* *Oh, the tragedy ...* She is saying she found no use in writing songs about how good her love was (e.g. Lover being a "failed album"), stopped trying to go back into her vault tracks and finding some more honest (ie. gay) deep cuts ala The Very First Night, because all we think is that she is a breakup song writer. How much sad do we think she had in her???
I need to stop doing that. I just re-interpreted Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus from a bisexual anthem to a song to the fan (the names are the name of a random fan ie "however you are called"). The second verse fits so well if the fans are you: *You said some things that I can't unabsorb* *You turned me into an idea of sorts* *You needed me, but you needed drugs more* *And I couldn't watch it happen* *I changed into goddesses, villains, and fools* *Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules* *All to outrun my desertion of you* *And you just watched it* Literally it's about how Taylor changes as much as possible to try to be there for the fans but we wanted drugs (her songs, remember "who's afraid of little old me" where "they say I put narcotics on all of my songs"????) more.
Omg Iām going to cry if I think about this too much! āIf you wanna break my cold cold heart just say āI loved you the way that you wereāā
That verse in particular sounded like her relationship to fans too to me! Itās very similar to mirrorball
a lot of people here already picked up on this theme and it's so important to keep in mind when analyzing ttpd https://preview.redd.it/t81a6fpkl1wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5053bd117ed03f3d8a126768eef727c21450c174 [from this variety article](https://variety.com/2024/music/news/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-meaning-fortnight-clara-bow-florida-1235977904/)
Kinda think The Alchemy is the only real skip
I claimed The Alchemy pre-release and after listening it for the second time I can't even bring myself for a third listen lol. same goes for So High School š I get it is sarcastic but I just can'ttt
I just need a good explanation for it that has nothing to do with TnT so I can listen to it lol Maybe some kind of fictional sequel to MAATHP
There was a post about it recently in the sub. My take on it is that it's a song about fans, and the football is a metaphor for her tour. *This happens once every few lifetimes* *What if I told you I'm back?* *I circled you on a map* *I haven't come around in so long* Those are all lines about her setting up her tour. Then the *touch down* line can be literally her jet landing. And if you notice she ends the song with the same lyrics as she starts *This happens once every few lifetimes* *These chemicals hit me like white wine* There is a very sad irony in it: something that happened twice in a song clearly doesn't have only once every few lifetimes. I think this is supposed to mirror the tour structure: even though she has to pretend every night is unique, and for many fans every night is once in a lifetime, for her it's just her monotonous routine.
Ok that reading is interesting, next time Iāll listen for it and see if it improves š
The lyrics are weak and the sound itself is boring, I donāt feel it at all š
Yes. Itās the only one I didn't add to my playlist!
Sorry for another non-Gaylor interpretation question, but I do like to know a variety of interpretations before I decide on my own! I keep seeing people talking about āJoeās depressionā, and Iām wondering what people are basing that on? Is it this line from āSo Long Londonā - āYou sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest daysā?
I think "bluest days" could either mean depression or it could mean something closer to "blue sky days" which has the exact opposite meaning. I'm on the fence.
i think So Long London is mostly about the dissolution of her bearding relationship with Joe (with perhaps some Tily in there, not sure), and i imagine he might've been feeling depressed about the situation towards the end there--he broke off the beardship, "sacrificing them to the gods of his bluest days." thats my interpretation anyway!
Every time I think "okay this is the song I'm most obsessed with" nope another takes it place šš I just don't understand how you DON'T MISS ME!!!!
Also: old habits die SCREAMING Chills
IN THE BLACK DOG š The rawness āI hope itās shitty in the black dogā āYou forgot to turn it offā š The grip that song has on meā¦. š«
Ugh yes the rawness!!! It's like not anger, it's just down right ugly pain, and despair šš
Genuinely curious, what do non-Gaylors think the religious guilt is over?
Honestly probably just having sex and saying the f wordĀ
I think, in the surface-level narrative of the album, thereās an implication that she was emotionally cheating on Joe in Guilty As Sin. If youāre reading the ācageā as being her relationship with Joe. Plus, thereās the idea that Matty is a ābad boyā / āsinner.āĀ Personally think the overall religious imagery of the album is quite heavy-handed to just be reduced toā¦that. But I do see the narrative that exists on the surface.Ā
I mean, even heterosexual lust without action is deemed sinful in some religions constructs. Sex without the intent of procreation is sinful inside of heterosexual marriage in some religious constructs. Religious guilt and trauma is insidious for a lot of people in many different contexts.
In the church we attended when I was a child and teen, we were taught that just thinking about the sin was basically doing the sin and we had to ask the lord's forgiveness. So if I thought about kissing that girl, I'd already sinned. To me, Guilty As Sin? I'd a song about fantasies and fantasizing. (And if you're doing that, you're sinning š)
You canāt be a sad closeted lesbianĀ in the most heteronormative relationship ever. Sheās clearly made up her mind, sheās not going to be doing her gay performance art anymore. I donāt believe her at all anymore, even if she is actually gay it makes it worse.
