My Theory on Taylor Swift’s New Album, the Tortured Poets Department

Hey revolutionaries! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been seeing a ton of theories about Taylor Swift’s new album, the Tortured Poets Department (or as we’ll be referring to it, TPD). I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan, and you can always see me wearing a folklore (her 8th studio album) themed bracelet.

You may know that Taylor’s new album is coming out on April 19th. Doesn’t that date sound familiar? Well to those of you who know all about Lexington it sure is. April 19th is the date of the Battle of Lexington and Battle of Concord, and is known as the start of the American Revolution.

Taylor Swift is a mastermind. All of her release dates have reasoning behind them, and I’m pretty sure that this is her intended meaning. Now the album is giving big folklore vibes, which has many references to literary history from Concord and other famous pieces of literature. Tortured Poets Department is a very ominous name. I can’t tell you the amount of times my friends and I have said the Tortured Poets Society instead of department.

But what does Taylor Swift mean when she has her 11th album, coming out on the same day as the start of American independence. I believe that Taylor is trying to have her second Reputation era. Now when the TPD album was announced at the Grammys, the anticipation was for Reputation Taylor’s Version. But we got TPD instead.

Taylor is trying to communicate that she herself is a revolutionary. She’s rebelling back against the music industry and trying to make it a more fair and independent place for everyone. Which is a very similar message to what the colonists in Lexington fought for.

The reason why Taylor decided to drop this album on the 19th is to rebel against the music industry. But why right now? That will mark the 249th anniversary of the start of the revolution. It’s also going to be Taylor’s 11th album, and for the 12th we can kind of expect a Midnights pt 2 vibe and for the 13th we can expect something spectacular. She’s in a very similar position as we are with celebrating the revolution.

I was expecting something in April with the lyric from her song, “High Infidelity”, off of Midnights, “Do you really want to know where I was April 29th”. Taylor is trying to rebrand April as something bigger than her past relationships and something bigger than the people she knows. She also knows that it’s a pivotal point for American history, with the start of the American Revolution and the start and end of the Civil War.

From the title we can expect something very similar to folklore, riddled with literary and historical references. And with TPD coming out in April, this just affirms this idea of American history. Check back in very soon for some lyric inspired merch. Do you really want to know where I was April 19th?