Before December of 2020, Jordan Holmes (comedian, author, podcaster) had never, intentionally, listened to a Taylor Swift song. Then began The Swiftening, where Jordan decided to review every Swift album in order. So far, he has covered Swift’s 2006 debut, 2008’s Fearless, 2010’s Speak Now, and 2012‘s Red, 2014’s 1989, 2017’s reputation, 2019’s Lover, and 2020’s folklore and evermore, which we encourage you to check out if you haven’t already.
Back again, as we all knew I would be, the allure of hating cannot be denied. I rarely finish what I begin, and I doubt I will follow her career, alleging talentless desperation after every release, but today, today is… today and I hate.
I type these words at the beginning of my first listen, so I don’t know yet what I will find, whether it be some eldritch torture created by whomever thought let’s rip out that fucker’s liver every day forever, or perhaps it will be a miraculous face turn and I shall fall in love, finally, with Taylor Swift. Perhaps today will be the day I truly understand the end of 1984. Perhaps I don’t hate, perhaps I only need to the opportunity to love, in much the same way that my grandma, for example, might say something like, he just wouldn’t quit and I was under 18, and you’ll think, hey, what a weird time, as opposed to, perhaps my grandpa should’ve been in jail instead of the superintendent of a school district; hindsight is what it is. I haven’t read any reviews yet, either, but if the headlines of some are to be believed, the fans of Taylor Swift may not like this album as much as her other albums. This gives me hope.
You’ve all failed me in the past with your willingness to allow atrocities, to never reckon with the fallout of the Iraq war, to never hold accountable the people who damn society to the burning wreckage it will become, to never stop giving Taylor Swift money; maybe this album titled, let me check, The Tortured Poets Department…
Fuckin’ ‘ell. What happened? Is it a coincidence that True Crime as a genre of horrortainment grew in popularity alongside Swift? Is it possible that watching murder and listening to this aural taint-waxing are the same kind of addictive self-harm?
What a shitty title. What a shitty, shitty title.
She’s an adult. And so, presumably, are some of you. This can all be stopped if we believe it can be stopped. If we were an army, and if we believed that we were an army, and we believed that everyone was scared like little lost children in their grown up clothes and poses…
Let us begin.
Taylor opens “Obama Never Closed Guantanomo Bay” with Fortnight, a song not from the “Pop” genre so much as the “Drive Soundtrack” genre. If you stop and think about all the little bloop bloop bloop bloop noises that substitute for a beat as rabbits blasting pellets out their assholes onto a moog synth, then your life will change for the better or the worse, depending on your perspective.
The word fortnight means two weeks. I looked up the etymology of “fortnight”. In case you were wondering why I hate the British so much, first, of course, I think every monarch should be executed but the British keep them as expensive pets(?), second, is that the etymology of “fortnight” is just a compressed “fourteen nights”.
Fortnight the song, though, does not have anything to do with the British beyond that Taylor is also terrible at speaking English. It is another in Taylor’s infinite catalogue of songs about hating women in the guise of responding to “hurt” from a paramour of some type.
The more I listen and the more I study Taylor’s lyrics, the more I think she is one of the most women-hating musical artists in history. She hates women. Every time she fucks a dude she hates a woman in a song. If I understand Fortnight correctly, this married lady (Taylor) goes to the Floridian bone zone with this married dude for a couple weeks. Then, when they stop boning, she sees that dude’s wife watering flowers in the backyard and is like, “urgh, I want to murder that completely innocent lady who has no fucking clue what’s going on as I ruin her life behind her back with absolutely no fucking remorse”.
I don’t know, friends, why do women watch and listen to stories about women being murdered all the time? Why do women listen to Taylor Swift treat other women as nothing more than empty roadblocks on her path to, I don’t know, even more heights of solipsistic masturbation?
Post Malone is on this track.
Who should be on this track? Will Forte, as evidenced by his excellent usage of the word “Fortnight” in the backing vocals for Demetri Martin’s “Personal Information Waltz”.
Hi everyone, in looking for interesting information regarding track 2, I discovered someone named Stephanie Burt who teaches a class at Harvard about Taylor Swift.
Think about that. Think about what you’ve done.
People will be surprised to learn that I’ve changed my political party because of this album. I vote as conservative and business-friendly as possible now. I’m a one-issue voter. I want this world to burn in hellfire. Democrats will give that to me, sure, but not soon enough. Not soon enough…
So anyways, the eponymous song “The(sic) Tortured Poets Department” features references to poets Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith. Dylan Thomas is famous, of course, for having written “Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night” a poem synonymous with torturing your bedridden father so you can selfishly watch them suffer in penance for how much suffering they put you through. Other people have different interpretations, I’m aware. Patti Smith is famous for contributing lyrics to some Blue Oyster Cult songs, like Debbie Denise, although I’m sure most people know her from the commentary track for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters.
