'The Tortured Poets Department' is Taylor Swift's 'Spare'
I’m moving at a glacial pace today, after staying up until 12am to stream Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD). I’ve given the initial release, and the 2am drop of 15 additional songs, a few listens through—and I have this overwhelming feeling that I’ve just stumbled across Swift’s secret diary and clandestinely read the passages.
She claims the album was written over two years, which evidently encompassed the unraveling of her 6-year relationship with “London Boy” Joe Alwyn—and her subsequent situationship with the frontman of The 1975, Matty Healy. Both of these sagas are still heavily shrouded in mystery; we don’t reliably know what caused the breakdown of either of these relationships. But we do know that they comprise the longest relationship and most public rebound of her life.
Also nestled in the heart-wrenching, personal lyrics on TTPD are new revelations about parts of the tale that Swifties (and even casual listeners) think they know All Too Well: her record-breaking Eras Tour and heavily public relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The lyrics on TTPD—which sound as though they’re practically falling out of Swift’s mouth unbidden after being held back this long—reveal that beneath her Mirrorball facade while staging the most successful musical tour in history…she was completely broken.
TTPD is Swift’s most piercing, vulnerable, and personal album to date. It is definitely her most mesmerizing—even if musically, it’s Nothing New. But producing the “best” album of her career probably wasn’t Swift’s goal. Rather, I think TTPD was something she had to get out before she could ever progress past the events of 2023—in either her professional or personal life.
Does that sound familiar?
The year of the Eras Tour began with the publication of Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare. And Harry’s book, like Swift’s TTPD, contained personal revelations that were at times uncomfortable and awkward to read. (Yes, I’m recalling the passages about his todger). But there were also gut-wrenching passages concerned with the Prince’s journey of healing after monumental loss, his realizations of treachery within his closest circle, and his grappling with an onslaught of public abuse launched at the love of his life.
Some of the truths revealed in Spare were uncomfortable to take in—and enough to completely alienate some readers. Harry’s actions while on active-duty military service and his experience with drugs come to mind as passages that challenge the reader. Swift, likewise, doesn’t back away from sharing the whole truth of her lived experience; she explicitly shares her frustrations with her fans—who just made her a billionaire!—overstepping boundaries where her personal relationships are concerned.
Could both writers have kept these thoughts to themselves? Absolutely. But in order for true healing to take place, they each knew that nothing could be held back. Anger, anxiety, heartache, confusion, defiance—these are tough emotions to grapple with, let alone bare to a global audience.
“And the years passed like scenes of a show. The Professor said to write what you know. Lookin' backwards might be the only way to move forward… And the tears fell in synchronicity with the score. And at last she knew what the agony had been for.” - Taylor Swift, “The Manuscript”
Spare’s writing itself, bolstered by a ghost-writer, wasn’t always spectacular. But it was revealing and, more importantly, what the author felt was essential to put into words. The same goes for TTPD, which does boast some brilliant lyricsim—but also some sticky spots. (“Tattooed golden retriever,” anyone?)
The overarching message on TTPD seems to be something of a moral one: you can never tell what a person is going through based on their actions alone. Even a billion dollars, a year of breaking records, and hordes of adoring fans couldn’t numb Swift’s pain—they made it worse, in fact. The same can be said of the Duke of Sussex, born into the lap of luxury, power, and privilege. His position set him up for a lifetime of unnavigable struggle, and he only began his healing journey once he removed himself from that environment.
There’s another irony shared by both Spare and TTPD: before consuming these works, we were completely and collectively wrong about who the villain would be. Before publication, the world was convinced that Prince Harry would be airing waaay more royal dirty laundry than he actually did in his memoir. The real antagonist, in his retelling of events, was the British press, which has dogged and defamed him since the time he could pose for a photo call.
This is the same British press that routinely invalidates Harry’s lived experiences—I’m almost waiting for the day that Sussex PR includes “You don’t get to tell me about sad” in an official comment, at this point.
And the Swifties just learned a similar lesson about the real villain not always being the on you expect. Until yesterday, we were gearing up to hear (and join in on) another round of gripes about Joe Alwyn’s emotional unavailability before—being slapped in the face with disconsolate, weed-laced lines about Matty Healy instead.
Even amidst all the catharsis, both Harry and Taylor regretfully express that they held out hope that the cause of their strifes could come around and deliver on promises of mutual happiness. “I can fix him (no really I can!)” may just as easily have been a line about Harry’s brother, Prince William, as about Matty Healy.
And “Who’s afraid of little old me?” would be a fitting rejoinder from Prince Harry each time a royal reporter wails that he’s trying to tear down the Monarchy by openly discussing his mental health journey.
And don’t even get me started on “So Long, London” being a fitting anthem for Harry, as we’ve just learned this week that he has officially declared the US his country of residence, and he and working royal duties seem likely to Never Ever Get Back Together.
I’m sure we could go on all day with Taylor Swift lyrics that would double as Prince Harry quotes—leave any that you encounter as you listen to The Tortured Poets Department in the comments.
But there’s a silver lining: neither Swift nor Britain’s favorite AWOL Prince is still wallowing in the memories they’ve put down in writing. Upon the release of TTPD, Swift reflected on how the time in which she penned the lyrics was “both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.” But she definitively states, too, “this period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up.”
One look at Harry’s life post-Spare is enough to indicate that he, too, no longer dwells on the painful events and emotions of his past. He has embraced a new life with his wife and children on sunnier shores and is clearly more concerned with the future than the past. Those of us who have been on a similar journey of personal reconciliation with the past know that ultimate feeling of Peace is Better Than Revenge.
In the words of Swift: "There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry."
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