Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
STEPHEN THOMPSON, HOST:
A heads up, this episode contains explicit language.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
THOMPSON: You might have heard about this already, but Taylor Swift just dropped a new album called "The Tortured Poets Department." It's an epic that spans two hours and two high-profile breakups. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today, we are talking about Taylor Swift's new album, "The Tortured Poets Department," on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
THOMPSON: Joining me today is POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR producer Hafsa Fathima. Welcome.
HAFSA FATHIMA, BYLINE: It's me. Hi. I'm the problem. It's me.
[LAUGHTER]
THOMPSON: Also with us, NPR music critic and correspondent Ann Powers. Hey, Ann.
ANN POWERS, BYLINE: Oh, man, I should have had a Taylor lyric ready, but I didn't. Hello, y'all. I'm excited to have this conversation.
THOMPSON: Thrilled to have you both here. So, "The Tortured Poets Department" is Taylor Swift's 11th full-length studio record. Early last Friday, she dropped 16 songs, a tracklist she had been teasing for a while. Then, just a couple hours later, she dropped 15 more songs and revealed that this is actually a double album. Thematically, the record delves deeply into two of the singer's most famous relationships, one with the English actor Joe Alwyn and the other with Matty Healy, who's the lead singer of The 1975. It's not always hard to figure out which is which in these songs. If you're looking for hints, just know that she seems sad and resigned about one relationship and extremely ticked off about the other.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE SMALLEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED")
TAYLOR SWIFT: (Singing) Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?
THOMPSON: And while Taylor Swift indulges in a few beefs on this record, and at times seems to spare no one, the target she returns to most often is herself. The opening moments of "The Tortured Poets Department" make that clear.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FORTNIGHT")
SWIFT: (Singing) I was supposed to be sent away, but they forgot to come and get me. I was a functioning alcoholic till nobody noticed my new aesthetic.
THOMPSON: It's almost impossible to talk about this record without using the word unpack. So we're going to do our best to unpack. We are recording this Monday morning, and we've been listening to the album all weekend. Hafsa, you are POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR's resident Swifty. So I'd like your general thoughts first. What did you think of "The Tortured Poets Department?"
FATHIMA: I mean, she wasn't kidding about the tortured part. This was the most raw and cutting I think she's ever let herself be. She uses the words post-mortem in the song "How Did It End?" And that's how this really feels at times. It's a very cold, uncomfortable, sometimes clinical examination of how things went wrong. For me, the back half of the album was really the strong part. I think that's where some of my favorite tracks come from. But it's interesting to see so many elements of her previous work magnified here, the anger and the pain from "Reputation," the strains of loneliness and contemplation from "Folklore" and "Evermore." This is the most vulnerable and unedited she's let herself be in a very long time.
THOMPSON: In more ways than one.
FATHIMA: In more ways than one. And if the album sounds somewhat incohesive, I kept reminding myself, maybe that's the point. So overall, it's a really solid work with, I think, some really emotionally resonating pieces. But I think for me, I struggled to make the kind of instant connection the way that I found with "Folklore" or "Evermore."
THOMPSON: OK. How about you, Ann?
POWERS: Well, you know, I have been on a journey with this record, y'all. I would not call myself a Swifty. I really respect Taylor Swift, and I always find something very compelling in her albums, but as sort of an overwhelming cultural presence, frankly, kind of sick of her. I've been a little sick of her for a while, you know? It's just anyone who's such a winner I can't take. I need to find the underdog. But then, when I turned to this album, and I did have it a little bit early 'cause I wrote a review. Well, I had the first...
THOMPSON: Yeah, you had 16 songs.
POWERS: ...The original half, you know, the first half that - what I consider the album album and not the quasi double album extra. And Hafsa, we'll have an interesting conversation 'cause I prefer the first half of the record myself because when I sat down to listen to it, it was such an arc, and it just sucked me in. It sucked me in like a movie or a novel. And I do think there's some pretty (imitating buzzer) writing on this record, like, some pretty corny lines and unhinged lines, but I love that. I want her to be as unhinged as possible, personally.
