Taylor Swift is taking fans on a journey of the stages of grief and heartbreak in her new album The Tortured Poets Department, released Friday.
The singer-songwriter unveiled the album which featured 16 songs. Two tracks are collaborations with Post Malone and Florence + The Machine. There are also four bonus tracks, “The Manuscript,” “The Bolter,” “The Albatross” and “The Black Dog” that are featured on different vinyl versions of the album.
On Instagram, Swift called the album “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.”
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“This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up,” she continued. “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.”
Two hours after the album’s initial release, Swift released a “double album” extension of the record, titled The Anthology, featuring 15 more songs. “It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore…it’s all yours.”
Physical copies of the new album also reportedly include a handwritten poem Stevie Nicks wrote for Swift, featured on the LP gatefolds or CD booklets. The poem’s header reads, “For T — and me…” and throughout the poem, Nicks seemingly sets the stage for songs about heartbreak.
“He was in love with her/ Or at least she thought so/ She was brokenhearted/ Maybe he was too/ Neither of them knew. She was way too hot to handle/ He was way too high to try —/ He couldn’t even see her/ He wouldn’t open his eyes/ She was on her way to the stars/ He didn’t say goodbye,” the poem reads.
Ahead of the initial album’s release, Swift revealed that the album’s first single would be “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone. “I’ve been such a huge fan of Post because of the writer he is, his musical experimentation and those melodies he creates that just stick in your head forever. I got to witness that magic come to life firsthand when we worked together on ‘Fortnight,'” Swift wrote on Instagram alongside a photo with Post Malone.
Spotify also revealed Thursday that the album became the most presaved album Countdown Page in the history of the audio streamer.
In April, Swift had surprised fans by announcing the upcoming album while accepting the Grammy for best pop vocal album.
“This is my 13th Grammy,” Swift said when accepting the award. “I want to say thank you to the members of the Recording Academy for voting this way, but I know that the way that the Recording Academy voted is a direct reflection of the passion of the fans. So I want to say ‘thank you’ to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years — which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19.”
After making the announcement, Swift further teased the upcoming album on social media by sharing the album cover, a black-and-white image of her lying in bed. She also teased, “And so I enter into evidence / My tarnished coat of arms / My muses, acquired like bruises / My talismans and charms / The tick, tick, tick of love bombs / My veins of pitch black ink / All’s fair in love and poetry.”
In the weeks ahead of the album’s release, the singer offered further insight into the album, which fans have speculated would be about her breakup with ex-boyfriend actor Joe Alwyn. Fans have also pointed to how similar the album’s title is to the WhatsApp group chat “Tortured Man Club,” which Alwyn said he’s part of with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal. Tracks on the album also seem to hint at a breakup and the British actor with titles including “So Long, London” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”
After the album’s release, fans also pointed lyrics reference her reported relationship with 1975 frontman Matt Healy.
Swift confirmed that heartbreak would be a major theme of the album as she released five exclusive playlists with Apple Music that explore the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Swift also teased the first lyric from the album ahead of the total solar eclipse on April 8, when she posted video of a typewriter typing, “Crowd goes wild at her fingertips / Half moonshine, Full eclipse.”
Ahead of the album release, Swift‘s music returned to TikTok, months after being pulled as part of the ongoing dispute between the social video platform and Universal Music Group, which distributes Swift’s music.
The album follows Swift’s previously released Midnights album in October 2022, which won the Grammy for best pop vocal album and album of the year.
