Professor Taylor Swift Teaches a Lesson in Heartbreak

Published: April 19, 2024
Photo: Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty Images

Taylor Swift accepted her 13th Grammy in a way only she would — by announcing her next Grammy winner, The Tortured Poets Department. Her 11th album (which is now a double album) is now out, and so far, we’re learning a lot about her relationships with Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy. Swift leaned into being a professor (she does have a doctorate) with her first lesson: teaching Swifties all about the five stages of heartbreak and grief that surrounded the album announcement. If you’re really trying to ace her class, Swift even set up office hours at The Tortured Poets Department library, tea-soaked paper included. Now that it’s out, take notes on everything we know about Swift’s newest album below.

When do classes start?

Don’t be tardy! The Tortured Poets Department is officially available on streaming services. Per Professor Swift’s new timetable, a music video — for newly announced single “Fortnight” — will drop on the same day at 8 p.m. ET. Start cramming.

What have we learned so far?

A lot about Swift’s relationships with Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy. On the title track, Swift remembers “a tattooed golden retriever,” which sure sounds like Healy, and a conversation where said puppy dog boy got stoned and they “declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.” The more conceptual “But Daddy I Love Him” seems to take on the fan backlash to their relationship. “God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what’s best for me,” she sings about her infatuation with “wild boy.” The Alwyn songs are more solemn affairs, like track five “So Long London,” on which she parts with his hometown. On “loml,” she sings about the “loss of her life,” also presumably Alwyn. “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” seems to specifically be about the experience of continuing to tour after her split with Alwyn. “All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting more,” she sings. “I was grinning like I’m winning, I was hitting my marks / ’Cause I can do it with a broken heart.”

Oh, and there’s one song about her current boyfriend Travis Kelce, too! That’d be “The Alchemy,” which is full of football references, including a bridge specifically about the Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl: “Where’s the trophy / He just comes running over to me.” Other songs seem to be more fictional, a la folklore and evermore, like opener “Fortnight” with Post Malone and her Florence Welch duet “Florida!!!” And, yes, Florence Welch sings her ass off. Sound-wise, The Tortured Poets Department builds on the synthy sophistipop palate of Midnights, with flashes of folklore-y twang.

What’s on the rest of the syllabus?

Swift dropped a track list as she was on her way to Japan for the Eras tour in February. TTPD features 16 tracks with one bonus song titled “The Manuscript” on the standard edition. And she’s not running the department alone; as mentioned, Post Malone and Florence + the Machine are both featured, with Malone kicking things off on “Fortnight” (and not Fortnite; sorry, gamers).

“Fortnight,” the opening track, will be the album’s lead single, and it will be part of something called the #ForAFortnightChallenge (again, not Fortnite) on YouTube Shorts, Swift revealed ahead of the release. “I’ve been such a huge fan of Post because of the writer he is, his musical experimentation and those melodies he creates that just stick in your head forever,” Swift shared on Twitter. “I got to witness that magic come to life firsthand when we worked together on Fortnight.”

For the variant collectors, Swift is releasing (so far) four different versions of the album, each with a new bonus track: “The Manuscript,” “The Bolter,” “The Albatros,” and “The Black Dog.” While the last three were only available on her official webstore for a limited time, if history repeats itself, they’ll most likely come back again.

As of release night, Swift’s double album is only featured on streaming.

Any guest lecturers?

According to songwriting credits ahead of the release, Swift has been working with the usual suspects, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner. Antonoff co-wrote eight songs on the main album, while Dessner co-wrote five. Two songs, “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” were written solely by Swift.

Study up on her “5 Stages of Heartbreak” playlists.

Professor Swift has a master’s in heartbreak anthems and has seemingly leaned into the five-stages-of-grief theory circling around the past month and released “5 Stages of Heartbreak” playlists. As Apple Music puts it: “​​When Swifties agree upon a theory, Taylor takes an interest—so, naturally, she’s responded by crafting a series of exclusive playlists, choosing songs of her own that fit each stage.” She twisted the knife a bit when she added songs like “Lover” and “betty” to the Denial playlist (the first stage) named after one of the upcoming TTPD lyrics, “I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life.” Below are all five of the playlists. Here is a warning: Your favorite Swift love song might have a new meaning.

Which way to the library?

Spotify’s Tortured Poets Department library pop-up, that is. The installation is currently up at the Grove in Los Angeles featuring sheets of tea-stained parchment, fountain pens, a typo, and some Easter eggs for extra credit. Open books show snippets of lyrics including “Even statues crumble / If they’re meant to wait.” The library’s clock is set to 2 a.m. and a calendar is set to Friday, December 13, which fans have speculated could be a future release date in addition to her birthday. Swifties had a field day with this. Some were even analyzing the six open drawers of the library’s filing system for the six years of her relationship with Alwyn, of course.

Wait, I thought Reputation was next?

The initial announcement was a bit of a curveball for Swifties, who’d been expecting Swift to announce her impending Taylor’s Version of Reputation instead. The ties were indeed black, and the lies were indeed white! Along with the announcement and album cover, Swift posted a poem on Twitter:

And so I enter into evidence

My tarnished coat of arms

My muses, acquired like bruises

My talismans and charms

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 Poets Department

Yeah, uh, sorry for all the love-bombing discourse to come.

What’s the required reading?

Swifties, being Swifties, immediately started decoding the album announcement, title, and vibes. A theory emerged quickly that the album title is a dig at Joe Alwyn (and maybe Paul Mescal too), as he is in a group chat called “The Tortured Man Club.” Andrew Scott started the chat, which Alwyn and Mescal discussed in their Variety “Actors on Actors” video. With songs titled “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” and “So Long, London,” the theories are only lightening up in the slightest. Healy has his own connect to the album title; in December 2022, he captioned a photo with Bo Burnham and kissing Phoebe Bridgers as “Gay Poets Society.” So safe to say it’s a joint union from both departments.

This post has been updated throughout. 

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