Taylor Swift album lyrics – the hidden meanings and the people she appears to reference in The Tortured Poets Department songs
“An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time.”
In her own words, Taylor Swift’s latest album The Tortured Poets Department is a product of her personal life – which is often played out in the most public way.
Fans have already spent hours poring over her raft of new lyrics in the 31 new songs.
Two hours after its release, the singer announced The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which includes 15 additional new songs.
From Kim Kardashian to Travis Kelce, here we take a look at who the lyrics might be about.
Analysis:
Marriage, babies, break-ups – breaking down the album
Break-up with Joe Alwyn
Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn. Pic: Blitz Pictures/Shutterstock
Fans had been expecting a breakdown of the singer’s six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn – and they weren’t disappointed.
Even in the album title, there appears to be a reference – Alwyn and Normal People actor Paul Mescal revealed in 2022 they had a WhatsApp group chat with Fleabag actor Andrew Scott called The Tortured Man Club. Four months later news of Swift and Alwyn’s split emerged.
The song appearing at number five in the new tracklist – often the slot reserved for the most meaningful song on each of her albums – is So Long, London, and is thought to offer new insights into her split with the British actor.
In the lyrics, Swift hints at wedding plans, singing: “You swore that you loved me but where were the clues, I died on the altar waiting for the proof”, as well as being upset at having to leave London which she said she “loved”.
She also makes a reference to “the house in the Heath” she left behind. The singer was often seen in Hampstead Heath with Alwyn when they dated, as he lived in north London.
“And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free,” she sings. “Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years – I’ll never get that time back.”
Swift was performing her Eras tour when it was reported that she and Alwyn had split – and the first show she played was in Florida, which is the title of one of her new songs, featuring Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine.
“The hurricane with my name when it came, I got drunk and I dare it to wash me away,” she sings.
In another song, Fresh Out The Slammer, Swift discusses feeling isolated in a relationship. “Another summer taking cover, rolling thunder, he don’t understand me.
“Splintered back in winter, silent dinners, bitter he was with her in dreams.”
Romance with Matty Healy
Matt Healy. Pic: PA
Meanwhile, fans have interpreted the lyrics to the first song on the album titled Fortnight, featuring US star Post Malone, to be about British singer Matty Healy, whom she was rumoured to be dating briefly last year after her split from Alwyn.
Swift sings: “Sometimes I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me, but you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave and I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen, everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be.”
But who are Lucy and Jack – the friends the lovers are confiding in?
Fans have suggested Lucy could be Lucy Dacus, a singer in the band Boygenius, who is friends with Healy.
Meanwhile, Swift’s close friend Jack Antonoff was a producer on the song.
While Swift doesn’t namecheck Healy, a number of other songs appear to reference him, including Guilty As Sin where she sings about having “fatal fantasies” for someone from her past while in a relationship.
Fans are also suggesting the song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived appears to allude to Healy “ghosting” her.
“You tried to buy some pills, from a friend of mine, they just ghosted you, now you know what it feels like.”
New relationship with Travis Kelce
Travis Kelce kisses Taylor Swift after the Super Bowl final. Pic: John Locher / AP
“I’m making a comeback to where I belong”, she sings in her 15th track, The Alchemy.
This song certainly seems to be a nod to her blossoming romance with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce.
The song references American football terms including “touch down”, “the team”, “warm the benches” and “winning streak”.
Swift began dating the athlete last year and her attendance at the Super Bowl made headlines around the world, including that kiss with Kelce after the Chiefs’ victory. The couple recently attended the Coachella music festival together.
Pic: Jennifer Johnson/Shutterstock for Neon Carnival
“Shirts off, and your friends lift you up over their heads,” she sings.
“Beer sticking to the floor, cheers chanted, cause they said there was no chance, trying to be the greatest in the league, where’s the trophy, he just comes running over to me.”
Kelce, who has recently landed a role as host of the game show Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity?, said he listened to parts of the album and said it’s “unbelievable”.
Read more:
Boyfriend hails ‘unbelievable’ album
Feud with Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian, with former husband Kanye West, in 2015. Pic: Rex/Startraks/Shutterstock
In one of the additional new songs, thanK you aIMee, fans have been decoding what they believe is a reference to Kim Kardashian. The letters capitalised in the title spell Kim.
Kardashian’s ex-husband Kanye West infamously stormed the stage at the 2009 VMAs as Swift accepted her award for best video by a female artist, a stunt he later claimed in a lyric “made that b**** famous“.
Amid the row, Kardashian posted a video online of what appeared to be West on the phone with the singer, where Swift appeared to consent to the vulgar lines.
The MTV VMAs moment in 2009 when Kanye West sparked his feud with Swift. Pic. Reuters
“I wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool, I built a legacy which you can’t undo,” Swift sings.
“But when I count the scars, there’s a moment of truth, that there wouldn’t be this, if there hadn’t been you.
“And maybe you’ve reframed it and in your mind, you never beat my spirit black and blue.”
She then appears to reference West and Kardashian’s 10-year-old daughter North West.
“And one day, your kid comes home singing a song that only us two is gonna know is about you.”
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After the album was released, Swift wrote on social media: “An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.
“This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed.
“And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.
“And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”
Swift will bring her Eras tour to the UK from 7 June, which she will start with three shows in Edinburgh.
The run of London shows begins on 21 June.
