jewelsigaveu

[jewelsigaveu]

oh taylor…

#when this hit me… made me want to sell my house and set fire to all my clothes #the number of parallels between the reputation poems and ttpd is just insane #taylor swift #reputation #if you’re anything like me #i hate it here #the tortured poets department #ttpd #lyrical parallels

[jewelsigaveu]

loml is such a visual song. taylor takes a lot of abstract concepts and ties them to very specific images which i think makes the lyrics extremely beautiful. getting back together with the subject of the song is a waltz back into rekindled flames. the memories of the time they spent apart when they were young is a hand-stitched embroidery. their love is a glow within taylor. she does not say “we were never truly over” she paints a picture of the two of them standing in a cemetery, not yet buried as they should have been. he doesn’t just come into her life in the right time, he flies in with the winds of fate. he doesn’t make her false promises, he paints impressionist pictures of heaven that turn out to be fakes and the ink bleeds. he is a conman and taylor is a fool. there is a hole now in the place of the glow she felt. what passed between them is a black-and-white movie with plot twists and dynamites. dynamites. that is how she tells you this was an explosive relationship. they don’t talk about marriage and children, they talk about rings and cradles. she is not crippled with grief, she cannot get out of bed. he does not claim to be a brave man, he claims to be a lion. she is not trying to figure out what was true and what was false, she is combing through braids of lies. he does not burn their dreams down, their field of dreams is engulfed in fire. the arson is reflected in his somber eyes. the last “i’ll still see it until i die” is a very deliberate choice of words because she paints such vivid pictures with her lyrics so that you see it too by the end. what she does with this song is a masterclass lesson in songwriting

#taylor swift #loml #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

the line “six weeks of breathing clean air, i still miss the smoke” is like a punch in the gut. old habits die screaming. it’s agony to adjust to the absence of someone whose presence had become an every day part of life. it should be liberating, it should taste like freedom. yet to be free of the burdens they laid on your shoulders is somehow a greater pain than to go on carrying the weight of them as you’d became so used to.

#the ceiling keeping that smoke trapped until she brought it down and spring came forth #‘leaving felt like breathing’ indeed #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post #the black dog

[jewelsigaveu]

something i deeply appreciate about the black dog (a self-written song!) is that it tells a complete narrative from start to finish and yet is also all over the place. a stream of consciousness going on in taylor’s head in between the time she watches the subject of the song enter and leave the bar. from the first line to the last she keeps to the core theme of the song: “old habits die screaming.” yet she is jumping from thought to thought as the song progresses, leaving behind the numb shock and puzzlement of the first verse for the anger and agony of the last chorus. how could you have forgotten to turn your location off? don’t you miss going to bars with me? is there some other younger girl with you right now? are they playing that one song that was important to us? will i ever be able to open up to someone again? it kills me that you made me believe you were what i needed. don’t you miss showering together? do you hate me? i know i’m better off but i still miss what we had. were you making fun of me with that thing you said? i hope you know how much you have hurt me. i hope you are having a terrible time right now.

#i could talk about this song for hours #a career highlight #dare i say lyrically her best self written track #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post #the black dog

[jewelsigaveu]

i’m only 17 i don’t know anything but i know i miss you // as the men masqueraded i hoped you’d return with your feet on the ground tell me all that you learned

#taylor swift #betty #peter #folklore #the tortured poets department #ttpd #lyrical parallels #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

my white knuckle dying grip, holding tight to your quiet resentment // i wait by the door like i'm just a kid use my best colors for your portrait lay the table with the fancy shit and watch you tolerate it

#taylor swift #tolerate it #so long london #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post #lyrical parallels

[jewelsigaveu]

while you were out building other worlds, where was i? // i didn't opt in to be your odd man out. (…) i left all i knew, you left me at the house by the heath

#taylor swift #so long london #tolerate it #lyrical parallels #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

Only when your girlish glow, flickers just so, do they let you know: It's hell on earth to be heavenly. Them's the breaks, they don't come gently. Clara Bow - The Tortured Poets Department (2024)

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #clara bow #tswiftedit

[jewelsigaveu]

taylor had one chance to beat the no longer relatable now that she is a billionaire allegations and she took it when she wrote a song about stalking people’s instagrams to see what her ex is up to

#extremely funny that she called herself a ‘deranged weirdo’ for it #girl we’ve all been there #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #i look in people’s windows

[jewelsigaveu]

from how did it end? exploring the agonizing dehumanization that is the result of autobiographical songwriting to the manuscript closing her most personal and painful record by circling back to her most personal and painful song to explore how art can evolve into something larger than itself once put into the world whether it takes one year or five or ten there are so many quintessential songs in the tortured poets department that it has managed to fill gaps that you never even knew existed in taylor’s already polished-to-perfection discography. so many songs here are taylor’s best work to date

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

we were crazy to think, crazy to think this could work. remember how i said i’d die for you? // all these people think love’s for show but i would die for you in secret. // now i want to (…) hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons even if i die screaming, and i hope that you hear it

#she believes she is a demon herself☹️ #false god #peace #the black dog #lyrical parallels #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

how long could we be a sad song 'til we were too far gone to bring back to life? // i stopped cpr, after all it's no use. the spirit was gone, we would never come to. // say it once again with feeling how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving.

