96 Thoughts This Therapist Had While Listening to THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT for the First Time
The one who committed to writing about Taylor Swift's new album drop before she knew it was 31 songs 🫠
Welcome to this tiny corner of the internet where an off-duty psychotherapist keeps the conversation going on how to make sense of this life thing we’re all doing. If you ever wondered what your therapist does off the clock—which, who among us hasn’t?—this is like that. Think of it as the adult equivalent of seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store picking out lemons. 🍋 I typically oscillate between long-form psychoeducation pieces and narrative essays—sometimes I smush them together. I also do a biweekly podcast with my husband & periodically do an advice-adjacent pieces and roundups.
Today I’m debuting a segment, dialoguing on dialogue, where I briskly explore a piece of media–TV, movies or music—with first thoughts. Inspired by Emma Specter’s column for Vogue where she narrates her thoughts as she watches a movie, movie trailer, or gets a first look of upcoming movie. This is my take on that, weaving my personal reflections together with any therapeutic concepts I stumble upon along the way.
Note: If Taylor Swift isn’t your jam, no worries. Please just skip this one. Don’t yuck anyone’s yum here. Lots of other content on dialoguing you can check out instead and/or other places on the internet you can go to trash the album if you so choose.
Despite what the title of this newsletter may signal to you, it turns out I’m not as big a Swiftie as I thought. I had no idea Taylor Swift’s new album, THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, dropped the night before the official release date. Instead, I found out about 30 minutes prior to my plans for being horizontal that it was dropping momentarily (Shout out to for alerting me to this news 🙏🏼).
I had a decision to make: Get some much needed sleep, wake up early, and let it rip—or—just stay up. Even though I was moments away, literally watching the countdown on Spotify drift into seconds territory, I chose the latter. Honestly, I don’t recognize this self-restraint.
I set an alarm for 5am. Early enough to fit an initial listen in before my son got up. Then, a few things happened. I had a very tossy turny night of sleep, so I snoozed my alarm and not long after, Archie woke up. With that went any chance of listening to it before the morning shuffle. When I saw it was a DOUBLE album (again 31 songs, what?!), I felt sort of relieved knowing even if I had woke up at 5, I still wouldn’t have finished the album. My snoozing habit getting off with a warning this time.
Also, not a great morning to remember I didn’t have a Spotify Premium account. This oversight meant I couldn’t listen to the album in order which was not going to work for me. I decided to take the plunge,1 but then I fucked up trying to figure that out and spent 30 minutes with a chat bot.
Needless to say, by the time I was able to sit down and actually listen, I was at a fever pitch level of excitement.
Before we begin, a few disclaimers.
These are my initial thoughts. My response to certain songs can really shift and evolve over time. I’ve noticed this to be especially true with Taylor’s music. I find this to be a reflection how singularly she can capture a moment. We’re not aiming for broad strokes. It’s a snapshot of a feeling. Acute. Specific. Precise.
As I talked about last week on the podcast I do with my husband, the reason I’ve always been drawn to art like this is because growing up it was the only place where people said out loud what I suspected we all were feeling but refusing to name. Making the implicit, explicit. My first taste of therapy.
Also, this is very much not a dissertation. I’m not going to break down every single therapeutic concept because (1) we’d be here all day and (2) where is the fun in that? These are my authentic reactions as they come. Some personal, some therapisty, and some just straight up fan girling. First come, first serve.
Mother is making me work here with a surprise double album, but if she did the work, so can I.
From Taylor’s post on X (I really don’t know if I can call it that ) Twitter, “The Tortured Poets Department. 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.”
Without further ado, here goes nothing…
Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)
Woah. A Real Hero vibe right off the bat. (If you’ve seen Drive with Ry Gos, you’ll know what I mean)
K. We’re already acknowledging homicidal ideation. Can’t say she doesn’t go there.
I very recently learned how long a fortnight is while watching One Day so this is very timely for me.
“I love you, it's ruining my life.” To the point, I love it. What else is there to say?
Definitely wish there was more Post Malone here, but I guess it’s featuring not a duet.
Oh, wait. There he is. I’m awfully inpatient with anticipation over here.
That was fun. I hope this isn’t the last we see of them together.
The Tortured Poets Department
These first two feel so 80’sish to me. Pretty Woman could be starting based on these first few bars.
