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On Friday, as you are presumably already aware, Taylor Swift released her new album The Tortured Poets Department. The album is expected to be another blockbuster in a career full of them, and Swift is projected to once again hold down the entire top 10 of next week’s Billboard Hot 100. Swift isn’t doing any traditional press for the album. Instead, she’s using the art of the corporate deal to explain the LP’s individual tracks. If you want to hear what she has to say about these songs, you’ll need to be an Amazon Music subscriber.
As part of a new Amazon promotion, Taylor Swift gives little directors’-commentary introductions to each song on The Tortured Poets Department. (She only does the main-album songs, not the many bonus tracks that were added as a release-night surprise.) With most of the songs, the explanations are fairly self-explanatory. Here’s what Swift says, for instance, about closing track “Clara Bow,” which namechecks herself alongside Bow and Stevie Nicks:
“Clara Bow” is a song that I wrote as a commentary on what I’ve seen in the industry that I’ve been in over time. I used to sit in record labels trying to get a record deal when I was a little kid, and they’d say, “You know, you remind us of…” and then they’d name an artist, and then they’d kind of say something disparaging about her: “But you’re this, you’re so much better in this way or that way.” And that’s how we teach women to see themselves, as like you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you.
I picked women who have done great things in the past and have been these archetypes of greatness in the entertainment industry. Clara Bow was the first “it girl.” Stevie Nicks is an icon and an incredible example for anyone who wants to write songs and make music.
Swift’s explanation for her Florence Welch duet “Florida!!!” is a little more illuminating, since I couldn’t really tell what that song was about:
I’m always watching Dateline. People have these crimes that they commit; where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida. They try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in. I think when you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks, “I want a new name. I want a new life. I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all.” And so that was the jumping off point. Where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? Florida!
If you’re an Amazon music subscriber, you can hear all of Taylor Swift’s commentary here. Apparently, you can also say, “Alexa, I’m a member of the Tortured Poets Department,” but I can’t picture myself saying those words out loud, even in the privacy of my own home.
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