The Tortured Swifties Department
We're struggling emotionally but we're here to summarise on TTPD eve
Swiftian Theory is written by Satu today, with input from an absolutely hysterical Arielle, Kate and Natasha.
As I write, the countdown on taylorswift.com/forafortnight has dropped to under nine hours. It feels like a thousand years since I have known peace, but she did say that’s one thing she could never give us. Tonight we’ll get something “Fortnight”-related. Tomorrow I hope you’ve all taken the day off to listen, absorb, and probably cry. I’ll be back on Saturday to review the album.
Here is the state of the Taylor nation today, summarised in sentences that would not have made sense to us in 2019.
There’s no glitter gel pens in the library installation.
This is a quill and fountain pen album. Are you prepared?
That’s a gold cage right there - of “gold cage hostage to my feelings” and “Look What You Made Me Do” unresolved easter egg fame!
There were six drawers containing unsent wedding invitations
The library installation also had a chest of drawers, with six drawers (for six years) pulled out to reveal flowers, lace and pieces of card that could be wedding invitations. Swiftian Theory is divided on the significance of wedding imagery in Taylor’s music. We are 50/50 split on whether marriage is even good but even I, a wedding cynic, was extremely excited for the Taylor Swift Wedding Album (musical kind, not photographic kind). Imagine what she could do with this heavily-laden symbol! Proposals, marriage and weddings feature very heavily in Taylor’s videos (from the truly unwatchable video for “Mine” to my fave “I Bet You Think About Me”) and there are references throughout her lyrics: “Love Story” is a breezy one from back when weddings were just a vague idea to her: “It just seems like the idealistic, happy-ever-after”. But then we got the devastatingly vulnerable line, very very late on in the Midnights cycle, “I wouldn’t marry me either / a pathological people-pleaser / who only wanted you to see her.” It’s obvious marriage was floated and it didn’t happen. A conclusive win for the pro-marriage Swiftian Theorists.
The bolded letters spelled out Hereby Conduct This Post We
Okay Taylor. Those extremely diligent Swifties who check everything , everywhere, all at once found bolded letters in the lyrics of songs on Apple Music and Spotify. Each was a song from one of the special playlists Taylor put together to reflect “the five stages of grief”, including “We Were Happy” which has the line “you were gonna marry me” (putting the “1950s shit they want from me” Taylor firmly in the tomb. Honestly why did she bother!)
So the letters spelled out the words Hereby Conduct This Post We. Not really sure what to make of that if there’s five words, I had assumed it was going to be “Post-Mortem”. The Tortured Poets Department probably has to deal with a lot of documents: marriage licences, birth and death certificates, NDAs etc.
Matty Healy symbolically obliterated by QR code
Buildings in cities around the world were wrapped in Taylor billboards with QR codes that led to another letter to form some words that in turn led us to the countdown on Taylor’s website. If you’re strugging to understand how all these leaps were made while you were boiling the kettle this morning, I would honestly just accept it. Friend of the newsletter Ellie went to see the London billboard on Brick Lane and made a very funny observation: the billboard covered the sign of the Truman Brewery. The signage reads “Truman Black Eagle Brewery”; Truman Black is the social media handle of Matty Healy from The 1975, who Taylor dated on two separate occasions, including 2014 back when the Truman Brewery was an established hipster haunt (remember Shoreditch hipster culture??) I don’t believe in every stretch Swifties make, but this one feels funny and true. I found the Taylor+Matty situation fascinating and revealing. I have no problem with Travis but he seems cooked up in a PR laboratory in some ways, the brick-built football player to Taylor’s blonde cheerleader. It’s fine. But I love her weirdnesses more than her normalities and what could be more revealing than be down bad for a guy like Matty Healy, who absolutely tries to get you back to his house to watch films on Mubi.
Another set of sister albums?
I actually can’t emotionally cope with speculation about any double albums dropping but let’s just say Taylor held up two fingers when she announced the album at the Grammys, and there’s two typewriters in a little video clip released on her Instagram, and there’s a clock stopped at 2am in the library. Speaking of everlore, it has been confirmed that Aaron Dessner is back to prodco-write five of the tracks on TTPD, which makes me really happy – I think his presence keeps Jack Antonoff on his toes and takes Taylor’s songs to a more celestial place. Remember Jack, you are employed at will and can be replaced at any time for any reason.
Taylor does the molly dance at a culturally diminished Coachella
Taylor is a genius at counterprogramming. While rolling out this anguished album all about grief at a lost relationship, we also saw her off her face at Coachella, which Vanessa Hudgens failed to attend for a second consecutive year. Being seen just having a good time, dancing with Ice Spice and cuddling Travis, worked as a public eff-you to the subject of TTPD, with whom Taylor hid from media attention for years, but also it just looked like a laugh. I’m not convinced TTPD will be 100% agonised, despite the lack of glitter gel pens. Red was a breakup album but it had its “22”s and “Starlights”.
We should go easy on the fifth-billed star of Catherine Called Birdy
It’s a bit of a vexed question about whether it’s really fair to gang up on William Bowery this way. I defend the right of any artist to say what they want, whether I like it or not and I really like what Taylor says. But Will B is going to have his Instagram comments switched off forever. He’s not in a position to respond to TTPD because we’re not all born with Taylor’s talents.
I love you Swifties. I cannot wait to collectively cry with you tomorrow. See you on the other side.