now and then I re-listen to THE ANTHOLOGY...

At 11 pm on April 18th, as I got ready for bed after listening to the new THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, I saw a new Instagram post from Taylor Swift announcing an anthology. My first thought was, “I’m scared of Taylor Swift”. I was in shock for a solid five minutes before sitting down to listen.

While THE ANTHOLOGY is part of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, it’s entirely its own record. It’s much truer to the album title. The songs feel like poems put to music with a focus on the writing. While I referred to the first album in THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY as folklore (2020) if it was primarily Jack Antonoff-produced, the second album is that but with Aaron Dessner.

 Swift pictured on the cover of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY

The second album of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT features my favorite song across the entire double album, “The Black Dog”. The way the harmonies and drums build to a scream over the lyric, “Old habits die screaming” kills me. The title builds on the album’s theme of depression – an illness sometimes referred to as “the black dog”. For instance, in “So Long, London” (from the first album), the line, “You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days” insinuates a relationship falling victim to depression. The final chorus of “The Black Dog” says this more clearly: “Tail between your legs, you’re leaving”.

Mental illness and emotional instability are also shown in “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus”. Ever a mysterious name, the song even ends mysteriously with the closing line: “Will I always wonder?" It completes the emotion while leaving the story incomplete. Swift’s lover cheats on her with a nameless person (i.e. the people in the title – Swift doesn’t know or care which one). Swift’s partner dabbles in drug use, Swift is attached, and she wants them both to move on even though she’ll still wonder if it could’ve worked. Surrounded by an ominous folk-inspired Aaron Dessner instrumental, the listener is left haunted and remotely disturbed. I love it for that.

Swift pictured on the cover of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT ("The Albatross" Edition)

Swift calls back to her earlier work and other artists' work. In “imgonnagetyouback”, she uses similar wordplay to that of “get him back!” (2023) by Olivia Rodrigo. Through a catchy but simple pop earworm, she navigates both wanting revenge on her ex-lover and wanting them back.

In “thanK you aIMee”, Swift references her Reputation (2017) album. She discusses her feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West saying, “I can’t forgive the way you made me feel… but I can’t forget the way you made me heal” and “I built a legacy that you can’t undo, but when I count the stars there’s a moment of truth that there wouldn’t be this if there hadn’t been you”. Swift uses an old album tradition where liner notes had random letters capitalized to spell out messages. The capital letters in this title spell “Kim”. The cozy acoustic song feels like golden hour.

“The Prophecy” is like “The Archer” (2019), where she sings “All of my heroes die all alone, help me hold onto you”. Swift begs for a prophecy of loneliness to change. The track is vulnerable and rooted in insecurity, making it a fan favorite. However, it’s a standout but not necessarily a highlight. The melody is droning, and there’s something empty about the instrumentation. Granted, emptiness is basically what the song is about, but “The Archer” does a similar job more effectively.

“Cassandra” is like “mad woman” (2020) from folklore. Both songs are piano-based and are rooted out of ideas of sexism. In the folklore track, she sings, “Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn?/Does she smile, or does she mouth, ‘f*** you forever’?” and in “Cassandra”, she sings, “In the streets, there’s a raging riot/when it’s ‘burn the b**ch’, they’re shrieking/when the truth comes out, it’s quiet”. The tracks are said to be about both the Kanye West feud and Scooter Braun’s ownership of her masters (a purchase made in 2019 that has gone through hard-to-follow changes.) “Cassandra” is written like a folk tale, and in an easier way to understand than the cryptic “The Albatross”. I prefer “mad woman” to “Cassandra”, but “Cassandra” over “The Albatross”.

Swift pictured on the cover of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT Standard Digital Album + "Cassandra" (First Draft Phone Memo)

Sadness is a strong theme on the album (if you couldn’t guess based on the adjective “tortured” in the title), but there are several types of it shown. “I Look In People’s Windows”, akin to “invisible string” and “ivy” (2020) with a string plucking background, rips the entire disturbing Band-Aid off in only two minutes and eleven seconds. “What if your eyes looked up and met mine one more time?” makes my stomach hurt. In “Midnight Rain” (2022), Swift sings, “I never think of him except on midnights like this”, and that gives me a similar feeling. Isn’t it funny how someone can mean so much to you, to the point that you spend years thinking you’ll stay together forever, only for it to end? “I Look in People’s Windows” displays the impossibility of moving on. Previously, Swift had never touched that emotion in such an accurately disturbing way.

