Crossed perspectives | The Tortured Poets Department seen by our Swifties department

After revealing at midnight, Thursday evening, the 16 songs of his 11^e album, The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift added – oh surprise! – 15 more at two in the morning. Our two Swifties in residence offer you an epistolary exchange written using (or not) their typewriters.

Dominic Tardif : Have I ever told you that my favorite Taytay record is Reputation, his most bitter and vengeful work? I’m happy to find this Taylor again with The Tortured Poets Departmentalthough in terms of production and arrangements, the album is more in line with recent Folklore, Evermore And Midnights.

As she has never seemed so happy as since she pranced with the bearded gentleman playing ball, I admit to having been surprised by all the sadness with which her new choruses are imbued, more talkative than ever.

So, let me ask you the question that’s burning on my lips: has a boy ever left a typewriter at your house like Taylor recounts in the title song, which is presumably about her ex, Joe Alvin?

Marissa Groguhé : I’m glad someone finally asked me that question. The answer is, unfortunately, no.

This brings me to the initial thought I had when listening to the first part of the album: the promotion of the record promised poetry and, yet, the first pieces were sorely lacking in it. I first thought that this album would disappoint me, that it would be a pastiche of what we have already often heard, particularly in terms of sounds, because that is also where I was looking to find poetry.

And then, the fifth song of TTPD, the magnificent So Long, London, a poignant farewell to Joe Alwyn, has begun. I understood that she had decided to let her catharsis express itself by wandering between very pop songs and those inspired by folk and her poetry. I understood, above all, that the record would have a lot to please me.

And like you, Dominic, I love it when Taylor gets revenge, sets fires and settles scores. My favorite album of mine, the sweet one Folkloreis unbeatable.

D.T. : Is it just me or is 31 songs a lot to digest at once? Far be it from me to question the decisions of our prophet, but perhaps it would have been more judicious to space out the release of the first portion of TTPD and its (abundant) appendix. Taylor sings in Florida !!! “My friends all smell of weed or little babies”, and since I belong to the second category, I preferred to take advantage of the sleep that my offspring allows me (these days) than to commune with the millions of Swifties who opted for an all-nighter.

This sentence also reminds me that we celebrate too little the extent to which Taylor, like Leonard Cohen, knows how to insert luminous comic outbursts into all his songs, even the most desperate.

M.G. : I do not belong to either of the two categories mentioned in Florida !!!, one of my favorite pieces from the record, which brings the distinct, mystical and intense touch of Florence Welch (from Florence+The Machine) so well and which joins it to that equally distinct of Taylor. A successful summit meeting. But back to the drugs and babies, I was able to stay up until midnight to listen to the first 15 songs.

The clues dropped by Taylor in the last few days suggested a sequel at 2 a.m…. but I fell asleep before then. What was my joy when I woke up to discover a continuation of the TTPD chapter. Unlike you, I needed that appendix. A suite which, yes, could have existed on its own, but which gives a whole new meaning to the first 15 songs, even if certain pieces could disappear without me shedding a tear.

D.T. : As Taylor herself often does, let me tell you, without missing a beat, the opposite of what I just said: my favorite song is The Black Dog, and this song is taken from the second portion of TTPD, a spiteful letter addressed to Matt Healy, the leader of the group The 1975 in whose arms she tried to forget Joe (spoiler alert: Matty only made it worse the situation).

My favorite breakup album of all time is Blood on the Tracks by Dylan and my favorite Taylor is the one who, like Dylan, self-flagellates while spitting her venom.

M.G. : It makes me happy that you bring up the comedic side of Taylor Swift. I’m going to take this opportunity to quote one of my favorite lines, taken from one of my favorite songs, But Daddy I Love Himwhich I interpret as a speech intended for all those who have expressed judgments regarding his relationship with the famous bearded guy who plays ball (Travis Kelce).

In a song where she defends this relationship to her father, she also addresses all of us (yes, I include myself in this) who have doubted the authenticity of her relationship. “Now I’m running with my dress unbuttoned/Screaming, “But Daddy, I love him!” I’m having his baby” /No, I’m not, but you should see your faces. ” Beautiful !

D.T. : I read us again and it jumps out at me: we both sound like members of a cult. I’m writing it here before one of our readers criticizes us in an angry email: there is a lot of pleasure in a new Taylor Swift album that comes, yes, from this set of tracks.

The fact remains that even if knowing that a song like Style (2014) was about her romance with Harry Styles amuses me, it’s because Style is a big pop song that it is one of my favorite songs in his repertoire, not because I know (or think I know) the behind the scenes. Here, with a few rare exceptions, including My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toysbig, more pop tunes are becoming rare.

To follow the literary metaphor with which she packed the marketing of this album, Taylor would benefit from availing herself of a publisher. Not to revise his lyrics, but to help him separate his good songs from the less good ones.

M.G. : Taylor said some time ago, during a concert, that this album was the one that allowed him to free himself the most. And after listening to these 31 songs for a long time (and I’ve listened to it 4 times at the time of writing these lines), I can imagine the lightness she must have felt after shedding so much anger, of disgust, of sadness, of errant love too. How can you be against that?

D.T. : I’m not at all! I just think that if Born to Run by Springsteen is such a great record, it’s because it contains eight songs and not 31. I will send you at the end of the week my ideal version of TTPD composed of my ten favorite songs and I promise you, in all humility , it will be a much better album than the one launched Thursday evening.

But hey, maybe I behave like all the men she writes about: I ask her to be something other than what she is. You’re right, I could stop complaining and be satisfied with bridge So Long, London. I know several songwriters who would trade their entire body of work for a single bridge like that. I could be content to cry into a ball while listening loml (acronym meaning “love of my life”), with which Taylor pierces my heart while having the elegance to stitch it back together.

M.G. : Your last sentences sound like poetry to my ears, I see that Taylor rubs off nicely on you. I also notice that we share several favorites on the album.

Another of my favorites, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, allows you to listen to another excellent text, so acerbic and liberating, directed towards his ex, Matty Healy. You mention My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys, that I love. Taylor’s longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff produced it, as did several others on TTPD. Paying attention to the album credits, one thing stood out to me: Antonoff’s work is great, he makes magic, but I can’t help but think that maybe he and Taylor have takes the tour, for the moment, of their collaboration. Conversely, everything that Aaron Dessner touched on this record delighted me (I had a physical reaction, a burst of joy, upon hearing loml Or So High School for the first time).

I hope now that Taylor takes a step back, a long break. She seems to want to do it, she says that this album closes a chapter, that everything has been said. I’m also full, and I have 31 new songs to learn by heart.

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The Tortured Poets Department

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