With 31 songs onThe Tortured Poets Department : The Anthology , it ’s Taylor Swift ’s longest album to date .
1.First,Taylor Swifttold fans at an Eras Tour concert in Tokyo that she’d beenworkingonThe Tortured Poets Department"for about two years." She added, “I kept working on it throughout the US tour, and when it was perfect, in my opinion — when it was good enough for you — I finished it.”
2.When Taylor announced the title,The Tortured Poets Department, somedebatedthe grammatical correctness of “Poets” instead of styling it “Poets'” or “Poet’s.” The title is styled like the 1989 movieDead Poets Society, which starred Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles, who also appear in the music video for “Fortnight.”
3.The album cover forThe Tortured Poets Departmentwas shot byphotographer Beth Garrabrant, who previously took photos forFolklore, Evermore, Red (Taylor’s Version), Midnights,Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and1989 (Taylor’s Version).
4.With a total of 31 songs onThe Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, it’s Taylor’slongest album. Previously, her longest album wasRed (Taylor’s Version), which has 30 songs.
5.The spoken voice heard in “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” is producer Oli Jacobs, whoproducedseveral tracks on the album. Oli can be heard counting Taylor in, which is reminiscent of a click track that performers hear in their earpieces when performing live.
6.Taylorsaidthat she wrote “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” while “sitting at the piano in one of those moments when I felt bitter about just all the things we do to our artists as a society and as a culture.” She wrote the song alone, too.
7.For “Clara Bow,” which is named after the famous silent film actor, Taylorexplainedthat the track is “a commentary on what I’ve seen in the industry that I’ve been in over time.” She added that the reason she name drops Clara Bow and Stevie Nicks in the song is a reference to her being told “you know, you remind us of” by various record labels when she was starting out.
8.Speaking about “Clara Bow,” the actor’s great-granddaughtersaid, “My family and I love the song and are thankful for Taylor connecting with Clara’s legacy through her songwriting.” Clarawas an actorin the silent film era of the 1920s and was given the nickname “The It Girl.” She’s also considered the first Hollywood sex symbol.
9.In the Amazon Music commentary for “Florida!!!” (feat. Florence + the Machine), Taylor said that theinspirationfor the track actually came from “always watchingDateline.” She added, “People have these crimes that they commit; where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida.”
10.In the album’s liner notes for “Florida!!!” (feat. Florence + the Machine), Emily Jean Stone, aka actor Emma Stone, iscreditedwith “oddities” on the track. While it’s unclear right now what “oddities” means, some fans havepointed outthe similarities between Taylor’sTTPDaesthetic and Emma’s costumes inPoor Things.
11.Speaking about “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, Taylorexplainedthat this song “exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout the album. One of which being fatalism — longing, pining away, lost dreams.”
12.Stevie Nicks, who is mentioned in “Clara Bow,” penned a poem for Taylor on Aug. 13, 2023, which is featured as the prologue in physical copies of the album. In Oct. 2023, Stevietalked about Taylorin an interview, saying, “I never don’t tell the truth. And I think that’s something that if Taylor Swift, who is my friend, if Taylor got anything from me, that’s what she got.”
14.In the song “The Tortured Poets Department,” Taylor sings, “I laughed in your face and said / ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots.'” And Patti posted her appreciation for being included in the song on her Instagram,writing, “This is saying I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Thank you Taylor.”
15.And finally,The Tortured Poets Departmentis the first album in Spotify history to have more than300 million streamsin a single day on 8 March 2025.
With 31 songs onThe Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, it’s Taylor Swift’s longest album to date.
