Taylor Swift gave so many signs and now we are in Exile, until April 19th. in the meantime, let’s look at easter eggs that were left for her 11th studio The Tortured Poets Department
The theory that reputation (Taylor’s Version) was going to be the next rerecording is a commonly held belief, so come the morning of the 2024 Grammy’s ceremony, when Taylor Swift made her Midnights Era profile picture black and white, fans prepared themselves for the imminent announcement.
However, when she took the stage to accept her Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album, no one was ready for it. As a thank-you for her fan’s appreciation of her music, she announces that a brand-new album, coming in three short months is called The Tortured Poet’s Department and in typical Taylor Swift fashion, she does this after accepting her 13th Grammy.
She Laid the Groundwork and Just Like Clockwork, Fans Are Breaking Down All the Hints Leading to TPD:
- After accepting the Songwriter-Artist of the Decade award at the Nashville Songwriter Awards in 2022, Swift revealed the categories she classified her lyrics into; there is the fountain pen lyrics, glitter gel pen, and quill pen.
Thus, when Apple Music curated playlists for these categories, she described the quill pen songs as “Lyrics that make you feel old fashioned […] like you’re a 19th-century poet crafting your next sonnet by candlelight” and from her acceptance/announcement speech, we know that she has been keeping the secret of this album for two years.
- In her ‘I Can See You’ music video promoting one of her songs from the vault of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), there is a clock that appears in front of the vault that has purple lights that appear at the ‘4’, ‘8’ and ‘11’ marks. April is the 4th month and if you add “8” and “11”, it equals “19” and The Tortured Poet’s Department’s release date is April 19th.
- In the month leading up to the Grammy’s album announcement, Swift’s promotional Instagram, Taylor Nation, posted a throwback photo to the Bejeweled music video where Swift wore a large pink wig reminiscent of Marie Antoinette. The post is captioned, “How many secretsss do we think are hiding in that hair?”
Fans caught on to the extra two ‘s’, which they assumed were teasing reputation (Taylor’s Version) based on the slither sound of snakes. But it was likely a signal for her 11th studio album, which we know she has had in her vault for two years.
- Before the Grammys ceremony, fans noticed that her website showed a black screen with the text ‘Error 321’, which is a communication error that appears on a fax machine with a poor telephone line, but this was just a ‘hneriergrd’ which unscrambles to mean red herring. A red herring to reference her infamous line in Look What You Made Me Do and to distract from what the screen read beneath that, which was ‘DPT: 123’, which backward is TPD, which we now know is an acronym for Tortured Poet’s Department
You Know All the Wisest Swifties Had to Make Theories Based on the Tracklist
- Track 6 of The Tortured Poet’s Department is called “But Daddy I Love Him”
Some Fans theorize that this track is about Harry Styles, because of a shirt he’s worn with the exact words, but I think it is more likely to be a The Little Mermaid reference than about her 3-month 2013 relationship that PR majors study in class.
Why The Little Mermaid?
The line, “But Daddy I love him” is a line from The Little Mermaid that Ariel exclaims when explaining to her father that she wants to marry Prince Eric. At its core, Ariel’s story centers on the fact that she gave up her voice for love. Fans connect this to her six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn, during which she rarely stepped out, with or without him. When they broke up, she started appearing out and about in New York, with friends, and at almost all the award shows.
P.S – The animated film was also released in 1989, which is very famously Swift’s birth year!
Track 16, Clara Bow is named after a famed silent film actress who rose to fame in the 1920s and is known for her close-cropped hair and her signature red lip. Her entire career in the public eye was swarmed by journalists and biographers who sought to spread baseless rumours about her relationships which has resulted in her life being known more for these rumours than her achievements. In 1931, she was checked into a sanitarium and then moved to Nevada with her first husband Rex Bell.Clara Bow is heavily rumored to be bisexual. While she is well known for her high-profile relationships with men, she was also known for her close friendships with out members of the LGBTQ+ community. Most notably, lesbian director Dorothy Arzner. Arzner and Bow worked together on The Wild Party, Bow’s first talkie film and it was rumoured that they had a fling.
How might this connect to Taylor Swift?
Taylor Swift’s career is one plagued by rumours about her personal life and people constantly trying to undermine her success. Bow being a silent film actress has the same connotations as why fans believe Swift is referencing The Little Mermaid in track 6 because she might have felt confined to silence physically and emotionally in the relationship. Moreover, Swift is no stranger to queer rumours, and even has many easter eggs related to queer history and themes throughout her career. From her constant pattern of writing on hidden relationships, her sporting a bisexual-coloured wig in You Need to Calm Down to her song titled Lavender Haze which details her experience with the public eye and references the 1950s which is a notable time for queer people living through the Lavender Scare.
Swifties attuned to her ways know that she leaves many easter eggs in all her work, and she knows this too. We should learn that she is not above leaving red herrings to mislead her fans as well. Come April 19th, we will examine all she has put into Evidence and find out the secrets of the Chairman of the Tortured Poet’s Department.