THOMPSON: (Laughter) Yeah. I - it's interesting. She is nothing if not distinct, right? Like, I remember having a debate with a colleague over Slack when "Anti-Hero" came out about that line, like, everybody is a sexy baby, and I'm a monster on the hill, and they were like, urgh. And I was like, You know what? That line is distinct.
POWERS: That's a killer line.
THOMPSON: What I like about that line is it's distinct, and it could only come from her.
POWERS: Yes.
THOMPSON: That's one area where she really stands out for better and for worse.
POWERS: That brings up the fact, Stephen, that she has a line on this record that people have been tossing around.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FLORIDA!!!")
SWIFT: (Singing) And my friends all smell like weed or little babies.
POWERS: That's in the song, "Florida!!!, " her duet with Florence Welch. Do you feel, as many people have said, many critics have said, that Taylor is just repeating herself a lot on this record? Because that line kind of hearkens back to the line you just mentioned. There's a lot of musical callbacks on this record. What do you think?
THOMPSON: I think I have more of an issue with how recycled some of these arrangements feel. You know, she's now a bunch of albums into consistently collaborating with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, and both of them have worked with her on what turned out to be fantastic songs. But for me, especially in a two-hour dose, sonically, this record starts to feel really samey for me.
POWERS: Yeah.
FATHIMA: Yeah. It's hard to find, like, the distinction between the songs sometimes because in the first half, you have, like, those really big synth-pop beats that are obviously, like, Jack Antonoff productions. You can hear it in a song like "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart." And then it's almost like you can see the demarcation where Aaron Dessner takes over into those more folksy, melodic...
THOMPSON: Yeah.
FATHIMA: ..."Evermore" tunes. So in some ways, it sounds like two different albums that were then put together into one. And I think sonically, I think that's what - where it doesn't resonate as much.
THOMPSON: And that's one kind of interesting theme of this record overall, right? Like, it's a little bit of a, like, there's a binary star thing happening. Where you can kind of clear these songs into two camps. You can clear them into this is the Antonoff camp, and you can clear them into the Aaron Dessner camp. And you can clear these songs into the Joe Alwyn camp, sad and resigned, and the Matty Healy camp, which is, I'm going to body him into the next ZIP code.
FATHIMA: "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" was the most cutting burn I have heard her say. I was like, wow.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE SMALLEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED")
SWIFT: (Singing) And I don't miss what we had, but could someone give a message to the smallest man who ever lived?
POWERS: I've got to, like, challenge these binaries. I think challenging binaries is always important to do.
THOMPSON: Always a good idea.
POWERS: For one thing, on the first arc or the first part, the 16 songs that begin with "Fortnight" and end with "Clara Bow, " it's actually pretty evenly distributed between Antonoff and Dessner, almost one after another. It's true that on the back end on the second album, it's much more Dessner. Not to just, like, ride the gossip train, but I found it very compelling that she - yeah, she's mad at him. He's the smallest man who ever lived, but he's also the loss of her life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOML")
SWIFT: (Singing) But I felt a hole like this never before and ever since.
POWERS: "LOML." I mean, she has a lot of sadness or whoever, quote-unquote, "Taylor Swift" who's singing these songs, the character...
THOMPSON: Right.
POWERS: ...Is completely in a I love you, I will marry you, I will kill you situation here. It's not a binary thing, you know?
THOMPSON: Sure. I get that. I did want to kind of confess that I am suffering from a condition that I call pop star opus fatigue.
POWERS: (Laughter) Yeah. I feel you.
THOMPSON: Where it feels like there's a little bit of an arms race happening where this record is out three weeks after Beyonce's "Cowboy Carter." That record was nearly 80 minutes long. This record is more than 2 hours. And I think both records buckle under their own weight a little bit. You know, I've been joking all weekend about how Dua Lipa's new album that comes out in a couple of weeks, what she should do as counter-programming is put out a record and be like, here are 10 songs in 29 minutes. They're all about nothing and no one, and every one of these songs is designed to be enjoyed only while roller skating.
POWERS: (Laughter) But then, you know, when Billie Eilish puts out a record, it's going to be like that installation, "The Clock" by Christian Marclay, where it just plays for 24 hours solid, and you just have to enter into it at any point. We're going to have, I think, the "Satyagraha," you know, Philip Glass opera of albums. Come on, Billie. Give me that. I want it.
