The title of Taylor Swift’s 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, hinted there’d be a good deal of literary references all over her new tracks.
To the dismay of recovering English majors all over the place, that is not really how things performed out, but there are continue to a great deal of identify-drops — and even a couple of nods to traditional literature.
On the title observe on your own, Swift alludes to fellow musicians Charlie Puth and Patti Smith as effectively as her pal and collaborator Jack Antonoff and the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The standard edition’s closing track, meanwhile, is named just after Clara Bow, the silent movie actress who was recognised as the 1st “it girl.”
Whilst poetry followers might be unhappy by the deficiency of true poem written content on TTPD, the album incorporates adequate shout-outs and Easter eggs to preserve Swifties hectic for at minimum the subsequent week or two.
Keep scrolling for all the name-drops on The Tortured Poets Office:
The Blue Nile
“Guilty as Sin?” opens with the line, “Drowning in the Blue Nile,” but this is not a reference to the Nile River tributary that runs by means of Ethiopia and Sudan. The Blue Nile was a Scottish synthpop band that was principally active in the 1980s. In her song, Swift’s narrator suggests that her like fascination has sent her the Blue Nile observe “Downtown Lights,” which she hadn’t heard in a while. “Downtown Lights” was the only tune the band ever charted in the United States. (It peaked at No. 10 on Billboard’s Present day Rock Tracks chart, which is now identified as Alternate Airplay.)
Charlie Puth
One particular of the quite a few names dropped on the title observe is Puth’s, who appears in the lyrics, “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a larger artist.”
Lovers have previously begun theorizing that the “you” in issue is Swift’s ex Matty Healy, whose band The 1975 has a strike named “Chocolate.” Healy also publicly praised a Puth song in 2018 by means of X.
The Chelsea Hotel
The title keep track of also includes a nod to New York City’s well-known Chelsea Resort, which has housed many cultural luminaries in excess of the a long time, including Smith (referenced in the similar track), Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Iggy Pop, Madonna, Jack Kerouac and numerous much more. Cohen, who died in 2016 at age 82, famously wrote the track “Chelsea Resort #2” about his time in the making.
Clara Bow
The standard edition of TTPD ends with “Clara Bow,” which references the silent film star of the exact same identify. For a entire breakdown of Bow’s life and doable connections to Swift, see Us Weekly’s past dissertation on this matter.
Dylan Thomas
“And you are not Dylan Thomas / I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel,” Swift sings on the album’s title track. Thomas was a Welsh poet who died in 1953 at age 39 immediately after claiming he’d experienced 18 whiskeys. At the time, he was keeping at the Chelsea Hotel.
Jack Antonoff
Swift doesn’t say Antonoff’s past identify on “The Tortured Poets Section,” but the clues are there in these lyrics: “But you explain to Lucy you’d get rid of by yourself if I ever go away / And I experienced reported that to Jack about you.” Antonoff also cowrote the keep track of with Swift.
Lucy
The exact same “TTPD” line that references “Jack” also mentions a person identified as Lucy, though it’s not very clear if there is a real person guiding the title. Listeners who think that the track is about Healy have by now pointed to the rocker’s latest dust-up with Boygenius member Lucy Dacus. In September 2023, Healy joked that he’d instructed Dacus that her band’s identify inspired him to get started a team with a title combining the word “girl” and the R-slur. In reaction, Dacus tweeted, “You do not listen to from me at all.” Healy subsequently deactivated his X account.
Patti Smith
Smith, the legendary singer-songwriter and creator, appears in the chorus of the title observe. In 2019, Smith defended Swift immediately after she received criticism for not talking out more about politics. “She’s a pop star who’s beneath incredible scrutiny all the time, and just one just cannot envision what which is like,” Smith advised The New York Times. “It’s unbelievable to not be able to go any place, do something, have messy hair. And I’m confident that she’s attempting to do a thing great. She’s not hoping to do a thing negative. And if it influences some of her avid supporters to open up up their thoughts, what does it make any difference? Are we heading to commence measuring who’s much more reliable than who?”
“I do not concur that artists and musicians have much more duty to converse out than anyone else,” Smith continued. “I feel everyone has to be far more lively. Artwork is inspiring and artwork can seriously convey people today together. A tune can rally people, but it is not likely to make modify.”
Sarahs and Hannahs
“But Daddy I Enjoy Him” incorporates a dig at the “Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best” who are “clutching their pearls” around the narrator’s passionate alternatives. This doesn’t show up to be a reference to any person certain, although — just a common nod to Swift’s critics.
Stevie Nicks
“You search like Stevie Nicks in ’75, the hair and lips,” Swift sings on “Clara Bow,” referencing the Fleetwood Mac singer. “Crowd goes wild at her fingertips.”
Ahead of TTPD’s launch, Swift admirers discovered a tambourine and scarf — two of Nicks’ signature add-ons — had been included to the album’s pop-up in Los Angeles.
Taylor Swift
Swift references herself on “Clara Bow” near the end of the music, singing, “You look like Taylor Swift in this gentle / We’re loving it / You have acquired edge, she never did.”