Taylor says “no-fucking-body” on track 2 once again proving that Taylor Swift cannot swear for shit. Learn how to swear, it’s really not hard. You have to mean it, though, ya know? No one means no-fucking-body. That’s a loser thing to say. That’s the type of shit you say when you are a loser, who loses, and who sucks at everything but not losing. “No-fucking-body” is a wet fart. If the question you’re posing is “who’s gonna hold you like me” and you are Taylor Swift, the answer is “dear god, please, anyone else, anyone who isn’t a vacuous singularity of arrogant insanity, please, free me, free me from this prison, free me from this nightmare.”
“The Turd Putty Dispensers” is another example of Taylor and Jack Antonoff (say it loud, baby / say it with me, honey / tell me / who needs to be / fired for their work on this album. See? I can write terrible lyrics too) not understanding how rhythm works. I wonder, and I mean this only mostly joking, can either of them read music? I really hadn’t thought of that before, I just assumed that if you were the largest pop star on this planet earth, you would know how to read music.
If either of them can read music, they should know that you can use more than one type of note! There are quarter notes, sure, but did you know there are also eighth notes? Sixteenth? Half? So many notes to discover on your magical journey into the world of music! For reference, Freddie Gibbs uses a lot of different notes!
Speaking of Freddie: there’s a big bad rap beef right now that people are having fun discussing. J. Cole said something like “Me and Drake and Kendrick are the bestest three rappers there eeeever was” and then Kendrick said something accurate like, “No. Just me am the bestest.”
It has caused some consternation among people who are paid to write wrong things all the time online, why Kendrick would react so meanly to what amounts to a compliment, but it is actually a very simple situation. See, Drake and Cole suck. Therefore, for Cole to put the two of them with Kendrick is actually saying that Kendrick sucks, too.
But Drake and Cole are famous and popular music people, you might say, they do not suck. To which I reply, Taylor is more famous and more popular, yet here we are.
I will admit, as I understand it, Taylor is like Kendrick and unlike Drake insofar as she writes her own lyrics.
Where Freddie comes in (you thought I forgot!), is that he is not in this beef. Nor is Vince Staples. These are people you do not want to beef with. Beef with a child actor. Beef with the most talented and exacting artist in the genre.
Do not beef with people who are almost 100% certainly responsible for other people no longer being alive.
Track 3, “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”, must deserve the Harvard treatment, so it shall receive.
Verse 1, establishes our main character, a schizophrenic serial murderer with powers similar to the mutant known as Storm.
The voices in his head
Called the rain to end our days of wild
However, it is not until the chorus that the conflict of the piece is understood. The main character, titular “boy”, destroys toys, roys, goys, and brings the motherfuckin’ noise. When presented with an ill, vomit covered doll purchased at a rundown flea market, the boy loses his mind. He discovers that “breaking” is a relative term. Did he “break” something or did he create something new? When you love something, or someone, shouldn’t you “break” them down into their constituent parts and then wear their skin like a suit?
What complicates things, providing an avenue for resolution, is that Taylor herself, is the doll. Within the metaphor (one John Yoo would love ((who am I, young Dennis Miller?)))Taylor is a doll, a queen of sandcastles, the enabler of a serial killer, the killer’s victim, and accomplice to murder if not murderer (Than with all the Kens? Clearly victims of her own).
Finally, after the serial killer has dismembered her and, presumably, distributed her parts around the area so as to avoid detection, Taylor recognizes that she should choose her friends more wisely.
If we put this through a postmodern lens, removing the author’s intent, I think we can see that Taylor is both the serial killer and the victim. But actually we are the victim. Or at least, I feel viciously attacked by whatever malevolent force would call this monstrosity a “song”.
Ph.D now, please.
“Down Bad” is the worst fucking song I’ve ever heard, ever, including other Taylor Swift songs; the way Taylor Swift pronounces “fuckit” is an emetic worse than any fourth stomach cud rammed up your unsuspecting nostrils. Jesus Christ. What is wrong with all of you? How have we let it get this far?
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Track 5 is “So Long, London”.
The first time I went to London, I went by myself. Trump had just been elected and I decided to leave the country. It was my intention to scout London as a possible new home. America, I knew, had run its course.
I was still an aspiring standup comedian at the time, so I had booked several spots during my week long stay. When I quit, I wasn’t that bad at standup; 2017 was years before that, you can do the math. But I did have the advantage of being from Chicago, where the floor of mediocre, if that makes sense, is higher. All of which is to say that, where I could get booked, i.e., not clubs, but local showcases, the average talent was low enough that if I could do quite well.
