Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department,’ releases today! While we wait with bated breath to binge-play the album, let us take a look at all the rumours, hypotheses, and Easter eggs that are circulating quicker than you can scream ‘HER MIND’ at any member of your family who tries to calm you down. Fans aka ‘Swifties’ are already curious about the topics and themes of the album’s 17 tracks.
The April 19 release date has several allusions to begin with, and seems to be related to Taylor’s former partner Joe Alwyn. It was also the day Taylor went to dine with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds and they unfollowed him.
April 19 is particularly noteworthy as the day of the fight of Lexington and Concord in 1775, which took place during the American Revolution. It appears that Swift is announcing her break from a certain British man, perhaps Alwyn? In addition, it also coincides with ‘Poetry and the Creative Mind Day.’
It took Swifties exactly five minutes to figure out that ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ might be a reference to Joe Alwyn’s ‘The Tortured Man Club,’ a WhatsApp group he co-founded with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott. Unverified, but if it’s real!
Taylor posted the following lyrics (or possibly a note?) on Instagram the day she announced the album:
’And so I enter into evidence
My tarnished coat of arms
My muses, acquired like bruises,
My talismans and charms
The tick tick tick of love bombs
My veins of pitch black ink
All’s fair in love and poetry,
Sincerely,
The Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department’
More fan theories: Clara Bow is an actress of a silent film of 1920s and one of Taylor’s song titles. Bow was an ‘It girl’ from her time, linked to several men off-screen. Her love life became the target of nasty rumours and conjecture, including a booklet distributed by an assistant with details of Bow’s relationships.
The singer has recently maintained a busy schedule. She will resume her Eras Tour in Tokyo following her victory at the Grammy Awards, marking her fourth win for ‘Album of the Year’.
PS: Here’s another theory—when fans noted that the background hues were changing, they started to speculate that the colours of ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ represent the five stages of grief: Acceptance, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression.
Image source: Glamour.com, Harper Bazaar, Battlefields.org