Swifties know all too well that Taylor Swift doesn't usually reveal much about the story behind her songs beyond the lyrics themselves but in the case of The Tortured Poets Department, they're in for a treat — Swift is providing commentary on all of the album's tracks in an exclusive collaboration with Amazon Music.
If you're a subscriber to the online audio streaming service, and want to hear Swift's commentary alongside the new tracks, it's as simple as telling Alexa, “I’m a member of ‘The Tortured Poets Department.'”
Swift has plenty to say about the album's early breakout hits, such as Fortnight with Post Malone, Clara Bow, Florida!!! which features Florence + the Machine, Who's Afraid of Little Old Me? and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.
The details might not satisfy those looking for Swift to name names and dish celebrity gossip, but her descriptions are rather enlightening for those curious about her creative process in songwriting.
“‘Fortnight' is a song that exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album. One of which being fatalism — longing, pining away, lost dreams,” Swift explained.
“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,” she added.
There was much discussion online after Clara Bow was announced as one of the song titles on the track list about what the reference to early film star's name could mean.
Now Swift herself is shedding light on her intentions, calling the song “a commentary on what I’ve seen in the industry that I’ve been in over time.”
“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',” Swift recalls.
“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,” she added. “I picked women who have done great things in the past and have been these archetypes of greatness in the entertainment industry.”
Swift continued, “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.”
Swift's thought process as a songwriter should be invaluable for others aspiring to create their own music, as well as to her critics who don't appreciate the depths of her devotion to her craft. At the same time, these commentary tracks are clearly there to sell more Amazon Music subscriptions — though that doesn't mean there isn't valuable insight to glean from them.
One other track that's generated a lot of online debate is the poignantly titled Florida!!! which features the band Florence + the Machine.
Swift amusingly explains that the inspiration for this one is from her penchant for “always watching ‘Dateline.'”
“People have these crimes that they commit; where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida,” Swift noted. “They try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in.”
As for how this ties into Swift's theme of a lover scorned that plays through most of the other tracks on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift explained, “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.'”
She concluded, “And so that was the jumping off point. Where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? Florida!”
Two other commentary tracks of note are her ruminations on Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me and the catchy My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.
Regarding ‘Little Old Me', Swift admits that she wrote it “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.”
She expounded, “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?” Swift questioned, then answered: “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.”
As for ‘My Boy', Swift says it's a track about “being somebody’s favorite toy until they break you and then don’t want to play with you anymore.”
She clarifies further, “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'”.
All in all, the Amazon Music Taylor Swift commentary tracks companion to The Tortured Poets Department are a must-listen for Swifties, and a fairly heady self-analysis from the artist herself, in her always preferred method of communication — her own words.
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