At the 66th Grammy Awards on Feb. 4, when Taylor Swift accepted the award for best pop vocal album — her 13th Grammy — she surprised audiences with an unexpected announcement: Her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department, will drop on April 19 (a date that isn’t entirely insignificant). Since revealing the news — which Swift followed up with an Instagram post confirming the album’s impending release — Swifties have set social media ablaze with their reactions, theories and speculations regarding all things TPD.
Self-proclaimed Swiftie Caroline Asbury (@concertcrazedcaroline) took to the video-sharing platform to post her reaction to the news. Asbury repeatedly yells “What?!” in the video, which has amassed more than 723,000 views in less than 24 hours. Swift also “liked” the video.
Asbury is just one of several Swifties to document their live reactions. Some have even responded to the news by immediately pre-ordering Tortured Poets Department merchandise from Swift’s online store.
“I didn’t even look at the price,” TikToker Jen (@dearmirrorball) says in a video posted moments after Swift’s surprise announcement. “One second Taylor Swift’s announcing a new album, next second I got an $80 charge on my credit card.”
Fan theory No. 1: Is it a breakup album about Joe Alwyn?
One question, in particular, has stood out among the others in the fan-theory discussion: Is The Tortured Poets Department about Swift and longtime beau, English actor Joe Alwyn’s breakup? These fans believe it is — and here’s why.
For starters, fans were quick to recall that Alwyn (who Swift dated for six years until April 2023) and fellow actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott have a group chat called “The Tortured Man Club.” Alwyn and Mescal, who appear in the Hulu series Conversations with Friends and Normal People, briefly discussed the origins of the chat while in conversation for Variety in December 2022.
While on the Grammys stage, Swift also revealed that the album was two years in the making – which fans believe to be another indication that it’ll chronicle her breakup with Alwyn. In November 2023, Swift released the bonus track “You’re Losing Me” for The Late Night Edition of her 10th studio album, Midnights, which chronicles the slow demise of a long-term relationship.
To announce the release of the song, Swift’s longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff revealed via his Instagram Story that they wrote and recorded the song “on 12/5/21.” With this in mind, fans speculate that “You’re Losing Me” and songs that’ll be featured on The Tortured Poets Department were written around the same time and about the same person. And if it’s not a breakup album, some fans strongly believe it’s a “relationship turmoil album” about Alwyn that got temporarily shelved.
This theory was further bolstered on Feb. 5, when Swift took to Instagram to reveal the album’s tracklist. Fans noticed that the fifth track — which is believed to consistently be Swift’s most vulnerable one on each album — is called “So Long, London.” Swift notably released the love song “London Boy” for 2019’s Lover, which includes strong references to her relationship with Alwyn.
Abby Murphy (@theabbymurphy), a content creator and co-host of the podcast The Break Up Break Down, speculates that The Tortured Poets Department may also signal a new era for Swift. She suspects that Swift may be entering her “jilted bride era,” namely because an “iconic” line from “You’re Losing Me” — “I wouldn’t marry me either” — may allude to Alwyn having reservations about walking down the aisle with her.
Hannah Michelle (@_hannahmichelle13), another self-described Swiftie, told Yahoo News that “You’re Losing Me” in addition to another Midnights track, “The Great War,” draw parallels to her album announcement poem, which could be a prologue or lyrics from TPD.
“I personally connected her word choice and overarching ‘war’ analogy that she used in her announcement poem to that used in both ‘The Great War’ and ‘You’re Losing Me,’” Michelle said, adding, “As directly referenced in the title, ‘The Great War,’ I interpret that Taylor has created an analogy between her relationship with Joe to that of a war that she fought through and came out of tattered.”
A representative for Taylor Swift did not immediately respond to Yahoo News’s request for comment.
Fan theory No. 2: Are Phoebe Bridgers and Lana Del Rey members of TPD?
Another widely circulated theory centers on who exactly is part of The Tortured Poets Department. If Swift is “the Chairman” as her Instagram post suggests, then fans believe this could only mean that there are other poets involved in the project. Some are convinced that Phoebe Bridgers and Lana Del Rey are possible members of the department. This theory is further heightened by the fact that Bridgers and her Boygenius bandmates Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker announced their indefinite hiatus just two days before news of Swift’s album broke, possibly clearing up more time for Bridgers to promote or even tour the album with Swift.
Guy Sherry (@thestoryofguy) told Yahoo News that he wouldn’t be surprised if Bridgers and Del Rey were involved given Swift’s admiration of their music.
Representatives for Bridgers and Del Rey did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News.
Other fan theories: Are the songs nods to ‘book girlies,’ dark academia and 1989’s ‘Dead Poets Society’?
Bri Morien (@bfreezy), a self-described book enthusiast, was quick to suggest that The Tortured Poets Department could be an album dedicated to “the readers.” Ending her latest album Midnights with the track “Dear Reader” and including a bonus track on TPD called “The Manuscript” are among the reasons Morien cites for believing this to be the case. She further elaborated on her theory for Yahoo News, again referencing the poem Swift included in her album announcement on Feb. 4.
“Taylor’s a storyteller as we all know, and I think we’ll get a new side of her and her craft in this upcoming album. She says ‘all is fair in love and poetry,’ and I think she’s pointing to if people she loved felt it was ‘fair’ to treat her a certain way, then all is fair for her to write about it. After all, it’s storytelling, it’s poetry,” Morien said.
More generally, fans also believe this album is indicative of Swift fully leaning into “dark academia,” which the New York Times describes as an internet subculture that heavily emphasizes higher education and aesthetically reflects “traditional-academic-with-a-gothic-edge.” Think tweed blazers, argyle sweaters, neutral turtlenecks and sophisticated loafers — likely all thrifted.
Siyah (@siyah), a Swiftie and “English major girlie,” told Yahoo News that Swift has been known to cite prolific authors and poets — which reportedly includes Robert Frost, Lewis Carroll and Pablo Neruda — in her lyrics. Siyah also notes that in her recent outings, the Midnights songstress has been photographed sporting a “very academic aesthetic.”
Similarly, Swifties have also shared their belief that calling her album The Tortured Poets Department could also be a nod to the 1989-released, Robin Williams-led coming-of-age drama Dead Poets Society. The upcoming album and the Academy Award-winning movie, fans have noticed, sound quite similar. While we can’t confirm that Swift has seen the film, some Swifties argue that it thematically aligns with what TPD is said to celebrate: the revelatory power of poetry.
Some of the TikTok videos supporting this theory feature a monologue spoken by Robin Williams, during which he says, “We write poetry not because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race — and the human race is filled with passion.”
While these theories have not been substantiated, Swifties are making a couple of things clear: Their excitement for The Tortured Poets Department cannot be contained, and April 19 can’t come soon enough.
