Taylor Swift has said she can no longer “relate” to the ‘Tortured Poets Department’ era as she is “not miserable anymore”.
The singer released her 12th studio album ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ on Friday (October 3), an album largely put together during her all-conquering ‘Eras Tour’ in 2024.
In a new interview with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2, she has reflected on the shift in emotional focus between her last two albums. “The cool thing about this record is that I’m in a very similar space in my life as to when I wrote it and now that I’m putting it out, which is nice,” she said.
“it’s nice when those things are not incongruous. You know, like with the last record, I was in such a different place in my life when I wrote it. Just miserable. And then when I put it out, I was so happy. So it was like, ah, I love this art. I love this beautiful art about misery. I, however, am not miserable anymore so it feels weird to talk about the record because it’s like, you can be proud of the work, but you can also just not relate to that person you were.”
It is widely believed that much of 2024’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ was inspired by her brief relationship with The 1975’s Matty Healy in the summer of 2023, although she has never confirmed this herself.
The record’s title track refers to an ex who smoked, name checks Healy’s former close friend Lucy Dacus and seems to allude to The 1975’s ‘Chocolate’, while ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’ is also speculated to be about Healy.
Swift’s current positive outlook can partly be attributed to her recent engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce, who she has been dating since 2023. In the BBC Radio 2 interview, she said: “I’m really right now just like really stoked about the idea that I get to marry this person.
She dismissed rumours that she might quit music after marriage, calling the idea “shockingly offensive.” Laughing, she added: “That’s not why people get married – to quit their job.”
The singer continued, saying of her fans: “Oh, I know they love to panic sometimes, but it’s like I love the person that I am with because he loves what I do and he loves how much I am fulfilled by making art and making music.
“That’s the coolest thing about Travis, like he is so passionate about what he does, that me being passionate about what I do, it connects us. There’s no point in time where he’s gonna be like, ‘I’m really upset that you’re still making the music’,” she added.
She has also recently said that she used to fear that her songwriting would “dry up” if she were ever in a happy relationship. “What if writing is directly tied to my torment and pain?” she said. “And it turns out, that’s not the case at all, and we just were catching lightning in a bottle with this record.”
NME gave ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ three stars, writing: “To seek escapism is not a sin, but the best pop music makes the personal feel like life or death. ‘Speak Now’, ‘Reputation’, ‘Folklore’: her greatest works could be genuinely transformative. For the first time, ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ sees Swift not catalysed into artistic growth by love, but merely comfortably secured by it.”
