Taylor Swift Slams 'All This Bitching and Moaning' About Her Love Life in Searing “Tortured Poets” Lyrics
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The singer-songwriter is calling out her critics on her new album 'The Tortured Poets Department'
John Shearer/TAS23/Getty
Taylor Swift performing in May 2023.Taylor Swift has some thoughts on the public’s vested interest in her personal life.
Swift, 34, dives deep on matters of the heart in the lyrics of her new album The Tortured Poets Department, and seems to address the public’s reaction to her relationships in a number of new songs.
The Grammy-winning singer struck up a romance with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy in May 2023 — and though they were broken up by June, the fling was not well-received by some of her fans due to controversial comments Healy, 35, made, and later apologized for, on a podcast.
Swift appears to tackle the situation head-on in the new song “But Daddy I Love Him,” in which she admits that her choice of partner may be “crazy,” but she’s happy following her heart no matter the consequences to her reputation.
“Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best / Clutching their pearls, sighing ‘What a mess’ / I just learned these people try and save you ‘cause they hate you,” she sings.
Later, she sings about ignoring the “saboteurs” demanding her love “stay away from her,” and insists she’d rather “burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning.”
“I’ll tell you something about my good name / It’s mine alone to disgrace / I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing,” she sings. “God save the most judgmental creeps / Who say they want what’s best for me / Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see / Thinking it can change the beat of my heart when he touches me / And counteract the chemistry.”
Swift tells those criticizing her decisions that they don’t have to pray for her, as her relationship is “just my choice,” and she’s perfectly happy with her “wild boy.”
“Scandal does funny things to pride / But brings lovers closer,” she sings. “All the wine moms are still holding out but f--- em it’s over.”
Elsewhere on the album, Swift also seems to hit back at critics on the song “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” as she expresses her frustrations with the way she’s been treated by the public, likening herself to a circus animal as she ruminates on how life in the spotlight has hardened her.
“I was tame, I was gentle ‘til the circus life made me mean / Don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth,” she sings. “Who’s afraid of little old me? Well, you should be.”
Swift says on the track that she wants to “show you just how disturbed this has made me,” and notes those tearing her down “wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.”
“You lured me and you hurt me / And you taught me, you caged me / And then you called me crazy,” she snarls. “I am what I am ‘cause you trained me.”
Related: All the Easter Eggs in Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets Department Spotify Exhibit
Then there’s “Clara Bow,” on which Swift sings about a small-town girl with dreams of making it in the big city.
As the song continues, success comes, but the song’s narrator realizes that fame can have a darker side.
“Beauty is a beast that roars / Down on all fours, demanding more,” she sings. “Only when your girlish glow flickers just so, do they let you know / It’s hell on earth to be heavenly.”
The song ends with a meta nod to whoever comes after Swift herself, as she quotes a young girl being told she looks just like Swift, only with an “edge she never [had].”
The Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s 11th album, and was written with her frequent collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.
In a handwritten poem that serves as a prologue to the record, Swift explains that the album serves as a “debrief” of her findings after her tenure as the Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department.
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.
