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Credit: The Rolling Stone
“Both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.” Swift’s words are truly what serves best to describe this masterpiece of an album. 31 songs, 2 hours of emotions flying between rage, jealousy, lust, love, and complete and utter misery. All adding up to an ode to heartache that left me, along with millions of listeners, in absolute awe.
I’ll be the first to admit, you’re listening to an unreliable narrator right now. “Swiftie” doesn’t begin to cover the love I hold for Taylor’s music, and her as a person. But, ask anybody, and they’ll tell you exactly what I’m about to. Even if Taylor isn’t your own personal taste, this album is a powerhouse of musical, literary, and emotional complexity that listeners have just recently scratched the surface of.
After the surprise double release of “The Tortured Poets Department ” and its melancholic expansion “The Anthology ” Taylor has succeeded yet again in what she’s best at. Taking the world by storm. She does so with two other talented artists by her side on the songs “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, and my personal favorite, “Florida!!!” featuring the hauntingly beautiful voice of Florence Welch (of Florence & The Machine).
The sheer emotion poured into each of these songs is astounding, with tracks like the achingly longing “So Long, London” featuring lyrics that range from the heart wrenching “My white-knuckle dying grip holding tight to your quiet resentment.” to words dripping with well-earned resentment “And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.” A perfect combination of nostalgia for what’s passed, and venom towards what she gave up to experience it.
One of the more notable tracks, for me, was the 10th, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” The song is infused with furious ardor, and holds a confident answer to the question raised in the title: “You should be.” To me, the song represents a defiant protest against the way Swift has been perceived in the past.
Harsh lines such as “I want to snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me.” and “You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.” slash through preconceived notions many people seem to have about Swift. False ones of nothing more than a vapid, dumb blonde that couldn’t have a serious emotion to save her life. The lyrics read as if these misconceptions have disarmed her in a way, and made her out to seem weaker, more timid than she truly is: “Don’t you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth.”
Skipping forward to track 14, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.” I can’t deny, when I saw this title, I pictured a fast-paced “diss track” of sorts, but reality couldn’t have surprised me in a better way. The song feels somewhat like a letter, full of deeply personal reflection, intensely emotional questioning: “Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?”, all topped with moments of anger subdued by mourning.
One lyric stands out in particular, “‘Cause it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden.” It represents a feeling I think most women are, unfortunately, well-acquainted with. The sensation that once your physical appeal is gone, you become useless in a relationship. When you aren’t provocative, you aren’t anything. It leads to a ball and chain effect, the feeling that your worth is unequivocally tied to your body, your physical appeal.
Despite the plethora of material this album provides, I’m most eager to dig into the final track of the original album, “Clara Bow.” This title intrigued me from the start, a clear nod to a woman many consider to be America’s very first sex symbol. As I listened to the song, the reference’s significance became apparent. Ms. Bow started–unintentionally, I’m sure–a sort of domino effect in the media. One who’s stages go a bit like this.
First, the public finds a woman to adore. And when I say adore, I mean adore. Idolize, worship, even: “You’re the new god we’re worshiping.” Second, she has her moment. Her beautiful, blazing moment in which she’s put up on a platform so high she believes she could never fall down. Third step, she falls. People lose interest, she becomes boring, and suddenly she’s forgotten. A speck of dust in the timeline of “it girls.”
A relic of the past. Someone mothers tell their daughters about loving “back in my day.”
A Clara Bow.
And the final, most brutal part, the cycle starts over. Some new girl comes along. She’s young, she’s stunning, she’s talented, and she’s entirely naive as to the future that awaits her. We cycle through these girls like flavors of the month at some cheap restaurant.
In August it’s the brunette “girl next door.” She’s pretty, but not too pretty. She feels attainable to her young, female audience. Like they could be her, like she’s not so far detached from reality as others. She’s a good influence, she’s got her head on straight.
Of course, that gets old. Nothing’s worse than a prude. So, in September we move onto the blonde bombshell. She’s sexy, she’s fun, she’s probably a little unstable, but doesn’t that just make her more exciting? Boy, do the tabloids have fun with her.
But then, isn’t she tiring to keep up with? Nothing’s worse than a slut.
You guys get the idea. It’s an endless cycle, and a vicious one at that.
And in my opinion, it’s exactly what Swift was trying to get across with her song. “It’s Hell on Earth to be Heavenly.” Is one of the lyrics. A perfect juxtaposition of the inside and the outside. The personal lives of these women we believe we know so well, and the shiny exteriors they put on display to maintain that faith.
One metaphor in the song wraps it up perfectly, “Did you know you’d be picked like a rose?” The flowers are valued for their beauty, for the air of romance they carry, just like these “it girls”. And so they’re chosen, they’re thrusted on display, posed so pretty for everybody to see. People just love a nice red rose.
And then they wilt, they age, and then they’re thrown out. Suddenly they’re not red anymore, they don’t catch the eye the way they used to. And so, they’re deemed unwanted. An eyesore. A waste of space.
See the connection? It’s a lot how we treat women in music, in really any entertainment industry. It happens to all the greats.
The media will only love her, whoever the elusive she is at that instant, for that era. When everything is perfect, when the moment’s ideal, when the light is just right, “Only when your girlish glow flickers just so.” And for that moment, my God she’ll shine. But if she doesn’t keep it up, if she doesn’t maintain this posture of perfection, she’s done. As the song says, “Take the glory, give everything, promise to be dazzling.”
And the worst part is, she’s always fed the same lie, that she won’t be like the last. That she got chosen for a reason, that they’ll never stop loving her. That there was some real cause for the last girl getting thrown aside, and she won’t make the same mistake. That somehow, among all these women that have been loved and then discarded, she’s different. “The crown is stained but you’re the real queen,”
Swift finishes the song addressing herself, “You look like Taylor Swift in this light, we’re loving it.” It’s a tragic sort of acceptance that she’s no exception to the rule. That one day, she’ll be run through this same process. Everybody loves her right now, but when will the next best thing come along?
The song and the message behind it is depressing, to be frank. But, there’s something beautiful about Swift calling back on the women of the past, like Clara. The ones that came before her, the ones that were deified in the same way she’s been. A sort of “invisible string” ties them all together, linking them through the decades. You can call it sisterhood, you can call it a shared experience, but it’s a connection between women of the past, present and future. And I, for one, think that’s beautiful.
The Tortured Poets Department is “Fresh Out The Slammer” and on all streaming platforms now.
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