I was not treated well for this. The other comics in London didn’t like me and were real dicks. And the food in Britain is shit.
And so is this song.
“But Daddy I Love Him” has lots of words! It is the longest song on the album and it is interminable. It is as long as a two-part episode of the Bachelorette. The title is, according to Genius “seemingly a reference to the 1989 Disney film, The Little Mermaid in which the titular mermaid Ariel had to give up her voice to be with the one she loved.”
Who wrote that? What does “seemingly” mean in this context? Doesn’t it mean you’re just guessing? If you’re just guessing why in god’s name did you think the information I needed to know is what fucking year the little mermaid came out?
Anyways… the song. I understand what you think she’s doing is singing, she’s definitely trying to give you that impression, but in fact she is just talking. She works so hard to try to hide that she’s just talking, makes you wonder what she could do if she spent all that energy on learning how to sing.
Now that we’ve dispensed with the idea that she is contributing musically, I suppose we can discuss the content of her writing. At first, I thought the song was about her childhood, maybe her parents were restrictive. Then I thought it was about how she fucked John Mayer for awhile when she was a teenager. Then I thought it was about people like me who are mean to her – like most of her songs. Then I thought it was about fucking John Mayer again.
Then I realized it is a song about how – this is gonna blow your mind – some people are not nice to Taylor Swift.
A Madonna-esque reinvention!
Track 7 is “Fresh Out The Slammer”, a grammatical salvo that can only be responded to with violence so I will say this: every song on this album sounds exactly the same and sucks for the same reason and you can’t use a prison metaphor if you’re a billionaire. Or you can if you agree to go to prison.
I await your reply.
Holy Shit! I spoke one track too soon. Track 8 sounds different!
Though, as with previous albums, it’s a ringer. Taylor has hired Florence and The Machine – people with talent – to provide a brief moment of non-Swiftness for people who need to breathe. There are plenty of musical flourishes to hang on to, which is what it’s like when you’re not at the mercy of Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift. I swear, they hate music, the idea of having to play even a single note without a price tag assigned to it… can you imagine Swift and Antonoff trying to play Jazz? No. You can’t even imagine it. Because you have to really love music to play Jazz. People get pissed at you for playing Jazz; she can’t even handle being a billionaire who gets criticized from time to time.
Put this sentence down as one that I genuinely never thought I’d write under any context. “Florida!!!” is fucking great. The cacophonous rousing chorus is legitimately exciting both emotionally and sonically.
If I were to teach any class, the class I would most want to teach is Taylor Swift studies at Harvard, of course, and this song is accidentally a great teaching tool. You can hear the difference in vocal intensity, you can hear Florence Welch giving a shit. You can hear her putting as much emotion into her voice as possible. You can hear her crescendo with the music as opposed to singing at the same volume and speed and note.
In the call and response, the varying levels are on such obvious display, even the most recalcitrant professor must admit that Florence is fucking amazing and Taylor Swift is dogshite.
All in all, this may be the best song she’s ever been 1/3rd of.
“Guilty as Sin” is track 9 and it is actually “The Last Time” from Red. She did not write a new song.
Track 10 is titled “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” to which I suggest the answer should be everyone. Everyone should be afraid of Taylor Swift. She’s become too powerful.
This perfect section of Genius must be read in full for it truly is apt.
First paragraph:
Throughout this confrontational soundtrack, Taylor addresses and mocks all the rumors that surround her professional and personal life. In “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” she highlights how the media constantly downsizes her, evidently through her repetition of “little old me” as she refers to herself. This song shares similar sentiments to previous tracks in Taylor’s discography, namely “the last great american dynasty” and “mad woman” from folklore, “Look What You Made Me Do” from reputation, and “Miss Americana & The HeartBreak Prince” from Lover.
There’s so much beauty right out the gate. Does the song share similar sentiments to previous tracks? Oh does it? Really? That “the media” or whatever is mean to Taylor Swift, worldwide superstar billionaire, is well past betrotten? Even people who love Swift unironically list how many fucking songs are about the most famous woman in the world whining.
Paragraph two:
The song echoes many instrumental and vocal similarities with her previous album reputation, which is rumored to be the next rerecording following this album. A large part of reputation discusses the struggle and backlash she faced from the media and people during her 3-year hiatus. In an effort to show that not a lot has changed since then, Taylor details receiving the same comments now as back then.
Oh my god, this was written by people who love her and I don’t think I could write anything more damning and sad.
Paragraph three:
Taylor writes this song amidst her new relationship with Travis Kelce. Fans believe this album was written in her immediate post breakup period from Joe Alwyn. During that time, many rumors came out about her possible relationship with The 1975 lead singer Matt Healy, feud with Olivia Rodrigo, a possible conflict with Ticketmaster, and allegations that her new relationship was a PR stunt.
