Taylor Swift is sharing the inspiration behind several songs from her newly released album The Tortured Poets Department.
In an Amazon Music bonus commentary, Swift shared that the album’s opening track, Fortnight, with Post Malone, “exhibits” a lot of the common themes that run throughout the record. Among those themes are fatalism, longing, pining away, and lost dreams.
“I think it’s a very fatalistic album,” Taylor Swift stated, per Deadline. “In that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death and I love you, it’s ruining my life. These are very hyperbolic, dramatic things to say. But it’s that kind of album – it’s about a dramatic, artistic, tragic kind of take on love and loss.”
Speaking about Fortnight, Swift also said that she had “always imagined” the song occurred in an “American town where the American Dream you thought would happen to you didn’t.”
“You end up not with the person you loved,” she explained. “And now you have to just live with that every day, wondering what would’ve been, maybe seeing them out. And that’s a pretty tragic concept, really. So I was just writing from that perspective.”
Taylor Swift Says Her Personal Experience in the Entertainment Industry Inspired ‘Clara Bow’
Speaking about her track Clara Bow, Swift said it was named after the silent film actress. She noted the song is a commentary on what she’s seen in the industry that she’s been in over time.
“I used to sit in record labels trying to get a record deal when I was a little kid,” she recalled. “And they’d say, ‘you know, you remind us of’ and then they’d name an artist, and then they’d kind of say something disparaging about her, ‘but you know this, you’re so much better in this way or that way.’”
Taylor Swift further pointed out that’s how society teaches women to see themselves. “As like you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you. I pick women who have done great things in the past and have been these archetypes of greatness in the entertainment industry.”
Swift then said that Clara Bowl was the first “It girl. She used Stevie Nick as an example, calling her an icon. “She’s an incredible example for anyone who wants to write songs and make music.”
Taylor Swift confirmed that her single Florida!!! isn’t inspired by a former relationship. But it was inspired by her always watching Dateline. “People have these crimes that they commit, where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida.”