Taylor and the Tortured Swifties Department that follows her
Taylor Swift is the biggest star in the world, so her loyal fans should expect an increased swarm of haters. But we should take pride in everyone having an opinion about our favorite artist.
I’m not in a position to offer a meaningful critique or review of Taylor Swift’s eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department (or its extension, The Anthology). I’m a bonafide Swiftie, and as such, I’m eager to listen to her new content and I will enjoy every minute of it. I am the foil of the people who want to offer Taylor Swift, whom Pitchfork accurately described as “bigger than her body of work,” nothing but contempt due to her surging popularity and cultural influence. I offer her nothing but praise. While plenty of critics will be impartial, I won’t feign an attempt at such—I’m just a lover taken by Taylor Swift’s words. As I’ve long said, she sings what we can’t say. Thank you, Taylor, for another wonderful addition to your already beloved discography.
A critic I may not be, but to be sure, like the army of Swifties alongside me, I feel a little defensive when it comes to public critiques of our favorite artist. We have an instinct to gatekeep her (as if she could possibly be contained). This predisposition of protection expresses itself in our almost gnostic understanding of her lyrics. We see things in them you don’t. We get her like you don’t. She means something more to us. Her songs are written in a way that convinces us they are for her, and also secretly for us too. We dissect the lyrics, wonder about their meaning, and analyze them with the sacred Swiftie hermeneutic, like they were scripture.
But even as I write it, I see the absurdity of such an obsession. We just like her a lot, and it kind of stings to have people who don’t love her at all, or who have just encountered her as the other side of a juicy romance with a hunky football player, offer their own critiques. Taylor isn’t for you, she’s for us! I admit, I probably should have aged out of such fanaticism, but here I am.
Compared to her melancholy, carefully constructed, fictional narrative-driven pandemic releases evermore and folklore, Tortured exists as the other side of Midnights. Both records are autobiographical, but rather than sharing her angry, secret, vengeful witching hour thoughts, in Tortured Taylor shares her broken heart in the face of devastating break-ups, with just a brief mention of her newfound idyllic romance with Travis Kelce (in “The Alchemy,” she sings, “Where’s the trophy? / He just comes running over to me.”). The anger of Midnights gives way to a contemplative and interminable poet whose heart has been broken over and over again. Evidently one of the people she’s in love with in Tortured is a bad seed. She sings in “But Daddy I Love Him,” “He was chaos, he was revelry. / Bedroom eyes like a remedy. / Soon enough the elders had convened down at the city hall, / ‘stay away from her.’”
She holds her obvious mistakes openly, honestly, and patiently as she makes them into melodramatic, yet accessible, poetry.
Taylor’s heartbreaking lyrics may be overwritten, but their excessiveness helps us take them a little less seriously—in “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart,” she joyfully and with some silliness sings, “I’m so depressed, / I act like it’s my birthday, / everyday.” She holds that while also giving us a chance to feel our tragedy through her depiction of hers—she catches me off guard through every listen-through in the explosive bridge for “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.” She fills the room, wailing, “Were you sent by someone / who wanted me dead? / Did you sleep with a gun underneath your bed?”
Tayor’s intensity may not be for everyone. Some may think it is embellished or extravagant. In their defense, a 31-track double album is hardly austere, but this record isn’t for those with a small appetite for new Taylor content. There are millions of adoring fans who revel in the popular critique of the album being too long. More for them. If anything, to the Swiftie, the intimidating length of the album thankfully loses the attention of undeserving eavesdroppers.
Taylor shares her emotions lavishly in the face of contempt—she shares her full self. Although her persona may be larger than life and her wealth unimaginable, they are both not enough to overcome the human condition of heartbreak and the loss of love.
Unfortunately for Taylor, and her legion of Swifties, her greatness isn’t enough to eclipse the fact that everyone has an opinion about her. Popularity comes with such a curse. Taylor is no stranger to the disdain of her haters, but she uses their angst as fuel for her own writing and expression. For those of us who believe her writing is sinless, such attacks feel personal. Taylor is showing us the way to endure the criticism of others and express ourselves as we are. We can follow her lead—be ourselves, and expect some rocks thrown our way.
She’s vulnerable and open, and yet people wonder out loud about the legitimacy of her authenticity and the reality of her pain. How could a billionaire pop goddess, and a white one at that, suffer any pain at all? Taylor’s poetry tells us that her money and wealth don’t take away the pains of the human experience. In the face of real actual tragedies around us, Taylor’s overstated pain may seem insensitive, but she never compares it to real trauma and suffering (although an occasional comment about current events, Taylor, would be welcomed). Her outsized presence is just a matter of circumstance. You can hate on her for being loved, but that’ll just make you a line in her song.
Her magnitude will invariably attract some people who insist on knocking her down. But more than that, it will attract more fans touched by her music. Don’t let the haters drown up the swarms of us that appreciate her. Swifties protective of the music that’s influenced and amazed them have a right to be, but remember, with every release more and more are blessed by her, even more than are revolted by her. And yes, she’ll be mocked, but when she is, and we all profit. Maybe her legion of critics will produce another double LP in a few years. I’m ready for it.