Love this line, “I've seen this episode and still love the show.”
Always down for a little curse laden post-chorus:
And who's gonna hold you like me?
Nobody
No-fucking-body
NobodyAnd now we have a mention of suicidal ideation...2 for 2 on being unflinching.
I gotta give it to her for being willing to talk about how consumed by love she can feel. It’s giving me hives to think about the depths of that feeling.
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
Girlfriend got me double-checking what “rivulets” means (for those unsure, like me, it’s a very small stream)
The paradox of how even when we try not to, we can hurt the ones we love the most.
“Once I fix me… he's gonna miss me” Jeepers. That hits. Feels like the When/Then thinking we talked about a few weeks ago. How many times have you been broken up with thinking, “When I just fix X about me, then they’ll come running/regret it/miss me?”
Down Bad
Oh. I love this opening sound. What instrument is this?
“Fuck it if I can't have him/So fuck you if I can't have us.” Safe to say, she got a case of the fuck its here. In Internal Family Systems (IFS), this would be referred to as a part of us, more specifically a firefighter. She’s been hurt. An exile touched. This part comes in to say, “I’ll take care for that pain for you.” Douses everything in a “fuck everyone and everything” energy, effectively numbing the wound and protecting the exile once again.
“Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym.” The imagery of crying at the gym is too real. As a former Gold’s Gym employee, I can attest there are quite frequently people crying over breakups on the stair master.
She really be swearing. After my heart.
This is a really good one.
Was “down bad” a thing people were saying before this? I personally am into it. I could start writing this into my treatment plans: Client presents as down bad resulting from a breakup.
So Long, London
This opening is haunting.
Yeek, she said it:
“And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.”
These lines are so resonant to me. How much do you think I’ll tolerate? Are you really going to test that limit?
“So how much sad did you think I had
Did you think I had in me?
How much tragedy?
Just how low did you
Think I'd go 'fore I'd self-implode?
'Fore I'd have to go be free?”The things you have to sacrifice in being with and breaking up:
“You swore that you loved, me but where were the clues?
I died on the altar waiting 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”
But Daddy I Love Him
“Screamin’, But daddy I love him" feels so cinematic to me.
Ooo here she goes.
“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
God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what’s best for me”It’s our lives to do what we will with, even if that looks messy to someone else…and the well-meaning peanut gallery can keep the unsolicited advice to themselves.
Every song that passes I think it’s my favorite yet.
Fresh Out the Slammer
My only note is how high and fast she is singing in this one.
Florida!!! (feat. Florence + Machine)
As a humongous FATM fan, this is the one I’m most excited for.
I can feel the classic Florence build.
Love the breaking of the fourth wall here:
“So I did my best to lay to rest
All of the bodies that have ever been on my body
And in my mind, they sink into the swampIs that a bad thing to say in a song?”
Ahhh, hearing their voices together singing, “Fuck me up, Florida” is something I never knew I needed
I have no idea what this song is about, other than possibly Florida (?), but hearing them sing together is a dream for me.
Guilty as Sin?
“Am I allowed to cry?” Unrelated, or maybe related, my son asked this week if it was OK for him to cry, which was both very sweet and very crushing. I guess we ask ourselves this question forever.
“Am I bad? Or mad? Or wise?” Same, girl. Same.
A little nod to thoughts just being thoughts. No morality attached. Or as is said in IFS, no bad parts.
"‘Someone told me
"There’s no such thing as bad thoughts,
only your actions talk’”When I hear this, I envision a crush that you play out entirely in your head, which same:
“What if he's written ‘mine’ on my upper thigh only in my mind?”
“I keep recalling things we never did.”
She gets a lot of grief for writing things like this. That maybe it’s immature and/or reckless. Maybe it is, but on my death bed, I can assure you I’m not going regret having this kind of fun in my life. I’m just not.
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
Chills incoming.
“I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me.” Oof. That is real. When you feel something so deeply, you want someone to see what has been done to you inside.
The way she sings this part is so unnerving:
“That I'm fearsome and I'm wretched and I'm wrong.”
How often are we given circumstances that we must adapt to and then we are blamed/shamed for doing exactly that? She appears to be perpetually misjudged/underestimated and then rises.2
“Cause you lured me and you hurt me and you taught me
You caged me and then you called me crazy
I am what I am 'cause you trained me
So who’s afraid of me?”
