#the manuscript

[dearreader]

dear reader and the manuscript are both such poignant ends to each of their albums and say so much. like dear reader being the ending to what haunts taylor’s midnights is her fame and being to big and people not actually seeing the real her through it all and wishing people wouldn’t look up to her because she’s falling apart.

the manuscript talking about taylor’s first real heartbreak and how it affected her because before she was always treated like a child but he treated her like an adult and discussed a future and life together and then dumped her because she was so young and then as she moves through life she tries to date boys her own age but she can’t settle in because it’s not the same and she’s forever stuck on this relationship and has to write her way through it to help her close that chapter of her life and even now she’ll reread it and remember it but she knows it’s not her story anymore because she gave it away to people who have taken it and turned it into something personal for them and thus changed the meaning of that story so she’s hoping that we can change the meaning of the new album to from only focusing on paternity testing and into something we hold personally for ourselves and also heal in a way that she did from writing it.

it’s just… they’re both so poignant and feel so vulnerable, which isn’t saying much on an album full of taylor being brutally honest and being messy and ugly and showing herself, that it just ties both albums together on what the theme is and what taylor ended up doing with these records it what they became for her as she wrote the songs and the album started to come to life…

like it’s just so beautiful you know?

[coastaltowned]

the manuscript ending the album on the utter jawdrop moment that neither of the muses of the actual album were the first men to fuck her up with promises of marriage and babies, and that first heartbreak so long ago laid the scene for the woman she would become and the ways she would approach love and how we all watched her life like scenes in a show but she kept coming back to the manuscript of the first torrid affair that ruined her, to bookend an album about two love affairs that destroyed her utterly in almost the exact same way, because all her muses are acquired like bruises........ it's bone-chilling

[new-york-no-shoes]

The manuscript is about writing all too well ten !!! And the second to last verse is directing the video !! I want to die!! I need my therapist NOW !

[stillgotscars]

the manuscript - taylor swift

[florida3exclamationpoints]

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT

[cademygod]

i can picture john mayer one hour and fifty nine minutes into tortured poets. he’s about to let out a sigh of relief. he hears taylor singing about his french press.

[taylornation]

TS TTPD official memorandum: Our Chairman’s manuscript will be released in just 13 days. Tortured poets, please make any necessary preparations and pre-order now.🤍📖

[sheisobvious]

the tortured poets department ♡

[piecesintoplaces]

now and then she rereads the manuscript.

[lyricsilove]

[midnightsslut]

religion is one of the most prominent recurring themes on the album, and it has been present in some capacity for quite a few records now. taylor previously compared love to religion: her saving grace, her belief system, and a fated divine intervention (false god, cornelia street, and cruel summer are the best examples of this). ‘sacred new beginnings that became my religion’ and ‘we’d still worship this love even if it’s a false god’ are two of the defining statements about her philosophy on the lover album.

taylor doesn’t want to leave all of that behind on ttpd, at least not at the beginning. the first supernatural force she mentions is the spaceship on down bad, which she compares to a skylight of freedom in the epilogue. *something* has finally come to save her from her life of suffering. she doesn’t care if it’s a force of good at first; if anything, she’s just fine being taken away by aliens. she views this man as her destiny. it isn’t until guilty as sin? that taylor starts to ponder the moral implications of what she’s doing. is she guilty as sin for wanting to leave her previous religion and relationship behind? she comes to the conclusion that, even if she rolls the stone away and gets resurrected/redeemed, she cannot avoid the fallout. she is okay with the thought of having to wait, as long as both lovers vow to be together forever, just as she once did with someone else in false god. ‘I choose you and me religiously’ finishes the bridge of the song in a direct callback to cornelia street.

the next mention of religion has murkier imagery. she claims that she does not need the Lord’s help to save this man. she sees the halo that he has, and she can fix him herself. now that she feels free of her prior cage, she isn’t looking for divine intervention anymore. she wants control. she is their route to salvation.

when the relationship falls apart, she retreats back into the position of a believer rather than a divine figure. she compares him to a Holy Ghost who promised to save her and take her to heaven. instead, she is in hell in every sense of the word: she’s down bad and feels guilty for digging up the grave. he was a jehovah’s witness who promised that she could break free of the cage imposed by love without changing her religion altogether; she would’ve just had to switch denominations. she could still have a marriage and kids! she could still have a blue tortured poet! the man was different, but not the dreams they had together. the story of the first part of the album ends here. her faith has been broken, and she has only found any semblance of sanity by refusing to mention these belief systems altogether.

side b/the anthology blends the christian imagery of side a with goddesses, sorcerers, and prophecies. she bargains with these powers to let her have the future she wants (the prophecy). she doesn’t sound like someone believing in salvation. if anything, she feels cursed. she decides that the concept of divinely ordained timing will never work in certain relationships (‘the goddess of timing once found us beguiling / she said she was trying / peter, was she lying?’). this disdain extends onto her perception of other people’s faith (‘bet they never spared a prayer for my soul’). she does position herself as a prophet in cassandra, but even then, she admits that the role has hurt her. perhaps the pain in thank you aimee was meant to be, or perhaps she was just strong enough to build a legacy in spite of it, boulder by boulder. is she a martyr? does she want to be? or did she save herself?

the only real love song on this half of the album makes no mention of fate or any divine forces. it wasn’t meant to be. it’s not a supernatural invisible string or lightning in a bottle. she is just in love.

the album ends with the manuscript, which revisits an old story of a defining, formative heartbreak. as she sings ‘at last, she knew what the agony had been for’ while describing the legacy of her writing, she seems to revert to thinking about the purpose of trauma. the only exception is that, in this case, she is the one who found meaning in her pain by turning it into a manuscript. writing is her belief system now, and she proselytizes by telling her stories and thus giving up the manuscript.

ultimately, her belief in destiny has chewed her up and spat her out. she so desperately clung to her existing belief systems that she was fooled by a conman, which left her feeling cursed. religion is supposed to be with someone even in their darkest moments, but the album explains that taylor often felt abandoned. the only constant in her life was, well, herself. she’ll be okay, but her pen will be her saving grace.

[swiftieinbrazil]

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT + all editions

[stood-onthecliffside]

[ilostyou]

"the story isn't mine anymore" she's literally. she packed it up and gave it to us and said it's not mine it's ours now let's move on

[sombrewoodlandfairy]

the tortured poets department wallpapers

part 1 | part 2

[taylornation]

We’re unsealing THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT files for one last chance to pre-order your favorite special edition vinyl, deluxe CDs, and cassettes before publication on April 19. 🗃️

As the old simile goes, move swift af boi, because the special editions are available for 48 hours, and all editions have limited supply. 🤍