THOMPSON: You know what?
POWERS: I want it.
THOMPSON: That sounds fine. But, like, I guess part of it is, like, give me a pop record that's not a treatise about grievances...
POWERS: Yeah.
THOMPSON: ...If that makes sense.
POWERS: Well, yes and no. I don't know. I just want to go back to, like, my love of ugly Taylor. I love it when she's that 17-foot-tall monster stomping all over the place, like, coming out of the asylum. And, you know, we don't get that enough. So - but on the other hand, most of the critics agree with you, Stephen. I mean, there's been a lot of reaction to this record that's like, this is too much. We don't care. Give us a pop hit. So, I don't know. Where do you weigh in, Hafsa?
FATHIMA: Yeah. I think, Stephen, the timing of when this album was released is very interesting...
THOMPSON: Yeah.
FATHIMA: ...Because we are at a point in history where Taylor Swift's reputation is the most intact it has ever been.
POWERS: True. Good point.
THOMPSON: Reputation, like, lower-case R, not the album from (laughter).
FATHIMA: But, yeah, I mean, her reputation is intact, lower-case. She is a public darling right now. She doesn't have the same hesitation as she did post-Kanye West feud. So I think it's sort of given her the leeway to make an album like this, an album that doesn't have, like, those obvious radio hits, that doesn't have, like, the obvious bops. So I think I can almost, like, feel the weight off her shoulders at this time to say, this is me. Here is 31 songs. Sometimes, it doesn't make sense, but take it for what it is because she knows she can release this album at this time, and people will still stand by her.
POWERS: She lifted the weight from her shoulders and put it on your shoulders, Stephen.
(LAUGHTER)
FATHIMA: Yes. She's like, it's your burden now, The Tortured Critics Department.
THOMPSON: (Laughter) The Tortured Critics Department. Do you think in a way that there's also an element of, like, I'm too big to fail? Like, this record came out after a wave of Taylor Swift hype that was just ceaseless, right? Like, remember that little stretch in early February where we went, like, run up to the Grammys, she announces this album is going to happen, she wins album of the year, and then the Super Bowl happens...
POWERS: I know.
THOMPSON: ...And she's all over the Super Bowl. And there is, like, this point of, like, even Taylor Swift fans, which I count myself as a Taylor Swift fan, who were just ready for a break, who were just ready for, like, tour the world, make another billion dollars...
POWERS: Yeah. Right.
THOMPSON: ...And kind of, like, reassess, write an album of jock jams about Travis Kelce.
POWERS: It's coming. It's coming.
FATHIMA: My God.
THOMPSON: But, like, there is this sort of how can I miss you if you never go away that sometimes happens with people who kind of become the main character in every single waking moment of our lives. And there's an element of defiance to how much...
FATHIMA: Exactly.
THOMPSON: ...Music there is here.
FATHIMA: I mean, it's like that word more, right? She screams the crowd was chanting more in "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I CAN DO IT WITH A BROKEN HEART")
SWIFT: (Singing) All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting more.
FATHIMA: She says, in the song "Clara Bow," beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours, demanding more. So this idea of more is kind of ever-present in her music. And also, this sort of throughline of insecurity that if she doesn't give more, will people come back? That was something that was there, even in the "Miss Americana" documentary where she says, I am sort of at the peak of my career now, and I'll never be this way again, and I am constantly having to sort of reinvent myself. And I think that insecurity, in some ways, is also present on this album. Like in "Clara Bow," the song ends with someone telling her, you look just like Taylor Swift. You can be, like, better than her.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CLARA BOW")
SWIFT: (Singing) You look like Taylor Swift in this light, we're loving it. You've got edge, she never did. The future's bright. Dazzling.
FATHIMA: The insecure muse, in some ways, is always her. This sort of constant need, I think, to sort of keep coming back and saying, yeah, I'm good enough. And so if you want more, you are getting it.
POWERS: I'm really glad you brought up "Clara Bow," which is one of my favorite songs on the actual album. And it's a - it's an Aaron Dessner cut. It's a little piano song, very catchy, but in a...
FATHIMA: Beautiful strings.