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
It’s often so subtle, the ways we try to fix, coax, love someone into something else…even trying to get them to love themselves enough to love us.3
I love the last line, “Woah, maybe I can’t.” That’s always a tough reckoning when you realize all that trying did very little other than exhaust you.
loml
Fuck.
“You shit-talked me under a table,
talking rings and talking cradles
I wish I could unrecall how we almost had it all”Just about choked on this one.
“Oh, what a valiant roar
What a bland goodbye”Literally wincing through this one.
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
The video super cut shown on Spotify for this song is of her Eras Tour so I feel like I know where we going here. Possibly toward how in the hell she performed a 3.5 hour concert 2-3 times a week while also actively grieving a six year relationship? Like this:
"Lights, camera, bitch, smile
Even when you wanna die"Oh my god, the music and her octave picking up while she sings“I'm so depressed I act like it's my birthday every day.” is too good.
Is she really ending with
“'Cause I'm miserable
And no one even knows!
Try and come for my job...”she did. smh.
Sometimes you really have to laugh at the absurdity of this life. Maybe we’re not performing for tens of thousands of people while going through a break-up—maybe I shouldn’t speak for you, I’m personally not—but we are often experiencing great highs amongst our lowest, lows.
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
Rahhhh.
“And I don’t even want you back
I just want to know
If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal.”And then…
“And I don’t miss what we had
But could someone give a message
To the smallest man who ever lived?”Later…
“Cause it wasn't sexy once it wasn’t forbidden”
It’s handled…
“But you are what you did”
Well, there is that. She holds ‘em accountable.
The Alchemy
Aww, a love song. As you may be able to see so far, I’m not here to dissect what each song means for Taylor specifically, but this one is so clearly about her and Travis Kelce.
I looked up the definition of alchemy and it sure does fit for them, “a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination.”4 What a strange, unexpected combination they are.
Clara Bow
The opening felt very Dashboard Confessional/Simple Plan era to me.
“It’s hell on earth to be heavenly.”
This is a hard thing to work through with clients (and with myself). How being the “it” person of whatever arena we are talking about is never what you think. In my experience, more than being great or heralded, we all just want to be enough in our humanness.
The Black Dog
“Old habits die screaming.” Great line and also there is that pop-punk/acoustic rock guitar again.
The doubt and embarrassment that creeps in when a relationship ends…Questioning, “Was any of it real?” Yikes. Just typing that brought back some memories.
imgonnagetyouback
Her willingness to articulate and own how confusing it can feel to be in any stage of loving someone is so refreshing. It’s rarely clean-cut.
“Whether I'm gonna curse you out or
Take you back to my house, I haven't decidеd yet
But I'm gonna get you back”This one clearly feels like an exploration of being around an ex. The complexity of wanting to try again, or revisit, even for a moment what was.
“Small talk, big love, act like I don't care what you did.”
This one was really fun for me. What I gravitate toward in her music is always shifting. Sometimes it’s more acoustic, other times more boss energy (see: my favorite album being reputation), but typically I’m less inclined toward the pop. But, this is a delicious synth-pop bop.
The Albatross
Mmm. Similar to the previous song, this feels like a compelling combination of styles for me.
Another googling for a definition because I love words. I want to know every inch of them. Calling someone an albatross means “they cause you great problems from which you cannot escape, or they prevent you from doing what you want to do.”5 She’s talked before about how her fame has impacted relationships. While that is not so relatable for most of us, I can think of many ways this shows up for us mere mortals in relationships. Addiction, co-dependent patterns, family entanglements and so on. So many ways we get stuck in relationships that keep us from fully being.
Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus
wahhhhhhh.
“If you wanna break my cold, cold heart
Just say, ‘I loved you the way that you were’
If you wanna tear my world apart
Just say you've always wondered”The instruments in the back—Love! What is that I’m hearing? I can’t tell if it’s a piano or a harp or something?
God, she’s good at a bridge. “Too impaired by my youth to know what to do.”
Well, this is a little nostalgia, love-bomb in the best way, isn’t it?
How Did It End?
I am a piano loving ass bitch. I love it so much. Not enough to actually stick with lessons as a kid of course, I ran screaming after exactly one recital, but a piano can make me cry.
