The ten best lyrics from ‘The Tortured Poets Department’

Taylor Swift’s double album “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” features 31 songs exploring the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Overflowing with intimacy, Swift’s 11 studio album takes fans on a rollercoaster of emotions. From the aftermath of her breakup with British actor Joe Alwyn in “So Long, London” to a celebration of her love for Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in “The Alchemy,” here are ten of the best lyrics from “The Tortured Poets Department.”

“I felt more when we played pretend / Than with all the Kens / ‘Cause he took me out of my box / Stole my tortured heart / Left all these broken parts” – “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”

Reminiscent of Greta Gerwig’s 2023 film “Barbie,” Swift depicts herself as a doll who has been played with and abandoned by her lover. Even with her plastered-on plastic smile, Swift’s heart has been cracked and her spirit broken by their relationship.

“I stopped CPR, after all, it’s no use / The spirit was gone, we would never come to” – “So Long, London”

The heartbeat of Swift’s relationship with Joe Alwyn seems to have gone silent, leaving their love dead with no hope of resuscitation. The “Midnights” vault track song “You’re Losing Me” uses a similar metaphor with lyrics like “I can’t find a pulse / My heart won’t start anymore / For you” set to the beat of a pulsing heart.

“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?” / You should be” – “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”

As she compares herself to the Grim Reaper, Swift enters the anger stage of grief. The haunting, rage-filled lyrics of “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” contain the biting wit seen in the song “mad woman” from Swift’s eighth studio album “folklore.”

“Dancing phantoms on the terrace / Are they second-hand embarrassed / That I can’t get out bed / ‘Cause something counterfeit’s dead?” – “loml”

Swift flips the common meaning of “loml” on its head in this song, as she addresses an ex-boyfriend as the loss, rather than the love, of her life. The ghosts of this relationship are seen haunting Swift as she watches their inauthentic love story play out before her again and again.

“Breaking down, I hit the floor / All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, ‘More’” – “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”

In “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart,” Swift sheds the put-together mask she wore during the first half of The Eras Tour to reveal her internal breakdown after her breakup with Alwyn. The juxtaposition between her public image of success and private grief following heartbreak is mirrored by depressing lyrics set to an upbeat track.

“So when I touch down / Call the amateurs and cut ‘em from the team / Ditch the clowns, get the crown / Baby, I’m the one to beat” – “The Alchemy”

Utilizing multiple football references, “The Alchemy” details the highs of Swift’s blossoming relationship with Kelce. Rather than stating that she and Kelce have chemistry, Swift travels back in time to the medieval era to express the magnetic pull between them.

“Was it hazing for a cruel fraternity? I pledged and I still mean it / Old habits die screaming” – “The Black Dog”

Through the metaphor of a college student joining a fraternity, Swift recounts the torture her ex put her through to earn his love. Despite her ongoing commitment to him, it seems she has been left in denial, grasping onto old habits.

“Your hologram stumbled into my apartment / Hands in the hair of somebody in darkness / Named Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus / And I just watched it happen” – “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus”

Swift sees herself as a detached observer who lacks the power to interfere with the life of a former lover. In her head, she plays back a scene of him cheating on her with some stranger she doesn’t know the name of.

“The deflation of our dreaming / Leaving me bereft and reeling / My beloved ghost and me / Sitting in a tree / D-Y-I-N-G” – “How Did It End?”

Playing off of the popular nursery rhyme “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Swift outlines the death of her dreams to marry one of her exes. In a tree she might have once sat with her lover, Swift is left alone with nothing but the ghosts of her past to keep her company.

“Truth, dare, spin bottles / You know how to ball, I know Aristotle / Brand new, full throttle / Touch me while your bros play ‘Grand Theft Auto’” – “So High School”

In the spirit of teenage love, Swift refers to games like “spin the bottle” and “kiss, marry, kill” in “So High School” to portray her love with Kelce. The new and exciting quality of this relationship has transported Swift back to feeling like she has a childhood crush again.