POWERS: ...In a quiet way, restrained. And I love it partly because it's actually a place on the album where she gives herself a little distance. She steps away from herself. I mean, yes, I hear what you're saying about, like, she's expressing her insecurity, but that's, you know, like, just a bit of a distance view of fame in general and beauty in general. You know...
FATHIMA: Yeah.
POWERS: ...She goes from you look like Clara Bow. You look like Stevie Nicks in '75. And then it's you look like Taylor Swift. To me, that's a breath on the album, you know, in between these other songs that are much more, you know, so close. Especially the ones that are about the tattooed golden retriever, which is the only way I'm ever going to mention or describe Matty Healy again. So those songs, we can talk about the insecurity, the vulnerability, the absolute, like, confusion she expresses. I mean, there's even one called "How Did It End?" where she's...
THOMPSON: Right.
POWERS: ...Like, everyone's asking me how it ended. I don't know how it ended, which is something all of us can probably relate to, you know, we've all been in those relationships, right?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW DID IT END?")
SWIFT: (Singing) I can't pretend like I understand. How did it end? Come one...
FATHIMA: And did you feel like "Clara Bow" was almost a sad sister song to "Bejeweled"...
POWERS: Yeah, that's a...
FATHIMA: ...Because it's like themes of dazzling.
POWERS: That's a very good observation. Absolutely.
THOMPSON: She does love an Easter egg, and she loves a callback, and she loves a reference. She loves a pop culture reference.
POWERS: This is why there's a Taylor Swift working group in the International Association for the Study of Popular Music now. There's so much intertextuality...
THOMPSON: Oh, my God.
POWERS: ...Happening in her career.
THOMPSON: Yeah.
POWERS: It's ridiculous, honestly.
THOMPSON: Ann, I'm glad you mentioned the line about a tattooed golden retriever. And I actually wanted to play a little clip from the title track of this record that contains that line. Let's hear a little bit of "The Tortured Poets Department."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT")
SWIFT: (Singing) You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate. We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist. I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever.
THOMPSON: That snippet of the song has been picked apart as an exemplar from this record quite a bit in I would say mostly as a - in negative ways. But there's a lot of the Taylor Swift experience in the, like, 17 seconds of music that we just played. I scratch your head, you fall asleep is like painting pictures with words where, like, you can see that. You can see that side of the relationship that illuminates something in the relationship. But it also has that incredibly frustrating line about we agree Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist, where you're like, you have so much power, and the artist you have decided to rep for in that song is Charlie Puth?
POWERS: I believe they're joking. It's funny. It's, like...
FATHIMA: Yeah.
POWERS: ...it's funny. I don't know. Hey, maybe Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist. What do I know?
THOMPSON: I like Charlie Puth fine, but...
FATHIMA: I've seen a lot of analysis of, like, these lyrics are deliberately satire, and maybe they're being put in there, so, like, we talk about them, and we're not sort of getting her maybe zany sense of humor.
POWERS: Yeah. I agree with that. Like, I'm trying not to just, like, totally focus on them as celeb personalities 'cause honestly...
THOMPSON: Right.
POWERS: ...Let's just say one thing. We don't know Taylor Swift. I don't know her.
THOMPSON: No. Absolutely not.
POWERS: You don't know. You know, we just don't know her. I've never met Matty Healy. I don't know what they're actually like as people. These are characters. But what we know about these characters, and as they're presented, it does seem like that would be something they would say in a humorous way.
FATHIMA: Poor Charlie Puth.
POWERS: (Laughter).
FATHIMA: I guess, and, like, that's the thing - right? - is that she writes these lyrics that send your head into a tailspin.
POWERS: Exactly.
FATHIMA: That's the point. And you know what? People are going to scream them on a tour anyway, so she actually won.
POWERS: But I want to go back to what you were saying, Stephen, about this creates a scene because another lyric that people have singled out as being particularly bad, other music writers have singled it out is this one where she says in the same song, at dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT")
SWIFT: (Singing) At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that's the closest I've come to my heart exploding.
POWERS: Just rhythmically, that lyric stinks. It's awful, you know? I mean, it just doesn't flow at all. But I have to say, when I heard that line, I gasped.
THOMPSON: Her phrasing is very sad.