I’m getting FBC6 from this piano.
This is another moment where I feel like she captures the complexity of endings. They often feel obvious, but also super not. So fast and so slow.
“It's happenin' again
How did it end?
I can't pretend like I understand
How did it end?”“The empathetic hunger descends.” This has got to be the second or third time I’ve noticed her mention empathy gone wrong on this album. Like a lot of therapeutic concepts, once they meet the cold outside air, empathy has gotten a bit distorted. I see this often—people over-empathizing with others to the point of complete obfuscation of Self or well-meaning loved ones empathy for people looking more like codependency, enmeshment, and control.
So High School
This does feel so high school to me. The sound is very early aughts to me. Liz Phair, or something like that?
There are many lyrics in this that remind me of the strange simplicity of that time. The delicateness of being in love that age. It’s both heavy, but also so light like you could lift off and float away. I guess falling in love at any age can feel like that. I’m just remembering a moment early on with my husband. We were driving somewhere and something sweet, heart bursting happened. I looked in the side mirrors at myself, like “Is this really happening or am I levitating?” Because the latter would let me know it was but a dream.
I Hate It Here
As we know, I relate to the title. 😜
“Nostalgia is a mind's trick” 👏👏👏
The moments where we need to escape within ourselves to feel and see something other than what is.
“I'm lonely, but I'm good
I'm bitter, but I swear I'm fine
I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life and I'll get lost on purpose”“This place made me feel worthless
Lucid dreams like electricity, the current flies through me
And in my fantasies, I rise above it
And way up there, I actually love it”
thanK you AIMee
I’ve already heard the rumblings about the meaning of this one. I’m not going touch that. But, we have a few reflections on trauma, grief, and growth:
“But I can't forget the way you made me heal.”
“But when I count the scars, there's a moment of truth
That there wouldn't be this if there hadn't been you.”
I Look in People’s Windows
Not sure what I’m listening to here, but the fantasy of getting carried away by just a look is present.
The Prophecy
The way she says the thing we’ve all been taught not to say:
“Don't want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo the prophecy?”“And I sound like an infant
Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen
A greater woman stays cool
But I howl like a wolf at the moon.”She’s out there, over fate, insisting, “Umm. Can I talk to your manager?”
There is such emotional weight in the term prophecy. The way we can feel like things are destined to work against us when things repeatedly don’t go the way we think they should. That our past is predictive of our future.
Cassandra
Truly don’t know what I’m listening to here. Just did a quick google…potentially about some feuds. Again, sorry, I’m not gonna get into the drams. Here for the emotions 🫶 , but if there are some literary references I’m missing, do tell!
Peter
This is pretty.
More piano and bittersweetness carrying me away…
“Said you were gonna grow up
Then you were gonna come find me
Words from the mouths of babes
Promises oceans deep
But never to keep
Oh, never to keep.”Again, with the bridges! “Cause love's never lost when perspective is earned” Damn, where was this song a decade ago?
The Bolter
Gosh, I’m just a singer songwriter girlie somedays.
Ooo. I’m really feeling this one.
I. Love. All. The. Fucks. On. This. Album. Someone must have counted them by now. What’s the count?
Boop
“There's escape in escaping.”
Is this my favorite song on the album?
Why yes, it is.
All her fuckin' lives
Flashed before her eyes (And she realized)
It feels like the time
She fell through the ice
Then came out alive
Robin
The guitar on this has Aaron Dessner all over it.
This is making me cry:
The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean
You'll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline
But now we'll curtail your curiosity
In sweetness
The Manuscript
Another pretty, delicate piano intro. Swoon.
This one feels like how in trauma work, sometimes a scene is intentionally revisited so that you can see what you felt with compassion and care. And then, the release of recognition and understanding.
“Lookin' backwards
Might be the only way to move forward
Then the actors
Were hitting their marks
And the slow dance
Was alight with the sparks
And the tears fell
In synchronicity with the score
And at last
She knew what the agony had been for”
THE END.
Phew. That was an undertaking. I don’t know if I’ll do this segment again on something new to me. It was honestly a lot to take in. 😅
Now, I’m off to Google what these songs are actually about. I have listened to it a few more times and it’s only getting better to me…and listening to it in the car is almost too good.
