earlier this month, revealed the title of her upcoming album, which will be published in April.
It’s dubbed the Tortured Poets Department. Her millions of fans and followers immediately understood what it meant, and hands all over the world reached for their mouths. Because the title is a clear and very sharp stiletto puncturing the shriveled heart of her British ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, who is a member of a WhatsApp group called The Tortured Man Club with actors Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal.
Whatever the origins of that term — Alwyn claims it’s a reflection on characters he and Mescal have portrayed in adaptations of Sally Rooney books — you can’t help but admire Taylor’s appropriation of the word ‘tortured’, which she strips of sarcasm and the ‘poor me’ component and instead pokes fun at.
The newly released track titles also indicate that this is a breakup record, so Alwyn should brace himself. Track five is called So Long, London, where the couple lived, and track eleven is titled I Can Fix Him (No Really, I Can).
Swift has once again taken her love life and turned it into art, neatly flipping the traditional concept of woman as passive muse and man as creative genius.
Alwyn, who ended his relationship with Taylor last year, joins a long list of similarly immortalised ex-partners, and he appears unhappy. A pal informed the Daily Mail last week that he has not spoken about the break-up and has withdrawn himself from her story. He is upset that she has written a ‘diss’ album.
