As Taylor Swift said in the run-up to the release of her album The Tortured Poet's Department: All is fair in love and poetry.
Many former lovers and foes have been at the business end of Swift's expertly sharpened fountain pen over the years. Rumour has it Jake Gyllenhaal hasn't had a good night's sleep since “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” dropped in 2021. And don't even ask John Mayer how he's doing.
Swift using her lyrics to eulogise her past relationships has been a throughline across her many eras, all the way back to her sickly-sweet teenage debut. However, it's rarely been so consciously pointed out. If Midnights was all about turning the lens inwards, The Tortured Poet's Department is back to our regularly scheduled Swiftie programming. So that's cutting blows to past exes (our apologies to Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy) and even a few rogue snipes at her fans here and there.
Here are all the expert disses to be found in The Tortured Poet's Department - including its surprise second part drop, making it her longest album to date and no one is safe, not even Swifties.
The song: “The Tortured Poets Department”
The victim: Matty Healy
Much more of The Tortured Poets Department seems to be about Matty Healy than any of us could have guessed, especially considering fans assumed the bulk of it would be mourning the six-year relationship she shared with Joe Alwyn. Still, we've all had a one-month situationship that's destroyed our brains for a bit. So much so, in Taylor's case, that she dedicated the title track to taking swipes at The 1975 frontman and his many grandiose lyrical references.
"You're not Dylan Thomas.
I'm not Patty Smith.
This ain't the Chelsea Hotel.
We're modern idiots"
And if there was any doubt, Swift namechecks Lucy Dacus and Jack Antonoff. No need for Swiftian analysis here.
"Sometimes I wonder if you're gonna screw this up with me
But you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave
And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen."
The song: “loml”
The victim: Joe Alwyn
If you hold much stock in Swiftie lore, Joe Alwyn's seeming reluctance to marry Swift is entrenched in her work. While you might have had to nuke your TikTok algorithm to high-heaven before to find investigations into that, “loml” seems to officially confirm it.
"You and I go from one kiss to getting married
Still alive, killing time at the cemetery
Never quite married
And your suit and tie, in the nick of time
You're low-down boy, you're stand-up guy,
You're a holy ghost,
You told me I'm the love of your life."
The song: “So long, London”
The victim: Joe Alwyn
She no longer loves a London boy (although it seems she'd still be partial to nights in Brixton, Shoreditch in the afternoon if the place wasn't so haunted). In “So long, London”, Swift does her most pointed takedown of Joe Alwyn while mourning her transatlantic home of the last few years.
"I didn’t opt in to be your odd man out.
I founded the club she’s heard great things about
I left all I knew you left me at the house by the Heath."
…And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free."
"And I’m just getting colour back into my face.
I’m just mad as hell cause I loved this place for
So long, London."
The song: “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
The victim: Matty Healy
Move over “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”, this might be the most brutal evisceration of a man ever penned and it's aimed right at Matty Healy. The brief nature of their relationship is mentioned, as well as the fact he's a musician who performs on stage.
"I just want to know if rusting my sparkling summer was the goal.
And I don’t miss what we had,
But could someone give a message
To the smallest man who ever lived?"
"You said normal girls were boring.
But you were gone by the morning.
You kicked out the stage lights but you're still performing."
The song: “Down Bad”
The victim: Matty Healy
Don't mind us while we don our Swiftie conspiracy hats a little here, but “Down Bad” not only references the short-lived romance between Swift and Healy last year, but notes the fact he wears her old clothes. Those of us who remember Healy and Swift wearing each other's album merch years back are being awoken like dormant Manchurian candidates.
"Did you take all my old clothes
Just to leave me here naked and alone?
In a field in my same old town
That somehow seems so hollow now.
They’ll say I'm nuts if I talk about the existence of you.
For a moment I was heaven-struck."
The song: “But Daddy I Love Him”
The victim: Swifties
What many assumed would be another jab at Harry Styles from the title (the entirety of 1989 wasn't enough!) ends up being a direct swipe at the way some of her most dedicated fans end up being her harshest critics. Swift isn't usually someone who calls out her fans and their behaviour (whether it's aimed at her or her rivals), but there are no niceties in this one. “But Daddy I Love Him” tells it plainly - back off and leave her personal life alone.