POWERS: Oh, my God. I've been there, not literally with Matty Healy or anything, but (laughter) that is a scene, like you're saying, that you instantly see and you instantly can identify with it.
FATHIMA: Yeah. Her lyrics stand the test of time when it comes to storytelling. You'll always be able to see, maybe sometimes too vividly, what she's going through. And I think, like, that is the strength she taps into.
THOMPSON: Well, and one of the challenges, I would imagine, of being Taylor Swift is you are a multibillionaire, untouchable, one of the most famous people in the world, and yet you are writing songs about heartbreak that are supposed to be relatable. And I think one thing that both of those lines capture is a balance of specificity and universal feeling. And one of the ways that she sells the line that Ann is talking about, about moving the ring from, first of all, that gives you a sense of a certain kind of, like, a certain type of guy.
POWERS: A certain kind of dirtbag. Let's just say it.
FATHIMA: A rogue.
THOMPSON: Who is prone to big gestures...
POWERS: Yes.
THOMPSON: ...In the moment. That line, as much as when you read it as prose, it's very, very clunky. One, I think she sells it with her phrasing. And two, it tells you something about their relationship.
POWERS: Totally.
THOMPSON: So I defend that piece of songwriting.
FATHIMA: Yeah.
THOMPSON: As much as it's hard for me to wrap my brain around this record as a whole, there are individual moments that really, really work for me.
POWERS: Yeah.
THOMPSON: Yeah. And she's always said that her songwriting is us reading her diary. And when you read lines like that, Stephen, you can almost see her, like, angrily scrawling across the page. It doesn't maybe always make sense, but, like, maybe, like, that is the genuine emotion coming through of someone who is so ready to be, like, that heartbroken and scathing that maybe the way it comes across is not that important, but rather the emotion behind it.
POWERS: I'm so glad you brought that up because when I was reviewing this record, I was thinking a lot about how Taylor Swift's music relates to the current wave of autofiction...
FATHIMA: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Which is a style of writing in which the writer is a main character, and it's hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction. OK, some of my favorite artists do that in a very different way. Someone like PJ Harvey, for example, rips everything down, you know, or I mean, Patti Smith mentioned...
THOMPSON: Yeah, very prominently.
POWERS: ...On this record, (laughter) in the very song we've been talking about, does it in a completely different way. But I think it's fascinating that Taylor Swift, the ultimate blonde, the ultimate best friend/ideal woman/cheerleader/bleachers warmer, that she is also doing the same thing, exploring excess and exploring sometimes banality. I think...
FATHIMA: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Quite unconsciously.
FATHIMA: Yeah.
THOMPSON: Did you want more bops...
POWERS: (Laughter).
THOMPSON: ...On this record? Because again, like, this might not have stood out as much on a 14-song record as on a 31-song record, but, like, when "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart" kicks in around, like, at track 13, I definitely had this feeling of, like, oh, right...
FATHIMA: Yeah.
THOMPSON: ...Pop songs.
POWERS: Right.
THOMPSON: Part of what I love about that song, and that's a Jack Antonoff collaboration, and it's got song of the summer written...
FATHIMA: Written all over it.
THOMPSON: ...All over it. It's got TikTok written all over it.
POWERS: Oh, completely.
FATHIMA: It's already on TikTok. It's already a trending sound.
THOMPSON: Yeah.
POWERS: I completely believe it.
THOMPSON: I mean, it should be noted that Taylor Swift managed to finagle her music back on to TikTok.
FATHIMA: Yes.
THOMPSON: Just in time for this record.
POWERS: That's so terrifying, in a way. I mean, the power this woman wields.
THOMPSON: Yeah. And, like, the power she wields and how she chooses to use it are, like, a big part of the...
POWERS: That's a whole other conversation.
THOMPSON: ...Taylor Swift dialog. But, like...
POWERS: (Laughter) Yeah.
THOMPSON: ...I wanted to highlight that song as one of my favorites, but also just kind of, like, how much it stands out next to the other songs on this record. Let's actually hear a little bit of "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.".
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I CAN DO IT WITH A BROKEN HEART")
SWIFT: (Singing) I was grinning like I'm winning. I was hitting my marks 'cause I can do it with a broken heart. I'm so depressed I act like it's my birthday every day.
