list: my favourite ttpd lyrics
taylor swift... the lyricist that you are...
Dear Reader,
I will never not be in awe of Taylor’s lyrics. These lyrics comprise ones that made my jaw drop when I first heard them, ones that I relate to, ones that I found were interesting, ones that I found poetic, and ones that straight up felt like a punch to the gut. Enjoy the pick of my favourite lyrics from The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology! I still haven’t fully processed the album but thank you Taylor, I will be listening to this album for a very long time.
fortnight
➳ “i was a functioning alcoholic till nobody noticed my new aesthetic”
the tortured poets department
➳ “i chose this cyclone with you”
my boy only breaks his favourite toys
➳ “rivulets descend my plastic smile”
down bad
➳ “for a moment i was heavenstruck”
so long, london
➳ “and i’m pissed off that you let me give you all that youth for free”
➳ “two graves, one gun, i’ll find someone”
➳ “you swore that you love me but where were the clues? i died on the altar waiting for the proof”
but daddy i love him
➳ “i’ll tell you something ‘bout my good name, it’s mine alone to disgrace”
➳ “sanctimoniously performing soliloquies i’ll never see”
fresh out the slammer
➳ “gray and blue and fights and tunnels, handcuffed to the spell i was under”
florida!!!
➳ “little did you know your home’s really only a town you’re just a guest in”
guilty as sin?
➳ “what if the way you hold me is actually what’s holy?”
➳ “they don’t know how you’ve haunted me so stunningly, i choose you and me religiously”
who’s afraid of little old me?
➳ “is it a wonder i broke? let’s hear one more joke”
➳ “i was tame, i was gentle, till the circus life made me mean”
➳ “don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth”
➳ “you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me”
i can fix him (no really i can)
➳ “they shake their heads saying ‘god help her’ when i tell them he’s my man”
loml
➳ “who’s gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames if we know the steps anyway?”
➳ “we embroidered the memories of the time i was away”
➳ “who’s gonna tell me the truth when you blew in with the winds of fate?”
➳ “i wish i could un-recall how we almost had it all”
➳ “our field of dreams engulfed in fire, your arson’s match, your somber eyes”
i can do it with a broken heart
➳ “the light refracts sequin stars off her silhouette every night”
➳ “lights, camera, bitch, smile”
➳ “breaking down i hit the floor, all the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting ‘more’”
➳ “i keep finding his things in drawers, crucial evidence i didn’t imagine the whole thing”
the smallest man who ever lived
➳ “and i don’t even want you back i just want to know if rusting my sparkling summer was the goal”
➳ “you didn’t measure up in any measure of a man”
➳ “in fifty years, will all this be declassified?”
the alchemy
➳ “this happens once every few lifetimes, these chemicals hit me like white wine”
clara bow
➳ “take the glory, give everything, promise to be dazzling”
➳ “crowd goes wild at her fingertips, half moonshine, full eclipse”
➳ “beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours”
➳ “it’s hell on earth to be heavenly”
the black dog
➳ “that was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming”
➳ “i move through the world with the heartbroken, my longings stay unspoken”
imgonnagetyouback
➳ “small talk, big love, act like i don’t care what you did”
➳ “bygones will be bygone, eras fading into grey”
the albatross
➳ “wise men once said ‘wild winds are death to the candle’, a rose by any other name is a scandal”
➳ “locked me up in towers but i’d visit in your dreams”
➳ “devils that you know raise worse hell than a stranger”
➳ “so i crossed my thoughtless heart, spread my wings like a parachute”
chloe or sam or sophia or marcus
➳ “if you wanna break my cold, cold heart, just say ‘i loved you the way that you were’, if you wanna tear my world apart, just say you’ve always wondered”
➳ “i changed into goddesses, villains and fools, changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules”
➳ “if the glint in my eye traced the depths of your sigh, down that passage in time back to the moment, i crashed into you, like so many wrecks do, too impaired by my youth to know what to do”
➳ “will that make your memory fade from this scarlet maroon?”
how did it end?
➳ “our maladies were such we could not cure them”
➳ “come one, come all, it’s happening again, the empathetic hunger descends”
➳ “we learned the right steps to different dances”
➳ “lost the game of chance, what are the chances”
➳ “say it once again with feeling, how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving, the deflation of our dreaming, left me bereft and reeling”
so high school
➳ “i wanna find you in a crowd just to hide from you”
➳ “cheeks pink in the twinkling lights”
➳ “the brink of a wrinkle in time”
i hate it here
➳ “nostalgia is a mind’s trick”
➳ “when they found a better planet, only the gentle survived”
➳ “i’ll save all my romanticism for my inner life”
➳ “lucid dreams like electricity, the current flies through me”
thanK you aIMee
➳ “but when i count the scars, there’s a moment of truth, that there wouldn’t be this if there hadn’t been you”
i look in people’s windows
➳ “does it feel alright to not know me? i’m addicted to the ‘if only’”
the prophecy
➳ “thought i caught lightning in a bottle”
➳ “cards on the table, mine play out like fools in a fable”
➳ “poison blood from the wound of a pricked hand”
➳ “but even statues crumble if they’re made to wait”
➳ “i’m just a paperweight in the shade of greige, spending my last coin so someone will tell me it’ll be okay”
cassandra
➳ “when the truth comes out, it’s quiet”
➳ “twisting all my smiles into snarls”
➳ “they say ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you aware’, what happens if it becomes who you are?”
peter
➳ “the goddess of timing once found us beguiling”
➳ “promises oceans deep but never to keep”
➳ “we both did the best we could do, under the same moon in different galaxies”
➳ “but the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light”
the bolter
➳ “splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless”
➳ “but as she was leaving it felt like breathing”
➳ “and at first blush, this is fate, when it’s all roses, portrait poses”
➳ “hearts are hers for breaking, there’s escape in escaping”
robin
➳ “strings tied to levers, slowed-down clocks tethered, all this showmanship to keep it for you in sweetness”
➳ “the time will arrive for the cruel and the mean, you’ll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline”
the manuscript
➳ “lookin’ backwards might be the only way to move forward”
➳ “then the actors were hitting their marks and the slow dance was alight with the sparks and the tears fell in synchronicity with the score and at last she knew what the agony had been for”
➳ “one last souvenir from my trip to your shore”
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ Love, Faith