It’s 5.30am, but the car park outside a laundrette in south central Los Angeles is already bustling.
A woman is setting up a stand selling tacos on the pavement and the sun is beginning to rise behind the palm trees.
A group of seven women and two men are gathered in a circle, most wearing khaki green t-shirts.
The leader, a man named Francisco “Chavo” Romero, begins by asking how everyone is feeling. “Angry,” a few of them respond. “Proud of the community for pushing back,” says another.
Ron, a high school history teacher, issues a rallying cry. “This is like Vietnam,” he says. “We’re taking losses, but in the end we’re going to win. It’s a war.”
Francisco ‘Chavo’ Romero leads a volunteer group, attempting to warn people ahead of ICE raids
This is what the resistance against Donald Trump’s immigration policy looks like here. In the past month, immigration and customs enforcement agents – known as ICE – have intensified their raids on homes and workplaces across Los Angeles.
Since the beginning of June, nearly 2,800 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the city, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The previous monthly high was just over 850 arrests in May this year.
Police use tear gas against protesters, angry at a recent immigration raid at a farm in Camarillo, California. Pic: AP
Videos have circulated online of people being tackled to the ground in the car park of DIY shops, in car washes and outside homes. The videos have prompted outrage, protests and a fightback.
“Chavo” and Ron belong to a group of organised volunteers called Union del Barrio. Every morning, a group of them meet, mostly in areas which have high immigrant populations.
The day I meet them, they’re in an area of LA which is heavily Latino. Armed with walkie talkies to communicate with each other, megaphones to warn the community and leaflets to raise awareness they set out in cars in different directions.
A volunteer from Union del Barrio shows Sky’s Martha Kelner how they try to stay one step ahead of ICE agents
They’re looking for cars used by ICE agents to monitor “targets”.
“That vehicle looks a little suspicious,” says Ron, pointing out a white SUV with blacked-out windows, “but there’s nobody in it”.
An elderly Latino man is standing on a street corner, cutting fruit to sell at his stall. “He’s the exact target that they’re looking for,” Ron says. “That’s what they’re doing now. The low-hanging fruit, the easy victim. And so that is proving to be more successful for their quotas.”
This man, selling fruit on a street corner in LA, is a potential target of immigration agents
In the end, it turns out to be a quiet morning in this part of LA, no brewing immigration operations. But elsewhere in the city, dawn raids are happening.
ICE agents are under pressure from the White House to boost their deportation numbers in line with Donald Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration.
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In June, tear gas and rubber bullets were fired at protestors demonstrating against immigration raids
Maria’s husband Javier was one of those arrested in LA. He came to the United States from Mexico when he was 19 and is now 58.
The couple have three grown-up children and two grandchildren. But Javier’s work permit expired two years ago, according to Maria and so he was living here illegally.
Maria’s husband Javier was arrested after his work permit expired
She shows me a video taken last month when Javier was at work at a car wash in Pomona, an area of LA. He is being handcuffed and arrested by armed and masked ICE agents, forced into a car. He is now being held at a detention centre two hours away.
“I know they’re doing their job,” she says, “but it’s like, ‘you don’t have to do it like that.’ Getting them and, you know, forcing people and pushing them down on the ground. They’re not animals.”
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US troops accused of ‘political stunt’ after park raid
Maria wipes away tears as she explains the impact of his absence for the past four weeks. “It’s been so hard without him,” she says. “You feel alone when you get used to somebody and he’s not there any more. We’ve never been apart for as long as this.”
The family have a lawyer and is appealing for him to remain in the US, but Maria fears he will be sent back to Mexico or even a third country.
Maria fears her husband, who has lived in the US for nearly 40 years, will be sent back to Mexico
“I don’t know what to say to my grandkids because the oldest one, who is five was very attached to his papas, as he calls him. And he’s asking me, ‘When is papa coming home?’ and I don’t know what to say. He’s not a criminal.”
The fear in immigrant communities can be measured by the empty restaurant booths and streets that are far quieter than usual.
People in LA are being asked to report sightings of ICE officials so others can be warned
I meet Soledad at the Mexican restaurant she owns in Hollywood. When I arrive, she’s watching the local news on the TV as yet another raid unfolds at a nearby farm.
She’s shaking her head as ICE agents face off with protesters and military helicopters hover overhead. “I am scared. I am very scared,” she says.
All of her eight employees are undocumented, and four of them are too scared to come into work, she says, in case they get arrested. The process to get papers, she says, is too long and too expensive.
Read more from Sky News:
Farmer first to die during ICE raids
Trump warns comic over citizenship
Soledad, who owns a Mexican restaurant, plans to hide her illegal workers if immigration officials arrive
“They call me and tell me they are too afraid to come in because immigration is around,” she says.
“I have to work double shifts to be able to make up for their hours, and yes, I am very desperate, and sometimes I cry… We have no sales, and no money to pay their wages.”
There is just one woman eating fajitas at a booth, where there would usually be a lunchtime rush. People are chilled by the raids.
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Soledad says she plans to hide her illegal workers if immigration officials arrive.
“I’ve told them, get inside the fridge, hide behind the stove, climb up where we have a space to store boxes, do not run because they will hunt you down.”
The White House says they’re protecting the country from criminals. ICE agents have been shot at while carrying out operations, their work becoming more dangerous by the day.
The tension here is ratcheting up. Deportation numbers are rising too. But the order from Donald Trump is to arrest even more people living here illegally.
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