THOMPSON: This song is doing so much work.
POWERS: (Laughter) Totally.
THOMPSON: It is telling you so much of the Taylor Swift story as Taylor Swift wishes to tell it. It is contextualizing years of her life, dropping extremely TikTokable quotes that will be extremely TikToked for as long as that platform exists. That line, I'm so depressed I act like it's my birthday is actually stealthily a thoughtful commentary on one form that depression can take...
FATHIMA: Yeah.
POWERS: Yes.
THOMPSON: ...In a way that I really appreciated and admired. For me, there's, like, a version, like, Stephen's version of this record is kind of winnowed down to, like, 13 or 14 great songs with that song as its centerpiece.
FATHIMA: I love how many layers there are to it. Like, first off, it made me feel really - I was, like, I went to The Eras Tour. I feel so bad now. She was so sad. There's also, you know, on Spotify, the moving image behind that song is her doing her high kicks, is her dancing and laughing. You can hear, I think, her producer backstage giving her the marks of counting down...
THOMPSON: Yeah.
FATHIMA: ...One, two, three, as she dances.
THOMPSON: You can hear, like, what's in her - in the ear monitors?
FATHIMA: Yes, in her...
THOMPSON: Yeah.
FATHIMA: ...Ear monitors. There's so many layers going onto that song, and it really, I think, epitomizes what she does well, which is singing about sadness in this really cheeky, boppy, almost funny way where you're dancing along, but you're like, wait, am I sad? While you also groove.
POWERS: I'm glad you...
THOMPSON: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Brought up the way it looks on Spotify and the lyric videos. They're so masterful. I mean, it's really...
FATHIMA: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Like a whole other layer of the art. But I also want to say, and I guess you were getting at this, Stephen, those lines and the lines that follow when she says, I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it's an art, that is something that every type A personality can relate to. You know, it's one of the rare comments Taylor Swift makes about our society, you know, and our hamster wheel drive to achieve more and consume more and be more. And that's what I love about this song is that it actually goes big. It's not just her story.
THOMPSON: Yes.
POWERS: Yes, the love song is there. She's depressed 'cause of the golden retriever messing her up, but it is also so relatable and relatable for someone my age who's been around a few decades. And I think as much as a teenager...
FATHIMA: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Could relate to it.
FATHIMA: And it's also, like, the full-blown message that she's been hinting at in her previous albums of depression...
POWERS: Totally.
FATHIMA: ...Of anxiety. And she's saying it outright there is no metaphor. There are no clever lyrics. She's saying, I am so depressed, so take it at that.
POWERS: Can we talk about another song that I think is kind of a secret bop? "Down Bad."
THOMPSON: Yeah.
POWERS: Musically, it's one...
THOMPSON: It's a good one.
POWERS: ...Of the more interesting ones to me.
THOMPSON: Agreed.
POWERS: It is another Jack Antonoff production and co-write. In some ways, it fits in with all the others on the records. But I hear a little bit of, like, R&B in that song. I feel like that's where she's nodding at contemporary R&B. It's a sexy song. It's a depressed song. But there's weight to that.
THOMPSON: Well, let's hear a little bit of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOWN BAD")
SWIFT: (Singing) Now I'm down bad, crying at the gym. Everything comes out teenage petulance. F*** it, if I can't have him, I might just die. It would make no difference. Down bad...
POWERS: The reason I love that line, and as pedestrian as that line is, is it could be throwing a tantrum, but it also could just be like, I give up.
THOMPSON: Sure.
POWERS: It's also despair.
THOMPSON: Anger and resignation co-exist all throughout this record.
POWERS: Yes.
FATHIMA: Yeah.
THOMPSON: That song, for me, sonically, really fits in on "Midnights."
FATHIMA: Yeah. Yes.
THOMPSON: That feels like a very "Midnights" track, and I am really attached to "Midnights."
POWERS: Yeah.
FATHIMA: Speaking of anger, I must talk about the song "But Daddy I Love Him."
THOMPSON: Yeah.
FATHIMA: In which I felt very scolded.
THOMPSON: (Laughter) Yeah. And a lot of people get scolded in this song.
