Bonus: ”The Tortured Poets Department” Album Release Recap

2024-04-21

All’s fair in love and poetry. The long-awaited album The Tortured Poets Department is officially out, and of course, we have thoughts! This bonus episode strays from our usual format to bring you as comprehensive of an overview as we can provide in one (rather long) episode. Be warned: you won’t find speculation about Taylor’s love life here. True to our usual content, we focus on the lyrics, the themes, and the literary choices Taylor makes to better understand what this album is all about. Join us as we give our first reactions, talk about Taylor’s “In Summation poem,” and briefly dissect a handful o...

All’s fair in love and poetry. The long-awaited album The Tortured Poets Department is officially out, and of course, we have thoughts! This bonus episode strays from our usual format to bring you as comprehensive of an overview as we can provide in one (rather long) episode. Be warned: you won’t find speculation about Taylor’s love life here. True to our usual content, we focus on the lyrics, the themes, and the literary choices Taylor makes to better understand what this album is all about. Join us as we give our first reactions, talk about Taylor’s “In Summation poem,” and briefly dissect a handful of songs that stood out to each of us.

Mentioned in this episode:

Check out our “The Tortured Poets Department” Booklist on Bookshop.org/APTS

E29: Show and Tell - Aestheticism

E27: Show and Tell - Poetic Repetition

E23: Show and Tell - Mad Women

E7: Show and Tell - Ecocriticism

Bonus: "The Tortured Poets Department" Announcement

E32: Deep Dive - Love Story

Episode Highlights:

[02:48] Our initial album reactions

[17:22] “In Summation” Poem overview

[29:53] Is this what we expected TTPD to be?

[38:16] loml

[44:39] I Can Do It With a Broken Heart

[53:24] So High School

[56:34] Florida!!!

[59:20] Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

[01:05:04] Down Bad

[01:13:28] So Long, London

[01:18:27] But Daddy I Love Him

[01:27:00] How Did It End?

[01:37:49] The Manuscript

[01:46:08] What do we think the album is about?

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This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.

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