#so many thoughts #you’re losing me #so long london #how did it end? #lyrical parallels #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

the “but i took your matches before fire could catch me” to “the bravest thing i ever did was run” to “i’m in a getaway car. i left you in the motel bar” to “you know in your soul when it’s time to go” to “that’s when she sees the littlest leaks down in the floorboards and she just knows she must bolt” pipeline

#there is escape in escaping!! #a criminally underrated song #taylor swift #the bolter #it’s time to go #getaway car #better man #dear john #lyrical parallels #ttpd #the tortured poets department

[jewelsigaveu]

the reception ttpd is receiving from the critics and the industry reminded me of this interview from lover era with rolling stone in which taylor talks about the infamous last season of game of thrones and relates the treatment of daenerys targaryen’s character to the treatment of powerful women in our very own world.

fame is unfortunately a cycle for female artists. society loves punching them down once they decide they have raised them “too high.” there is a turning point in which liking the woman in question goes from being “cool” to “cringe.” she has to be brought down, humbled. and taylor has reached an astronomical high that no other person in her industry can even aspire to. she also is and has always been unapologetically ambitious and proud of her work and her success. she will never go on the stage and say she “didn’t deserve this award.” for all the anxieties she expresses in her songs, she never once doubts whether she earned her place. no she gave her blood, sweat and tears for this, she built a legacy you cannot undo. she does not settle for less than what she believes she deserves in her professional or personal life. this stance of hers is the reason why the hate and criticism she receives periodically is so intense in its blatant misogyny. we seemingly entered another cycle that means to bring her down, and the pushback is harder than ever because she stands higher than ever and this has clearly ruffled some people’s feathers. taking her down is not so easy though.

as she herself said she went through this 60 times (and dozens more since this interview). it is frustrating, terribly unfair that this album is seemingly just as good if not better as folklore and evermore yet is received very differently but at the end of the day the same publications that were panning red in 2012 were ranking it on their decade-end lists. the same publications that panned reputation in 2017 later came out and said they scored it that low because it was popular to dislike taylor at the time. not getting too hung-up on irrelevant magazine reviews is the easiest way to go about this. it will pass

#do i tag this game of thrones lmao #trust that the basement they run you know what from will collapse one day #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

i can fix him (no really i can) is a turning point in the album in my opinion. at the very end of the song she comes to a stark realization, snaps out of it if you will. she cannot fix him. he has not changed and will not change. the four songs that follow see her grieving and finally coming to terms with the end of both her relationships in loml, meeting “extreme pain with defiance” and telling herself she can live through it in i can do it with a broken heart, seeing you know for who he is and having a closure about the whole thing (“i will forget you but i will never forgive”) in the smallest man who ever lived, and finally meeting and striking up a relationship with someone new in the alchemy. at last she closes the first edition of the album with a song about her musical legacy

#she is never going back to either of those men #the tortured poets department #taylor swift #ttpd #i can fix him (no really i can) #loml #i can do it with a broken heart #the smallest man who ever lived #the alchemy #clara bow #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

obsessed with the fortnight music video in general but especially this scene. the entire video takes place in taylor’s mind of course, hence the oddities. there is a two-way mirror in the asylum room that she has constructed for herself. the observers can see inside her head but taylor only ever sees her own reflection. she’s alone to deal with her emotions while people have a direct access to her headspace, the price of her autobiographical songwriting. there is also a natural paranoia and uncertainty having such a “mirror” in your room would induce in a person. you never know who might be standing behind it or when. you might be watched at all times by anyone therefore you would always move about with that knowledge in your mind, always on your best behavior. she is trapped even inside her own head. no wonder she feels like a circus animal. don’t you worry though, you are safe while the mirror stands between you. then when she has her cathartic breakdown, taylor takes a chair and shatters it. those who stood on the other side see her now without any barrier between them, and she sees them as well. it is a metaphor for of course ttpd being her most raw, confessional and unfiltered writing as of yet. it also leads in my opinion to “daddy i love him” in which she directly addresses her audience that they do not get to dictate her life and her choices, how she moves and acts. this is taylor as she is, standing before you. she can reach out and touch you. she is past pretenses. will you still take her word for it when you now know who really is talking? are you afraid of her if she snarls at you and shows just how disturbed she is? how twisted and broken she feels? the tortured poets department is an uncomfortable record by nature. her pain and anger are jagged pieces of jet black glass, nothing like the quiet grief that runs through folklore and evermore. it is the kind of pain that makes you uneasy and it is meant to be. no wonder this is the record that has caused such a division in the fandom.

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #fortnight #text post

[jewelsigaveu]

the more i ruminate on the album the more manic i get… call it the authentic tortured poets experience

#the last ‘screaming’ in the black dog made me want to tear my hair out just now #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #text post