'TTPD' Isn’t Just Taylor’s Version Of A Burn Book – It’s A Lesson In Uncensored Sadness

I was 11 years old when I got my hands on Taylor Swift’s third studio album Speak Now. I’d wager a bet that my dad (whose personal music taste veers more Bowie than Swiftie) can still recite the album’s title track today, so often I played the track on repeat in the car. In his defence, it was my favourite song of all time (at the time).

In hindsight, I’m not entirely sure why ‘Speak Now’ specifically struck a chord with my pre-teen self. The tale of a girl interrupting a wedding in the name of unfaltering true love couldn’t be further from my ultra grey commute to school through Stoke-on-Trent. I’d just started to get acne at that time. My tolerance for emotional conflict hit its ceiling at Twilight’s Edward vs Jacob debate. I wouldn’t go on to have a boyfriend for at least another six years. And yet, like so many girls my age, the idea of unashamedly expressing one’s voice resonated so deeply that I swiftly declared the album’s ‘glitter pen’ pop tracks the soundtrack to my life.

taylor swift uncensoring sadness

This year, I turn 25 and Swift is no longer a little-known teen country singer whose songs I’d dance along to on MTV, rather an artist with 98.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify who became the most streamed artist on the platform in 2023. Moreover, her Eras Tour is the highest grossing concert tour – of all time – and the first to ever gross over $1 billion. Her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, garnered a record-breaking 300 million streams in one single day according to Rolling Stone, which awarded the album a five-star review. The list of accolades goes on.

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Over a decade on since my Speak Now era, my relationship with the 34-year-old pop star has matured alongside her burgeoning career and romantic relationships. Rather than looking to her for mere musical accompaniment to my day, her lyrics – often a brave unravelling of her deepest emotions – have become the breadcrumbs I follow and a source of self-reflection, education, and cathartic release.

Swift hails herself as an expert in reinvention. Now 11 albums deep, her discography ‘serves’ are bursting with such proof. Once a country artist dedicated to the love stories of her teenage and twenty-something years, her lyrical vulnerability has evolved tenfold in recent albums, transcending genres from mainstream pop to folk music and exploring topics such as deceit, revenge, heartbreak and loss one can only learn more deeply about with age and experience. What began as a redefined sense of self and newfound ‘edge’ on Reputation, has become a consistently convincing case for bearing your soul with bravery in Folklore, Evermore and Midnights. Now, via The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), that self-determined and powerful voice is more honest and vulnerable than ever.

For ‘Swifties’, TTPD is an open diary. While much of the album (and don’t be mistaken, it is explicitly a break-up album) explores themes of heartbreak in Swift’s signature autobiographical tone, the 31-track anthology is emotionally graphic beyond a simple love-loss story. The Tortured Poets Department isn’t just a burn book of the conflicts in Swift’s public life, but a raw depiction of repressed sadness and insecurity in the most confessional way. In TTPD, it’s as if she’s looking desperation, resentment and despair directly in the face.

taylor swift uncensored sadness

This literary fearlessness is not without a source. From depictions of past (or controversial present) relationships, to alleged rivalries with artists of a similar calibre, lyrical authenticity is something that female songwriters frequently find themselves on trial for. Truthful narration demands a precarious balance of transparency and storytelling that performers have reckoned with for a time, long before Swift, so it’s little surprise that many breakthrough artists proceed with caution.

Perhaps a consequence of Swift’s steadfast position, both musically and culturally (a survey from last year found 53% of American adults are fans of Swift, indicating a certain level of political influence alongside her musical stature), the singer is yet to discouraged by the fear of her words being weaponised. If anything, her absence of reserve has served as further proof that openness, vulnerability and unguarded, brutal honesty are not without reward in modern music culture, as artists like Raye can concur. The quote ‘Sorry, was I loud in my own house that I bought with the songs that I wrote about my own life?’ springs to mind with poignance.

taylor swift uncensoring sadness

In her song ‘The Prophecy’, Swift offers up her fear around consistently failing relationships and her ongoing sense of isolation (A greater woman has faith, but even statues crumble if they’re made to wait / I’m so afraid I sealed my fate / No sign of soulmates). In ‘I Hate It Here’, she grapples with the unwavering desire to escape from her star-studded surroundings (I hate it here so I will go to lunar valleys in my mind / When they found a better planet, only the gentle survived / I dreamed about it in the dark, the night I felt like I might die). ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?’ is a stark illustration of how public scrutiny has tainted her self-proclaimed gentle nature (I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean / Don’t you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth).’

The parasocial discourse around the true muses of Swift’s discography has evolved alongside it’s emotional content, too. Detailed dissections of her latest project The Tortured Poets Department are far more rife on the internet, (from deep dives into her relationship with 1975 frontman Matty Healy to the alleged resurfacing of public bad blood with Kim Kardashian) than the albums I listened to in childhood. It’s possible to find a line-by-line virtual evaluation for every track in the 31 song collection.

taylor swift uncensoring sadness

But these intimate details aren’t why so many of us Swifties remain invested in the signer’s music. We come and stay for the honest representation of emotions we can’t always find the confidence, nor the space nor words, to articulate about our own lives. Misplaced hope, a longing for closure, and wrestling with insecurities are themes Swift bellows about with as much frankness and gusto as she does falling in love and chasing her dreams in her debut albums. For me, that frank and unashamed proclamation of sadness, in all its stages, makes for a foundation of solace and a sense of community that helps us feel a little less alone.

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