I’ve seen some criticism that she could have edited it down more. Yeah, of course she could have. It’s 31 songs. Is that really a groundbreaking take? If she was going for perfect, she could have done that. Maybe she’s freeing herself of trying to be that, though. It seems she having fun, being brutally honest, and knows her fans will love all this.
There is also the criticism that it’s cringe and juvenile. I said it before and I’ll say it again. When my time comes, I can promise you, I’m not going to be wishing I’d been more mature. I think we’re missing the plot if all we want to listen to are songs about “how to adult.” I’m not interested. Give me messy. Give me play. Give me insecure. Give me human. Give me poetry.
Questions for you:
What are your favorites on the album?
Be like Taylor. Say it all, unflinchingly. What lyrics are staying with you?
Whether about Taylor or another artist, are you like me and find your relationship to a certain song can change over time?
Anybody get a count of how many fucks we got on this album?
My favorite place to listen to music is in the car. Where is your favorite place to listen?
You can find more info and my full disclaimer on my about page here (I recently updated my about page, so check her out and tell me what you think). Abridged version: I’m a therapist, but not your therapist—even if you are a client of mine ~hi, dear one!~ this isn’t a session. dialoguing is an educational and informational newsletter only, not a substitute for mental health treatment.
Also, if you’re interested in submitting a question for the dialogue league, recent example here, please email me at dialoguingsubstack@gmail.com—or if you’re reading this via email you can just hit reply and send me a message. Love hearing from you for any and all reasons!
If you liked this one, you may also like:
Catch this one before it goes into the archives:
She alludes to this in one of my newer favorites, You’re Losing Me:
“I'm getting tired even for a phoenix
Always risin' from the ashes”
We go in on this concept—of being unable to love someone into loving themselves and then in turn us— on a Love is Blind recap episode of our podcast.
Definition of alchemy from Oxford Languages
Full Body Chills, I use this acronym all the time, but then I looked it up and it was a church. 🫠
Around the time Speak Now Taylor's Version came out I started getting my kids (7 and 4 yo boys) to listen to all the albums and they're definitely Swifties now but they currently only love So High School off this album. I have never stayed up to listen to an album but I started listening after school dropoff and had a lot of opinions by end of the day Friday. I've never had Spotify but I got Apple Music with my Apple Watch in July and it's been very nice to have!
1. My favorites- TTPD, loml, I Can Do it with a Broken Heart, I Look in People's Windows
2. loml-If you know it in one glimpse, it's legendary/You and I go from one kiss to getting married, You said I'm the love of your life/About a million times, What we thought was for all time was momentary, I wish I could unrecall how we almost had it all, You're the loss of my life
All of these have stayed in my head all weekend. I haven't broken up with anyone since 2011 and got together with my husband that summer but this album made me feel a lot.
I Look in People's Windows- I had died the death/I spied the catch in your breath, I look in people's windows/In case you're at their table/What if your eyes looked up and met mine/One more time, Does it feel alright to not know me? I'm addicted to the "if only"
I got stuck on both of these songs in particular and listened to them so many times in a row.
3. My relationship with all her songs has changed over time but it's very interesting to think back on how it has evolved over the years- the Speak Now and Red albums in particular were big breakup albums for me when I was listening to them a lot at the gym and listening to the Taylor's Version albums brought back a lot of that for me a decade later! I went to the 1989 concert tour but hadn't really listened to the albums after that one consistently until The Eras Tour started. I have a fun video of my now 7 yo dancing to Ready for It? when he was about 13 months old so I know I listened to Reputation but it didn't connect with me much then.
4. I don't have a count but my husband did comment on all the fucks when we were listening with my kids- they've seen the Eras Tour movie more than once
5. My favorite place is the car but I also like to read the lyrics while I listen so I like laying on the couch or in my bed too- I like hitting View Full Lyrics while I listen.
This was so great, Kaitlyn!!!
It's so hard to pick my favourites. It's my second go through the album and I'm loving the majority of the songs because they're so relatable. Like you said, I don't want "how to adult," I want the human. I'm not usually so into her, but this album is something else. It's also timely since I just went through a break-up, so I suppose it's the balm I didn't know I needed. It's bringing up a lot from relationships I've had throughout my life and I'm processing some old stories through her words.