It's Finally HereA Track-by-Track Breakdown of Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’: Matty Healy, Joe Alwyn, Oh My!

1. “Fortnight (ft. Post Malone)

During an interview with iHeartRadio, Taylor went through each track from The Tortured Poets Department.
“Fortnite is a song that I think really exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album,” she said in a clip caught by fans on social media. “One of which being fatalism, longing, pining away lost dreams, you know I think that it’s a very fatalistic album in that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death. I love you it’s ruining my life like these are very hyperbolic dramatic things to say but it’s that kind of album it’s about a dramatic artistic tragic take on love and loss. Fortnight is I’ve always imagined that it always took place in like American town where the American dream you thought would happen, didn’t. You ended up not with the person that you loved and now you just have to live with that every day, wondering what would have been, maybe seing that out. And that’s a pretty tragic concept really so I was just writing from that perspective.”

2. “The Tortured Poets Department”

The album’s same-titled track is reported to be about Taylor’s ex, Matty Healy, as are most songs from the album.

“You left your typewriter at my apartment /Straight from the tortured poets department,” she sings (Matty is known for his love of typewriters).

“I think some things I never say / Like, ‘Who uses typewriters anyway?’ / But you’re in self-sabotage mode, throwing spikes down on the road /But I’ve seen this episode and still love the show, who else decodes you?”

Later in the song, she refers to Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and music legend Patti Smith.

“I laughed in your face and said / ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith, this ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’rе modern idiots’ / And who’s gonna hold you like me?”

3. “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”

“‘My Boy Only Breaks His Own Toys’ is a song that I wrote alone,” she told iHeartRadio. “It’s a metaphor of you know from the perspective of a child’s toy, being somebody favorite toy until they break you and then don’t want to play with you anymore. Which is, you know, how a lot of us are in relationships where we are so valued by someone in the beginning and then all of a sudden they break us, or they devalue us in their mind — and we’re still clinging on to: ‘No no no you should’ve seen them the first they saw me.”
“It’s a song about denial, really,” she added.

4. “Down Bad”

Taylor says of the track (via iHeartRadio):
“The metaphor of ‘Down Bad’ is that I was comparing the idea of being love bombed,” she began, “where someone, you know, rocks your world and dazzles and then just kind of abandons you — as an alien abduction where you were abducted by aliens, but she wanted to stay with them. And then when they drop her off back at her hometown she’s like ‘Wait, no, where are you going? What, I liked it there it was weird but it was cool, come back.'”

5. “So Long, London”

“So Long, London” is rumored to be about Taylor’s ex-boyfriend British boyfriend of 6 years, Joe Alywn. The track has Taylor referencing a relationship which she tried harder than her partner to hold onto — ultimately, ending.

“You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waitin’ for the proof / You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days, and I’m just getting color back into my face / I’m just mad as hell ’cause I loved this place for / So (So) long (Long), London (London).”

6. “But Daddy I Love Him”

Taylor Swift’s brief summer fling with Matty Healy upset some of her fans, in part because Healy has a history of problematic comments. His controversial remarks about Ice Spice, women, and even Swift herself had concerned them. Swift said nothing about their public appeals to her to stop dating Healy…until now.

In her song “But Daddy, I Love Him,” Taylor reveals the anger she felt while the rumors regarding Matty Healy were circulating when they were dating.

She sings, “I’ll tell you something right now / I’d rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning / I’ll tell you something about my good name, it’s mine alone to disgrace / I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empaths’ clothing.”

7. “Fresh Out the Slammer”

“Fresh Out the Slammer” appears to reveal why she dated Matty shortly after her relationship with Joe Alwyn.

“Now pretty baby, I’m running back home to you. / Fresh out the slammer I know who my first call will be to.”

8. “Florida!!! (ft. Florence + the Machine)

Taylor says of the track (via iHeartRadio):

“I was coming up with this idea of what happens when your life doesn’t fit or your choices you made catch up to you and you’re surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgement,” she begins, “and you just want to escape from everything you’ve ever know, is there a place you can go?”

She then revealed that she got the idea while watching the TV show Dateline.

“I’m always watching Dateline — people, you know, have these crimes that they commit, where they immediately skip town and they go to Florida,” she laughed.

9. “Guilty as Sin?”

“Guilty As Sin?” is rumored to be about her relationship with Matty Healy.

“What if he’s written ‘Mine’ on my upper thigh only in my mind?
I’m slippin’, fallin’ back into the hedge maze
Oh, what a way to die
My bed sheets are ablaze
I’ve screamed his name
Buildin’ up like waves crashin’ over my grave
Without ever touchin’ his skin
How can I be guilty as sin?”

10. “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”

Taylor addresses and mocks all the rumors that surround her professional and personal life in “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”

“So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’
I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean
‘Don’t you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth’
Who’s afraid of little old me?
Well, you should be”

11. ‘I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”

In the chorus, Taylor sings about a man whom she loved at one time, who also had her friends and family divided.

“They shake their heads, saying, ‘God help her’ when I tell ‘em he’s my man / But your good Lord doesn’t need to lift a finger / I can fix him, no really I can / And only I can,” she sings on the song’s chorus.

12. “loml”

While the original acronym of loml is “love of my life,” Taylor subverts that in this heartbreaking track, equating it “loss of my life.”

Many people have theorized this track is about Joe Alwyn.

13. “I Can Do With It a Broken Heart”

Taylor references the times in her life where she shined brightest were also when she was suffering the most in her love life. Her record-breaking Eras Tour began around the same time the singer split from Joe in 2023.

14. “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”

“The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” is also rumored to be about Matty — and also hints that The 1975 singer ghosted her.

“Was any of it true, gazing at me, starry-eyed, in your Jehovah’s Witness suit,” she sings, seemingly referencing to Matty’s well-known stage suits.

“You tried to buy some pills from a friend of friends of mine / They just ghosted you, Now you know what it feels like.”

15. “The Alchemy”

The football metaphors have begun. The Grammy-winning songstress uses football references in the song’s lyrics to give a shout-out to Travis Kelce, her football-playing boyfriend.

“So when I touchdown, call the amateurs and cut them from the team / Ditch the clowns, get the crown / Baby I’m the one to beat,” she sings,  “Because the sign on your heart said it’s still reserved for me / Honestly, who are we to fight The Alchemy?” 

16. “Clara Bow”

Throughout the song, Taylor compares a newly popular woman to a former It girl, including the original It girl of the 1930s, Clara Bow.

“You look like Clara Bow in this light, remarkable, all your life, did you know, you’d be picked like a rose?” she sings within the first few lines, later comparing  another to ’70s rock n’ roll It girl, Stevie Nicks. “You look like Stevie Nicks in ’75, the hair and lips. The crowd goes wild at her fingertips, half moonshinе, a full eclipse.”

Then, at the end, Taylor compares this new woman to herself.

“You look like Taylor Swift. In this light, we’re loving it. You’ve got edge, she never did. The future’s bright, dazzling.”

Immediately, the internet believed the last verse to be a reference to Olivia Rodrigo — as the SOUR singer is often compared to Taylor.

17. “The Manuscript” (Bonus Track)