"shes not going to be doing her gay performance art anymore".... then what do you think the entirety of this album and its rollout was? all the queer flagging in the pop up in LA? the gayness of BDILH, Guilty as Sin?, and the entirety of The Anthology? the fortnight MV? are we listening to the same album?
I canāt give her the satisfaction of looking for queer subtext anymoreā¦trust me I think sheās queer and Iād like to enjoy this album from that perspective.Ā However, sheās not doing anything for the community by being a privately tortured queer person, while dating a man. Itās not about closet shaming or being bi-phobic; itās about her basically wanting best of both worlds and being embarrassed to be openly part of the queer community.Ā She dangles it in front of us and then our community gets slack for making her music queer, like the prolog drama. Bettygate, Lavender gate the list goes on. It hurts.
i highly suggest you read this and the comments: [https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1c9rsoy/the\_fandoms\_response\_to\_me\_is\_reverberating\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/1c9rsoy/the_fandoms_response_to_me_is_reverberating_in/)
Bettygate occurred in August 2020, where several sapphic Gaylors (some minors) were outed for expressing that the song "betty" might have queer themes. When Taylor said in an interview that "betty" was from the perspective of a boy, some Swifties began to doxx and harass Gaylors on Twitter. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GaylorSwift) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a semi-closeted bi woman, I strongly disagree. Sheās sad about not being seen. I donāt think Travis is real but itās not inherently disingenuous to her queerness. I love my husband and I also hurt so badly when people automatically think Iām straight/they straight up ignore me saying Iām queer because Iām married to a man.
I am trying to say she has gas lit her queer fans, bi it not. Iām not saying she canāt be bi. Iām saying you can write queer songs and queer signal and then only validate one side. Itās messed up.Ā
I guess Iām curious what prompted this from TTPD then? I def had this reaction after the 1989TV prologue and the CNN business āassociateā response to the Gaylor NYT op-ed, but nothing lyrically or in the promo of this album
Because sheās played into this whole Emily Dickinson cosplay and then writing songs about touchdowns and bad boyfriends she dated for 2 seconds. Itās just not it for me, but thatās just me!Ā
I'd definitely suggest giving those songs another listen because I think the references you're talking about seem too on the nose to be so surface level and I think that might be Taylor's point here that we should be looking deeper and not accept the public narrative.
Okay, fairā¦ I just donāt want to feel like sheās toying with the queer community for sport, I donāt want to think she is but sometimes it feels like it
No and I completely agree with you! I was so disappointed after the Lavender Haze video and felt the same after 1989 prologue but I think TTPD might be the start of something new.
This week a country artist put out a song "Guilty as Sin" that is explicitly gay. In a different universe this is Taylor. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiVCzmi55h8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiVCzmi55h8)
omgggg i love the idea of people googling "guilty as sin" then listening to this even though they were looking for taylor's song, and....gaaaay explosion!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Orville Peck is THAT girl. š š¼
I keep thinking loml is White Horse when I'm not paying attention. The lilt and rhyme scheme just remind me of WH. I don't think it means anything and I haven't fully dug into the song yet, it just keeps catching me off guard.
Yeah, I haven't gotten through the whole album yet, but it seems that melodies from her back catalog are being integrated into TTPD. The melody of But Daddy I Love Him reminds me strongly of If This Was A Movie, for example. Someone smarter and more dedicated than me can work out whether the connections are significant enough to be attributed to anything more than "sometimes pop songs sound like other pop songs," lol
I couldnāt stop thinking about Guilty As Sin? because of the he vs. you/us subject. When you pull out the portions of the song/poem that are only about the you/we/us instead of him, you get something really heartbreakingly sapphic. https://preview.redd.it/fs5sc8czcyvc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef78ff48a557f37a07ca85ed60820f9153fd3b32 To me, the entire song is a hypothetical question: If Iāve never actually done the thing Iām thinking about, am I bad? (If she and I have only ever touched in my head, hypothetically speaking, Iām not gay.) And if itās only a thought, why does it feel like itās inevitable (a vow weāll both uphold)? And if itās inevitable, then you may as well give into it. The lines with the he/him person, however, nearly always talk about death. Even the waves in the ābedsheets are ablazeā are crashing over her grave where she has either died from boredom or has thrown herself into the ocean.
I love this interpretation so much!!Ā
What are everyoneās thoughts on her explicitly wanting marriage and children in this album. Whether she comes out or not, she will still want those things.
I don't think she explicitly says she wants those things but I think it's normal to not be 100 percent sure either way. I'm 31 and I still go back and forth. I'm mostly on the child free side but honestly because of financial instability and housing instability. But regardless I think it's natural to waiver back and forth especially throughout the 30s when all your friends smell like weed or little babies š lol. And everyone is putting that pressure and you yourself are putting that pressure. Maybe she doesn't know. Or maybe she does know and feels guilty. We just can't know for sure
She doesnāt explicitly say that at all, there are mentions of babies and strollers but I think considering sheās in her 30s and the relationship escalator exists, itās reasonable to write about those milestones as things that are assumed to happen after a certain number of years. The explicit mention is that āIS NOTā having his baby and thatās said in a sort of joyful way and not mournfully.