FATHIMA: We got scolded, and let's hear a little bit of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BUT DADDY I LOVE HIM")
SWIFT: (Singing) 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 empath's clothing.
FATHIMA: Those lines, I'll tell you something about my good name. It's mine alone to disgrace, is the most defiant I've heard her sound in years, and to her fan base. I don't say that as someone who is offended by it, but as someone who's sort of taken aback and is sort of proud that this is something that she's doing because her name and the value that's been associated with her name is something that she's held on very dearly to and something that she has fought to win back, obviously, right? And I think that she's always prized the fact that her fan base has seen the value in that name even when the public has not. So for her to kind of come in and sort of scold and say, I don't need your defenses. I don't need your...
THOMPSON: Right.
FATHIMA: ...Prayers, and I maybe don't even need you, I think, again, is a huge mark step away from, like, the Taylor that we've seen post-"1989."
THOMPSON: The pleaser that you were talking about earlier.
FATHIMA: Yes. The pathological people pleaser.
POWERS: Yeah. absolutely.
FATHIMA: She's breaking out of it.
POWERS: This is as close to a country song as she gets on this record, too.
FATHIMA: Yeah, yeah.
POWERS: I mean, I can really hear the Chicks in this song. You know? It's got that reaching up for the high notes, the high places. And I love that she goes there on this song. I don't think every song is so samey on this as people have...
FATHIMA: Yes.
POWERS: ...Been saying. If you just spend, like, a little more time, you can hear the differences.
FATHIMA: Yeah.
THOMPSON: If there's one thing we all need, it's to spend more time listening...
POWERS: Spend more time with it.
THOMPSON: ...To this record.
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: Well, a lot of the songs we've been talking about on this record are kind of from that first half, but I know you guys both have pretty strong feelings about the second half. Is there a song you kind of want to take us out on?
FATHIMA: The song that I was really thinking about was "The Manuscript," which I think also kind of goes back to that opening post-mortem theme of someone going back and re-examining their life, what happened to a love affair, which I think is actually a metaphor for a larger thing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE MANUSCRIPT")
SWIFT: (Singing) Now and then, I reread the manuscript, but the story isn't mine anymore.
FATHIMA: She almost ends on this defeated note where she says, the story isn't mine anymore. And people have been analyzing that song, saying, oh, is it about John Mayer? Who is it about? I actually think it speaks to a larger theme in this album, which is that we and Taylor Swift, the public and her, have crafted this narrative around her, right? We have seen her as the underdog. We have seen her as someone who's come back and The Eras Tour and her relationship with Travis Kelce is the expected happy ending of that narrative, right? So we're like, oh, this is where we live in, the perpetually happily ever after. This album and this song, I think, rip apart the timeline of the narrative. It sort of tells us you actually didn't know anything. And...
POWERS: Yeah.
FATHIMA: ...If I show you who I am, will you actually stay with me? And I think she almost ends with that defeated line. That's sort of what I think we, with somewhat her participation, have done to her over the years. We've taken these songs, we've taken these muses, and we've structured it for her. And even when she looks back at her own story, she's asking, well, who am I really at the end of it?
POWERS: Any story that you tell is no longer yours.
FATHIMA: Yes, absolutely.
POWERS: If I tell you my...
THOMPSON: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Story, it's no longer mine, even if it's just you two listening to it. So, while I agree with you, you can read this on the level of the Taylor phenomenon, I also think that is a very profound thing to say about the act of speaking or writing...
STEPHEN THOMPSON AND HAFSA FATHIMA: Yeah.
POWERS: ...At all, you know?
THOMPSON: Yeah. All right, well, we want to know what you think about Taylor Swift and "The Tortured Poets Department." Find us at facebook.com/pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Hafsa Fathima, Ann Powers, thanks so much for being here.
FATHIMA: Thank you.
POWERS: Super fun. Thanks.
THOMPSON: We want to take a moment to thank our POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR Plus subscribers. We appreciate you so much for showing your support of NPR. If you haven't signed up yet, want to show your support, and listen to this show without any sponsor breaks, head over to plus.npr.org/happyhour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathima, Liz Metzger and Mike Katzif, and edited by Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all tomorrow.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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