The latest episode of the Switched on Pop podcast dives into the many theories behind Taylor Swift ’s The Tortured Poet’s Department … and there’s even more to talk about than you think!
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Switched on Pop: Taylor Swift's Literary Era Photo credit Switched on Pop Musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding dissect all the latest and greatest pop music on their Switched on Pop podcast- and this week, they had their hands full with Taylor Swift ’s latest releases. The Tortured Poet’s Department and second album Anthology have been causing a stir among fans and critics attempting to assign the storyline to specific people and name-drops, but for Nate and Charlie, they find the ‘Taylor Swift ex-song’ narrative a bit tired. “People will say no, the song is about this figure in her life, this friend, this lover,” Nate explained. “And perhaps that's true to a degree as well, but, I actually think it's the power of fiction that is what's being celebrated here.”
Thus, to analyze The Tortured Poets Department more accurately, the two musicians leave all gossip behind and instead consider the world of literature. Each song, they theorize, represents a different book genre- and they too came with receipts. The song “Fresh Out the Slammer” would act as a western or detective novel, with the following song “Florida!!!” representing a pulp noir in the same vein. Pop beat ‘Down Bad’ could be seen as a young adult romance, with references to the game ‘Spin the Bottle’ and the turn-of-phrase ‘teenage petulance’ describing a puppy-love heartbreak.
The fan-favorite “But Daddy I Love Him” particularly interested the co-hosts, as it seemed to reference young adult literary genres, but with a period and fantasy twist. “This feels like an updated version of her song ‘Love Story’ where she's telling the Romeo and Juliet story and there’s the rush to the dad to talk about the relationship” Charlie noted. Envisioning the song as a period novel, he continued, “I think maybe [it’s] like a Jane Austen, you know, I feel like we have like Elizabeth Bennett, running through the fields - ‘I found my Darcy!'”
“This feels like one of those secret gardens in Taylor Swift's mind, this song, you know, so it's so creative,” Nate said in agreement. “It's telling this whole story, [as if] listening to the Anthology with the eye, decoding different things.”
In that same decoding spirit, the ultimate question of literary inspired metaphor remains: Is this album fiction or nonfiction? While the two podcast hosts had dissected each song within a different fictional genre, there remain many surprisingly meta moments throughout the double album. For example, "Florida!!!" discusses shedding other bodies before Taylor Swift seemingly becomes self aware with the lyric, “Is that a bad thing to say in a song?” Additional song “The Manuscript” sees Taylor reference herself as "the professor," aka the songwriter, who’s works have been so twisted that she no longer identifies with them.
But co-hosts Nate and Charlie find the most jarring moment of self-awareness within her song "Clara Bow," which originally ended the first TTPD album. Playing the song over, the two note how the song follows various IT girls: first Clara Bow of the silent film age, then Stevie Nicks of the seventies. But in the last verse, Swift quite literally name-drops herself in the same stanzas as the others, singing, “You look like Taylor Swift / In this light / We're loving it.”
“She's singing about herself and in a certain way,” Charlie Harding remarks. “You forget that she's singing a song because of this ouroboros that she has made, of singing about Taylor Swift, as Taylor Swift.”
Though host Nate Sloan admitted that the reference might “rub some people the wrong way” with its blatant self-recognition, it goes quite far to answer what he calls the albums’ “question of literary fiction versus more memoir.”
“If she is writing about Taylor Swift, is she narrativizing her own life?” Charlie asked. “Or is she creating the legend of Taylor Swift? Is she playing into the larger fan narrative?”
Whatever may be the case, Taylor Swift is weaving a web that has already captured us all. To hear more of the TTPD podcast analysis by musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding, you can listen to the full episode here on the free Audacy app.
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