“Peter” provides an interesting background to Swift’s last five albums (not including re-records.) Swift sings, “I hoped you’d return with your feet on the ground, tell me all that you’d learned/cause love’s never lost when perspective is earned… Please know that I tried to hold on to the days when you were mine/but the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light” and hints that this waiting occurred over several years. Swift had been consistently writing about reciprocated love since 2017, so this adds depth to those albums. “Peter” is a mostly piano track, like “Robin”, a song about childhood, and “The Manuscript”.

In the closing track of the double album, “The Manuscript”, Swift refers to a past relationship with an older guy. She talks about how he indirectly ruined her perception of later relationships. “The Manuscript” differs from other piano tracks by having less consistent instrumentals. There’s more empty space between notes, inversely making the album feel more complete; it's another favorite of mine.

Lastly on the strong tracks, in the majestic “I Hate it Here”, Swift empathizes with people who feel out of place in this world. She wants to live exclusively in secret gardens and lunar valleys. Lines like, "I dreamt about it in the dark the night I felt like I might die" provide sad but interesting insight into Swift's perspective of her fame.

On that note, this album has its low moments. I can’t say I truly dislike anything, but I have criticism.

Swift pictured on the cover of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT Standard Digital Album + "The Black Dog" (First Draft Phone Memo)

“How Did It End?” is overdone. This is the ultimate quill pen song (i.e. song with big words) on THE ANTHOLOGY. It brings it down a notch. For example,

We hereby conduct this post-mortem

He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsmen

Our maladies were such we could not cure them

And so a touch that was my birthright became foreign

I get what she’s saying, but I think she could’ve said it more normally while maintaining depth.

Nonetheless, this lyrical style is great in the bridge, with terms like “death rattle”, “the deflation of our dreaming” (referencing the line “She’s too young to know this song that was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming” from “The Black Dog”) and “sitting in a tree, D-Y-I-N-G”.

Other bright moments in the track include the concept (everyone asking how a relationship ended making you wonder yourself) and the haunting “ooh” harmonies.

I unfortunately have a hard time wrapping my head around the love songs on this record. The intensely youthful energy of “So High School” feels awkward surrounded by such deep topics. Why are, “Are you gonna marry, kiss or kill me?/it’s just a game but really”, and vocals reminiscent of her early discography on the same album as, “Cross your thoughtless heart, only liquor anoints you” (“The Albatross”) and the build of “Old habits die screaming”? Otherwise, the song is a coming-of-age 2000s movie bop. There’s a gorgeous electric guitar instrumental throughout and a killer bridge.

Swift pictured on the cover of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT ("The Bolter" Edition)

Lastly, “The Bolter”, while catchy and cute (despite telling a somewhat dark story) is probably the weakest song on the record. It was originally promoted as a bonus track before the double album was announced, and I think it only works that way. If she wanted to do a double album, she should’ve just removed it.

            THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT and THE ANTHOLOGY together are like folklore and evermore. folklore is more cohesive and evermore has stronger individual songs. Meanwhile, THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT has profound lyrics that are easier to understand while THE ANTHOLOGY has more complicatedly profound lyrics. No sound, writing style, or album structure is better than the other; it’s all about your personal preference.

            Swift will be on tour until December and recently released “us.” with Gracie Abrams, who will be opening the final show. THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY is out now on all streaming platforms.

Lyrics I love that weren't mentioned earlier:

"Six weeks of breathing clean air, I still miss the smoke"

"Now I wanna sell my house and set fire to all my clothes/and hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons even if I die screaming"

"You said some things that I can't un-absorb/you turned me into an idea of sorts"

"If you wanna break my cold, cold heart, just say 'I loved you the way that you were'"

"She's the albatross/she is here to destroy you"

"Quick, quick/tell me something awful, like you are a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy"

"I'm bitter but I swear I'm fine/I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life and I'll get lost on purpose/this place made me feel worthless"

"Does it feel alright to not know me? I'm addicted to the 'if only'"

"Spending my last coin so someone will tell me it'll be okay"

"When the truth comes out, it's quiet"

"I've heard great things, Peter/but life was always easier on you than it was on me"

"You look ridiculous and you have no idea"

"At last, she knew what the agony had been for"

"Now and then, I re-read the manuscript/but the story isn't mine anymore"