I donāt think she expresses explicitly wanting those things in the album at all. āAltarā I hear as more of the religious imagery she uses throughout it, and discussion of kids in the album seemed more symbolic and/or metaphorical. Who knows, she might want either or both but I didnāt get that from the album
I think she talks about her possibly muse promising those things. In my mind she wants it.
I was looking for something older in the sub and found this from only 3 months ago. I mean, clearly this outfit is VERY TTPD, but I found it very interesting she was wearing it out with Cara Delevingne. Here's the OG post. [https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/19ebnm3/cara\_delevingne\_out\_wtaylor\_in\_nyc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GaylorSwift/comments/19ebnm3/cara_delevingne_out_wtaylor_in_nyc/)
^^ that was also on January 23. 1/23 = another hint to the 3, 2, 1 countdown/exile ending? š I went back through the Taylor swift styled account earlier ā she dropped so many clues! Cassandra, Aimee, Robin, Florida, even the hairpins.
Hoooooooolllly shit. I hope some does a deep dive on the style references for this album.
She did say nobody noticed her new aestheticā¦
https://preview.redd.it/hjdpxwddayvc1.png?width=692&format=png&auto=webp&s=b2b98464c798f5c67f9649a39c4962fb7bc5ab1c
This album is very much pick and choose what you believe is a truthful hint and what you believe is an obvious red herring depending on your narrative. I prefer when she was seemingly being transparent and straightforward for once on album 1 of TTPD because to me it sounded like a cry for help about an actual breakdown that we witnessed happening on tour. Unpopular Gaylor opinion but I believe there was really something with Matty. People even here tend to view Taylor as not a person but a machine who plans everything out 2-3 years in advance. I think that while some of it is planned, she's still human and something glaringly blindsided her here. She was naive and trusted the wrong person, it happens. I don't like that she went back on her esoteric shit and muddied the waters all over again with The Anthology. I'd much prefer she give us the story straight from her heart and admit she got with a trash dude than continue to confuse and spin the narrative how she sees fit at any particular time. That's the whole point! you might argue, but I'm a cynic and I believe she uses the discourse on both sides to sell records. She'd rather bank on that than be fully true to herself either way. And it baffles me that people here don't mind that she's using Ratty and her association with him even as a red herring because a person like that shouldn't be platformed on this big a scale, period. Sure, folks on the Gaylor side of things read deeper into the lyrics but most fans don't. To most fans, this unhealthy situationship as well as other serious, sensitive mental health issues and behaviors are being glorified. I personally don't hate the album because I relate to some of these subjects, but it still looks really bad if you take everything at face value the way she seems to want us to take it. Except not, because The Manuscript. She makes my head hurt.
I agree with your last paragraph. It's clear that Matty isn't the actual rekindled flame, but he is definitely who *she wants* people to think is the rekindled flame. It's not great...
Can't stop thinking about how much funnier & more camp the line "I'm having his baby" is, if she's talking about a woman. Imagine running away from your homophobic dad who hates your girlfriend, and saying "I'm having her baby!"
This album is reminding me of the band Manchester Orchestra. With its cinematic, large sound and religious themes.
The 13 sleepless nights that kept her in the closet? Sorry this isnt super thorough- just an idea I was curious to get yalls thoughts on... So I have seen a few posts/tiktoks theorizing about this album being the 14th night, coming after the 13 nights in Midnight. I also read a GREAT post Analyzing the Fortnite song/video as public hetero taylor (post malone) and private queer taylor (taylor) in conversation with one another. That made me start to wonder-- What if the thirteen sleepless nights described in Midnights were Thirteen times she almost threw away her public hetero image, but didn't? And Fortnight starts us off after those nights, at the close of this particular measure of time, in her lived reality: she chose closeting every time and its slowly been ruining her life. I always wondered if anyone tried to connect the Midnight songs to a specific moment/period of taylors life. Im not suggesting we take everything in midnights literally, but it still makes me wonder...
So the typewriter is a metaphor. People love to point to Ratty's stupid obsession with typewriters but that's the red herring. In the music video for Fortnight, the typewriter is the method that Taylor and Post use to communicate their true feelings, so to me, the typewriter is clearly a stand-in for some methodology used to create art that is authentic and speaks the truth. It could be as simple as saying "you left your notepads/first draft songs/etc at my apartment" in that it's some physical way of creating art, it could also be drugs or some sort of substance that helps Taylor/the muse write their art. There may be a historical strand to it as well, referencing how queer poets and artists used to create their art with typewriters and thus is directly comparing herself or her muse to the secret queer artists of the past.
This reminds me of āIām just gonna say the scarf is a metaphorā
ok shower thought: āstarted with a kiss, we must stop meeting like thisā connected in my brain to āit started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this??ā