All of you, please, please, please, do anything else.
Coda:
The title possibly references the 1966 film/1962 play by Edward Albee “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” a film that explores the complexities of a failing marriage.
Let me clear that up for you. No. No, the title doesn’t reference Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The title is very straightforward and literal. Stop it.
I don’t have any mean things to say about “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)” because Taylor is in control of how many songs are on her albums, and she has the power to not put a song on the album. She can edit. She could have an album with fifteen tracks instead of sixteen and not only would people not be disappointed, they wouldn’t have to listen to this shit song. The entire world would be better off.
She can’t even give us that gift.
Track 12, “Ioml”, graded as if Taylor were in Dr. Jordan Holmes’ Poetry 101 class:
First stanza is derivative, metaphors lack depth, where is the imagination?
“Still alive / killing time at the cemetery / never quite buried” is annoying, not clever, nor interesting.
Shit that will not fly in my class: “paint a picture with words”
“the winds of fate”
at all referencing black and white cinema
“Mr. Steal Your Girl” is unacceptable not least of which because whitey, it’s Stealyagirl, or Doc Steal Yo’ Gurl. Mr. Steal Your Girl is my father’s name.
Any “cowardly lion” shit.
“Field of dreams”
“Braids of lies”
F.
Transfer to a different class.
Ok, I’ve listened to the first minute and ten seconds of “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” twice now and am still shocked by what happens at 1:11. The tonal shift is jarring, discordant. It’s honestly disorienting. It’s giving me vertigo. I’m falling. I can’t breathe.
Oh God, is this how I die? Because… because she’s so depressed she acts like it’s her birthday? I can’t escape. It bounces off the walls of my skull like she invented a game called Murder Pong just for my brain.
Have you seen the Three Body Problem. Have you seen the countdown? Have you seen the super proton or whatever get inside the brain of a scientist, take control of the ocular nerve, and then drive the man to rip out his eyes?
If I’m not seen again, you know what’s happened to me.
From Genius, an answer to a question posed by Taylor earlier on the album:
In an uncommon occurrence, Taylor targets her ex’s manhood and integrity throughout the song. Other songs in her discography with a similar connotation include “Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor’s Version)[From The Vault],” and “I Forgot That You Existed.”
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? I suppose the guy who’s dick was compared to a push pin in a song by the most popular music-adjacent thing on Earth. Just throwing that out there.
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, indeed.
Also, if you have enough to make a pattern, it’s not really that “uncommon” is it?
Why does she get to shittalk in immortal song but has skin so thin she can’t handle people like me saying shit like, “the only way to see Taylor Swift’s soul is a colonoscopy”, etc.? I think she’ll be able to comfort herself with expensive alcohols on her Private Fucking Jet.
“The Alchemy”, track 15, is actually titled “Travis Kelce Has A Bigger Dick Than The Last Guy”
“Clara Bow”, the final track, is titled after the flapper of her day. Clara Bow flapped like none before and none since, she flapped a little too close to the sun, one might say, and then flapped away, one might hope you wouldn’t say.
Of all the things Clara Bow was, similar to Taylor Swift, is not one. Clara’s success was paid for in the type of suffering known for breaking dreams, and that overcoming suffering was itself the source of her great talent; Clara is an inspiration.
Taylor singtalked her way into a billion dollars. Big difference.
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We’ve reached the end of Transient Poliwogs Digsite and this is really a terrible album. I have chronicled her entire output now and it shocks me that she has not markedly improved at any part of her job. This is what it looks like when you reward people for doing a shitty job.
They keep doing a shitty job.
The lesson we take away from TigBittie Piglittle Digbibble is one we can apply again and again throughout life: punish the mediocre.
You say, oh, Jordan, it’s not that bad. I say, no no, that’s even worse. Oh is Biden not as bad as Trump? Who fucking cares! Mediocrity must be punished! Is Trump not as bad as Putin? Don’t Care! Fuck Hilary Clinton! Fuck Obama! MEDIOCRITY MUST DIE BEFORE WE CAN BE REBORN IN FIRE AND FLAMES I SEE THE END OF THE TUNNEL MY CHOSEN ONES I SEE US BECOMING THE LIGHT THAT BREAKS THROUGH ETERNAL DARK…
Apologies. I’m better now. This album made me go all sinners in the hands of an angry god. That’s my review. Blurb that shit.
“This album made me go all Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God.”
- Doc Stealyagirl
Jordan Holmes is a Chicago comedian, author, podcaster, and one of the twenty best humans of all time. We love him very much. Every Monday & Friday, you can hear him on a new episode of Knowledge Fight, a podcast devoted to exposing the lies of Alex Jones. You can read (or listen) to his debut novel, The Quiet Part Loud, by going here.
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