Deus Ex Machina: Taylor Swift’s Only Way Out of Her Storybook Fantasy Is To Burn It Down
What happens when our fantasies and fiction take on a life of their own?
She did it! That mad woman actually did it. On April 19, 2024, Taylor Swift released her 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department, finally giving listeners everything they've been asking for. The return to quill-songs. The surprise double album drop at 2 am. Hell, she even went so far as to confirm that she's been changing the names and essential identifiers in her music — mixing metaphors, literary references, and recurring themes to sing to hidden muses without the public knowing. Thirty-one songs that give the entire game away. So why is everyone talking about Matty? Travis? Joe? Were we not listening to the same album(s)? The one that lays out the true story behind the not-so-fictional folklore love triangle? Taylor is James (duh).
Once again, we find ourselves at an impasse, sharpening our digital pitchforks in preparation to wage war on whichever man Taylor Swift selects for lyrical scrutiny and execution. That's the story, right? Swift's work has always been criticized for her obsession with boys and her inability to keep them. Until her Prince Charming Joe Alwyn came in on a white horse and saved her from further embarrassment, right?
I'm baffled by the continued lack of critical thinking skills among fans and critics regarding Swift's music and, more importantly, her PR strategy. Since the release of folklore, Swift has not penned a wholly autobiographical collection of songs. That's four albums (and many more re-recordings mixed in) she's strategically utilized to blur, clutter, and obscure the timeline of her love life. Why are we talking about Travis Kelce? Remember two weeks ago, when everyone on Twitter was ready to put Joe Alwyn on the cross for (allegedly) cheating on Taylor? He was her longest relationship finally gone awry, surely she must sing about him, right?
Hyenas, with drool dripping from their maws, eagerly downloaded illegally leaked copies of TTPD hours before its release. They declared it her worst work yet, laughing that she'd finally hit rock bottom of her skills and songwriting abilities. And with one surprise album, Swift retconned her entire dating history and entered a 10-year situationship into the cannon. Oh, so, Matty Healy? That’s what you assumed.
How many bait-and-switches does this woman have to pull before you take a step back? How often will you buy the narrative that this is the “happiest she’s ever been?”
The Tortured Poets Department is the roman à clef to Swift’s discography. In just thirty-one songs—yes, I’m marveling at how she was able to weave ten years of lore into just two albums—Taylor Swift tells the entire story of her one great love, the traitor who masqueraded as a kindred spirit, the loss of her life’s work, her complicated feelings surrounding fame, her struggles with depression and child stardom, and all anyone can talk about is how Travi made it to the big game. Unfuckingbelievable. Yet, this predictable reaction to the work Swift creates is what allows her to be so brazen in her metaphors while her true story remains almost entirely undetected by the public.
Without naming names, Taylor Swift has been recounting the same tragic love lost since the 1989 era—the love she was compelled to choose between her personal life and her career. Sinking beneath the crashing waves, “The Archer” shot down “The Albatross”, survived the shipwreck, and is cursed to tell her mariner's tale of woe.
Too loaded a metaphor? Let's talk about high school (Hollywood), and how she's been in an on-again-off-again-good-girl-bad-boy-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers-to-strangers-to-rekindled-lovers-to-strangers-again relationship for years, desperately trying to win back the affection of her teenage crush. Or is every mention of a touchdown a shoutout to Travis Kelce? Never mind that could be a reference to the plane turning around in “Labyrinth” or the two paper airplanes in “Out of the Woods.”
“I circled you on a map
I haven't come around in so long
But I'm coming back so strong”
“The Alchemy” by Taylor Swift
Were you clever enough to catch her repeated jokes about never having children and retiring away to Florida with her cats like Ernest Hemming did? I’ll give you a hint–her beach house is turned into a cat sanctuary in the “Anti-Hero” music video.
Have any of you even put it together yet that the drug references she keeps singing about pre-date her alleged rumored relationship with Matty Healy the first time around? Why doesn't anyone want to discuss the Pablo Neruda quote she keeps referencing in Red era and the “All Too Well” ten-minute music video short film?
What’s a girl to do? Swift turns 35 years old on December 13, 2024, the second Friday the 13th of the year and a milestone twentieth year in entertainment. She’s already broken every record there is to break, made up a few along the way, broken those as well, became a billionaire with the sale and touring of her music, and now everyone is ready for her to disappear into the suburbs of Olathe, Kansas, for all of eternity.
Maybe one day, a music critic will emerge who has the patience and thoughtfulness to meticulously unravel the invisible threads that weave her story together. Until then, we’re all stuck in the power vacuum that Taylor Swift’s name creates in the media and online. And worse, all we’ll have to memorialize this era with are rushed, contextless reviews of her body of work. Unless she’s finally ready to burn the whole thing down.
I absolutely love your analysis on this album! So many literary connections I can’t even keep up with and your callbacks to previous lyrics are encyclopedic. It’s a refreshing take: to not review if TTPD her best or worst work, but about piecing together the truly tragic themes she’s tried sharing for the last 10 years. She’s begged the mainstream fan base to stop chasing a paternity test for her muses and just hear her words. But they fail to read and listen to what she’s saying. To absorb her stellar commentary on fame, loneliness, loss of a childhood. I can’t wait to read more!
👏👏👏 Love this so much, Ren. The poetry of this album is found beneath the surface, for those who care to look beyond because we believe Taylor has way more interesting things to write about than boyfriends and breakups. Taylor urging fans to make this story theirs, declaring it’s not hers anymore signals the end of all the eras of perpetuating this tired narrative (burn all the files, desert all your past lives). She has indeed been in a trap, a self-made cage that she’s ready to deconstruct like she kicked down the walls of the set in the Lavender Haze music video. Can’t wait to see what’s next.