By Larisha Paul
The ever-expanding universe of Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department has spread out once again. The singer and songwriter has released new versions of three songs from the newly-released album. The earliest recorded editions of “The Black Dog,” “Cassandra,” and “Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?” billed as “the first draft phone memo” versions are available for purchase now — but not for long.
Swift released the three demo versions for purchase through her official website as individual bonus tracks on the standard digital edition of The Tortured Poets Department. There are three versions of the album, each with a different phone memo, and there’s a time limit attached to their availability. The songs were initially only set to be on sale for six hours, or until 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, May 16. The sale has since been extended, now scheduled to conclude on Friday, May 17 at 6:23 p.m. EST.
The first draft phone memo releases are not available to purchase with the extended edition of The Tortured Poets Department. The 31-track album features the original 16-song track list plus The Anthology, the extra 15 songs Swift released just a few hours after the standard album dropped last month. The singer is also selling a vinyl and CD version of the standard edition with the bonus track “The Manuscript,” which serves as the final song on the extended version of the album.
The Tortured Poets Department made chart history when it opened with more than 2.6 million units sold, marking the second-biggest debut behind only Adele’s 25, which had over 3 million album-equivalent units in 2015. Swift’s chart numbers are bolstered largely by traditional sales. Streaming accounts for much of it — it racked up over 891 million streams in its first week — but The Tortured Poets Department earned 1.91 million sales, thanks to the availability of nearly 20 different physical versions of the record.
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