"I just learned these people only raise you to cage you
Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best,
clutching their pearls, sighing what a mess.
I just learned these people try and save you cause they hate you"
"Too high a horse for a simple girl to rise above it.
They slammed the door on my whole world, the one thing I wanted"
"I'd rather burn my whole life down
Than listen to one more second of all this bitchin' and moanin'.
I'll tell you something 'bout my good name
It's mine alone to disgrace"
"God save the most judgmental creeps
who say they want what’s best for me.
Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see"
The song: “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus”
The victim: Joe Alwyn
When a song takes aim at a former lover for choosing to immediately be linked to someone 10 years younger, there's, unfortunately, really anyone that Taylor Swift can be talking about. But the choice of “scarlet maroon” in the lyrics is a direct reference to one of Midnight's most beautiful, Awlyn-inspired love songs “Maroon”. Swift never met a callback she didn't love.
"So if I sell my apartment
And you have some kids with an internet starlet
Will that make your memory fade from this scarlet maroon?
Like it never happened."
The song: “The Black Dog”
The victim: Matty Healy
Pubs? Reference to early oughts emo music? Pointed jab at a new girlfriend a fair bit younger? We told you this was a Healy-heavy album.
"How you don't miss me
In The Black Dog, when someone plays The Starting Line
And you jump up, but she's too young to know this song"
The song: “The Albatross”
The victim: Swifties
Seemingly sang to a lover (maybe Joe Alwyn, considering it references staying out of the public gaze), “The Albatross” is a warning about the ways her fans and those who traffic in gossip won't leave him unscathed when they decide he's no longer in their favour. Considering the vibe check of how Swifties currently feel about Alwyn (spoiler: not good!), it's a valid concern.
"Wise men once read fake news
And they believed it.
Jackals raised their hackles
You couldn't conceive it.
You were sleeping soundly when they dragged you from your bed
And I tried to warn you about them."
The song: “thanK you,aIMee”
The victim: Kim Kardashian
Yes, that's right, in the year 2024, Taylor Swift made a song about her beef with Kim Kardashian. The release of that fateful phone call in 2016 led to the public downfall of Taylor Swift, her brief hiatus and then her furious, unapologetic return with Reputation. Considering Reputation is the next re-release in the docket, maybe this reminder of the feud heard around the world is an attempt to get the rage juices flowing.
"And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues.
And one day, your kid comes home singin'
A song that only us two is gonna know is about you."
The song: “Guilty as Sin”
The victim: Swifties/the media
This one is more generally about the way that people consume, dissect and throw around opinions about Taylor Swift's love life. With the swirl of controversy around her relationship with Matty Healy from inside the fandom, and the ways rubber-neckers tear apart her relationships, this song is a perfect storm of the ways she feels like she can never win, so why try?
"Without ever touching his skin, how can I be guilty as sin?
What if I roll the stone away?
They’re gonna crucify me anyway."
The song: “The Manuscript”
The victim: Jake Gyllenhaal/John Mayer
You didn't think Taylor Swift was done with Jake Gyllenhaal and John Mayer, did you? Every album has to have at least one brutal, damning song about the relationships a young Taylor had with these older men and the ways they allegedly exploited her professional status. The pen was razor sharp for this one.
"She thought about how he said since he said she was so wise beyond her years
Everything was been above board
She wasn't sure"
The song: “Cassandra”
The victim: The media
Who had publication paywalls making their way onto the charts on their bingo card this year? In very direct terms, Taylor Swift is done with the way her personal life is splashed across the pages as early morning reading.
"Blood's thick but nothing like a paywall
But they never spared a prayer for my soul.
You can mark my words that I said it first
In the morning, warning, no one heard."
The song: “Clara Bow”
The victim: The haters
Taylor Swift uses the motif of the very first celebrity ‘it girl’, the silent movie star Clara Bow, to ruminate on the cycle of disposable famous women throughout history. At the end, she imagines a world where the next big thing is compared to her but better and with more edge, chewing on the neverending routine of picking up women just to say you never liked them in the first place when something shinier comes along.
"You look like Taylor Swift
In this light, we're loving it.
You've got edge, she never did
The future's bright, dazzling"