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Taylor Swift’s New Double Album The Tortured Poets Department Takes Shots at Matty Healy and Joe Alwyn

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7m ago

Apr 23, 2024 / 9426 Views

Evan Walker

While the world waited with bated breath for the release of The Tortured Poets Department and the consequent vaporisation of Joe Alwyn, Miss Americana was planning a surprise of an entirely different sort. When April 19 rolled around, Taylor Swift shocked the world with the surprise drop of a double album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, featuring 31 new tracks for 2 hours and 2 minutes of heart-rending listening. And spoiler alert: Taylor Swift is coming for Matty Healy.

Okay, we’ll admit it — Miss Taylor Swift got us, and she got us good. On April 19 2024, Swifties of the world awoke in anticipation of The Tortured Poets Department, widely expected to be a heart-rending album containing 16 songs dedicated to the decline and death of her six-year relationship with ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn.

Not Taylor placing an easter egg for the extra 15 tracks in the original 16 tracks 💀 #TSTTPD pic.twitter.com/KCXfzRe9Gv
— sonya ⭐️ writing thesis era (@TisTheDamnPhD) April 19, 2024

To our utter shock and surprise, the Mastermind singer had two tricks up her sleeve: a double album in the form of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, and the very confronting fact that Joe Alwyn was not the only ex-boyfriend she would be calling out in her scathingly raw and honest lyrics. Take cover, Matty Healy — Taylor Swift is coming for you.

Taylor Swift drops surprise double album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology

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Mere hours into the Asian region releases of The Tortured Poets Department, Swift took to Instagram to announce an unexpected 2AM surprise — TTPD: The Anthology. The extended album features 31 songs including the extra tracks from the previously announced The Bolter, The Albatross, The Black Dog, and The Manuscript editions. In the Instagram post, Swift shared that she had ‘written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years’, detailing that she wanted to share them with her faNBAse. The caption, which echoes the hopefulness of a better tomorrow, also hints that Swift is ready to leave her past behind.

So Long, London — so long, Joe Alwyn.

Shots fired: Matty Healy is The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

While sources close to Swift had initially expressed that she would not be writing albums about her whirlwind relationship with Matty Healy of The 1975, The Tortured Poets Department says otherwise. In a stunning stroke of genius, Swift turned our expectations on their heads, taking songs assumed to be about her relationship with Alwyn and assigning them instead to Matty Healy, alluding to his bad boy persona in the process.

taylor swift new double album tortured poets department — Taylor Swift and Matty Healy seen leaving ‘The Electric Lady’ studio in Manhattan on May 16, 2023 in New York City. (Image: Robert Kamau/GC Images)

Most notably, Fortnight references a short-lived relationship of a mere two weeks, whilst The Tortured Poets Department speaks of someone who left their typewriter at the poet’s apartment. Healy has famously shared that he loves typewriters.

More songs that point towards Healy’s role in inspiring the Tortured Poets Department include But Daddy I Love Him, Fresh Out Of The Slammer, and I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can), all hinting at Swift’s desire to make an ill-fated relationship work in the face of widespread criticism and public disapproval. Considering Healy’s reputation in the public eye as a loose cannon with questionable opinions (remember the Good Vibes festival fiasco of 2023?), it makes sense that Swift would choose the most vicious and biting of ways to rip the remnants of their relationship to shreds.

imagine being matty healy waking up tomorrow morning just to find out taylor swift wrote multiple love songs about your situationship from last year pic.twitter.com/VsvUXHGrLk
— shelly ⎕ (@balladofmaroon) April 19, 2024

Perhaps most damning of all is Matty Healy’s apparent role in inspiring The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, where Taylor Swift appears to call him out for ghosting her. Clues appear in abundance within the lyrics to point to Healy as the smallest man who ever lived; Healy has been outspoken about his resentment on being the shortest of his bandmates, standing at a sufficient 5’10”. The lyrics also point to a man who wears a ‘Jehovah Witness suit’, which generally comprises a close-cut suit and tie — an outfit choice that has defined much of Healy’s career. The song also references a summertime romance and addiction, both of which match up with what we know of their short-lived relationship.

While few could have possibly saw this coming, the proof is in the pudding. The songs and lyrics on The Tortured Poets Department suggest that Swift’s dalliance with Healy had been more emotionally charged than suspected. Have fun with that, Swifties.

