Taylor Swift's Literary Era

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift's 11th studio album, finds the songwriter in the world of literature. She interweaves personal romance with mythical creation and quotations from high and low culture: Genesis, Peter Pan and even Playstation. Despite calling herself a "modern idiot," less-than-subtle nods to Sylvia Plath, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dylan Thomas, and Patti Smith reveal the artist’s literary aspirations and “legendary” status. The full length Anthology version contains a bookshelf of many genres: pulp fiction, diary entries, period pieces, epic poems, and her very own genre, Taylor Swift. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this show comes from Krakan.
0:03.0	Krypto is like the financial system, but different.
0:07.0	It doesn't care where you come from, what you look like, your credit score,
0:11.0	or your outrageous food delivery habits.
0:13.7	crypto is finance for everyone everywhere all the time.
0:18.4	Krakhan, see what crypto can be.
0:21.3	Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest.
0:25.0	This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloane. And I'm songwriter Charlie
0:48.8	Harding. Charlie, we have new Taylor Swift, a brand new record, the Tortured Poets Department.
0:55.0	The anthology, a two-desk, two-hour-long album.
0:59.0	Yeah.
1:00.0	Right, this is not just an album.
1:01.0	It's a double album.
1:02.0	It's an anthology. It's 16 tracks and then another 15
1:05.9	tracks. And if I had to pick one thing to kind of sum up this massive sprawling anthology, It's this. On this album we find
1:16.3	Taylor Swift in her literary era.
1:20.0	Hmm. What do you mean? Let's go right to this title song, Charlie.
1:23.8	Tortured Poets Department. I'm not Patty Smith. This ain't the Chelsea Hotel.
1:35.0	My modern idiots.
1:37.0	I laughed in your face and said,
1:41.0	You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not not Patty Smith this ain't the Chelsea Hotel
1:45.0	we're modern idiots. So comparing herself to famous poets and songwriters, but also almost using it as a foil to say, I'm not
	...

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