Joe Alwyn receives scathing, but dignified treatment in So Long, London

If there’s one person who’s going to sleep soundly tonight, it’s Joe Alwyn. While an in-depth listen is likely required to point out all the lyrics and songs that are likely to reference his six-year relationship with Swift, a preliminary glance would suggest that he has been spared much of her vitriol.

Joe Alwyn tomorrow realizing Taylor Swift wrote the tortured poets department about Matty Healypic.twitter.com/n6JhmpUuFH
— T (@teewatterss) April 18, 2024

That’s not to say there’s no vitriol at all, however, though Swift appears to take a more reserved and mournful approach in closing her chapter with Alwyn. Over the years, a fan theory had emerged to suggest that the songstress reserves the fifth spot on each album for its most heartbreaking song, and The Tortured Poets Department does not break with tradition on that front. So Long, London occupies the album’s fifth spot, and to nobody’s surprise, it appears to have been inspired by Joe Alwyn himself.

In softly lilting, breathless tones interlacing nostalgic disco-synth beats, Swift takes a retrospective view of her relationship, with heartbreaking lyrics that recall The Great War and You’re Losing Me.

From, ‘I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift / Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away / My spine split from carrying us up the hill / Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill / I stopped trying to make him laugh, stopped trying to drill the safe,’ to ‘Thinking how much sad did you think I had, did you think I had in me? / Oh the tragedy / So long, London / You’ll find someone’, So Long, London is a markedly pensive and yet quietly energetic goodbye, evoking equal measures of melancholia and hope.

The only thing more mortifying than your ex writing a breakup album about you is your ex writing a breakup album that actually isn’t even about you. RIP Joe Alwyn, a man who wasn’t even eulogized at his own funeral.
— Alyssa Leader (@alittleleader) April 19, 2024

Swift also appears to hint at a third party within the lyrics of the song, with ‘I didn’t opt in to be your odd man out / I founded the club she’s heard great things about / I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Hеath / I stopped CPR, after all it’s no use’, perhaps referencing rumours that Alwyn had cheated on her with his Conversations With Friends co-star Alison Oliver.

Despite her pointed barbs in the face of grief and loss, Swift appears ready to sever her ties to that torrid past, shedding her past in the hope of a better tomorrow. Here’s to the Travis era, for good.

Our preliminary thoughts about The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology

Lyrically, The Tortured Poets Department is rife with the Parnassian prose we have all come to expect from Taylor Swift and her songwriting genius. The abundant, swelling refrains bear the inimitable quality that has become synonymous with Swift’s constant collaborator, producer, and friend, Jack Antonoff, whose magical touch reverberates from song to song. The first song of the album, Fortnight, a down-tempo electropop masterpiece bears Post Malone’s inimitable songwriting quality; likewise for Florida!!!, for which Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine produced lines and lilting.

Taylor Swift takes aim at Matty Healy in *The Tortured Poets Department*. (Image: Taylor Swift/Instagram)

While the album’s standing amongst others is yet to be determined, it has quickly become clear that it will want for few lovers, with a richness in sound that is reminiscent of 2022’s Midnights. Yet, there are the barest suggestions of Swift’s earlier alternative and folk albums Folklore and Evermore, evident in the dreamily ebbing and surging beats of I Look In People’s Windows, The Prophecy, and Cassandra.

From the first notes of Fortnight to the final melodies of The Manuscript, Swift masterfully brings the listener through a journey equal measures heartbreaking and magical, hints of hopefulness interspersed within as she reclaims herself and everything she has built. Through it all, Swift’s harmoniously dulcet tones provide a soothing reminder of her musical journey, detailing how far she has come in both synthesising sound and penning lyrics.

Listen to The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology on Spotify.

(Main and featured image: Taylor Swift/Instagram)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

– Is The Tortured Poets Department a double album?

Yes, The Tortured Poets Department is a double album. Taylor Swift announced the surprise 2AM drop on April 19, mere hours after the album was released in Asia.

– Is Taylor Swift releasing a double album?

The Tortured Poets Department is a double album. Taylor Swift announced the surprise 2AM drop on April 19 a few short hours after the album was released in Asia.

– How many songs are on The Tortured Poets Department album?

There are 16 songs in The Tortured Poets Department; however, in a surprise new drop, Taylor Swift released a double album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which comprises 31 songs.

– When did Taylor announce The Tortured Poets Department?

On February 5 2024, Taylor Swift first announced her new album, The Tortured Poets Department onstage at the 2024 Grammy Awards. On April 19 2024, Taylor Swift surprised fans with a new announcement, that The Tortured Poets Department would be a double album with 15 songs added to the original 16.