🤍 Your Complete Guide to TTPD
All's fair in love and poetry...
Dear Reader,
If you’re looking for ideas on how to get as prepared as possible for TTPD’s album release, then you’ve come to the right place.
Welcome to Your Complete Guide to The Tortured Poets Department! I thought it would be helpful to have a place compiling all the resources you might want or need to get fully prepped for TTPD’s release on April 19th. So here you go!
How are you feeling?! Do you feel ready? I hope this newsletter gives you some inspiration. Friday is going to be here before we know it.
In this newsletter you’ll find:
TTPD’s Timeline: From Announcement to Release
To Read for TTPD
Breaking Down TTPD’s Tracklist
Breaking Down TTPD’s Variants
To Listen for TTPD
The 5 Stages of Heartbreak Playlists
Taylor Swift Songs/Albums To Focus On
5 Albums
5 Songs
Channel 13 (Taylor’s Version) on Sirius XM
To Do Before April 19th
Search for Apple Music’s “Word Of The Day”
Pre-Add TTPD’s Album
Plan Your Release Day Listening Experience
Rank Taylor Swift’s Songs
TTPD’s Timeline: From Announcement to Release
February 4th, 2024 - Taylor announced her 11th studio album at the 2024 Grammy’s, after winning her 13th Grammy. She shared the album cover over on Instagram, along with an excerpt of potential TTPD lyrics ending with, “Sincerely, The Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department.” She captioned the post with the tagline of the album: “All’s fair in love and poetry”
February 5th, 2024 - Taylor immediately followed up with the first variant and bonus track of TTPD, The Manuscript, including the tagline: “I love you, it’s ruining my life.”
February 5th, 2024 - Taylor shared the tracklist for TTPD.
February 16th, 2024 - Taylor announced The Bolter variant, with the tagline: “You don’t get to tell me about sad”.
February 23rd, 2023 - Taylor announced The Albatross variant, with the tagline: “Am I allowed to cry?”.
March 3rd, 2023 - Taylor announced The Black Dog variant, with the tagline: “Old habits die screaming…”
April 5th, 2023 - A fortnight before TTPD’s release, Taylor shared 5 playlists on Apple Music, taking listeners through the 5 stages of heartbreak.
April 8th, 2023 - At the same time as the solar eclipse (literally, I caught it while screen-recording NASA’s livestream of the event), Taylor shared this on her Instagram stories of possible TTPD lyrics: “crowd goes wild at her fingertips. Half moonshine, full eclipse”
April 12th, 2024 - The track lengths for TTPD were added to the album on Spotify.
April 13th, 2024 - Apple Music changed its bio to “A word a day til the @taylorswift album drops 👀”. This kickstarted a daily hunt for capitalized letters in Apple Music song lyrics, which can be unscrambled to form a word of the day.
April 14th, 2024 - Taylor announced the phantom clear vinyl edition of TTPD, available exclusively at Target, with the tagline: “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.”
April 19th, 2024 - TTPD’s Release Day!
To Read for TTPD
It has been so fascinating digging into the lore and theories that could potentially play into TTPD - there’s so much! In case you missed them, I included links and brief descriptions below of my two previous Dear Reader newsletters, which break down TTPD’s tracklist and all of its variants.
Breaking Down TTPD’s Tracklist
TTPD’s standard album consists of 16 tracks. Even though we obviously haven’t heard the songs yet, we do know the song titles, the two songs that are collaborations, and the standard track lengths. Based on all of that information, there’s a lot to theorize and speculate about with these TTPD tracks!
Here’s my tracklist breakdown of all 16 tracks on TTPD’s standard album release. I go through each track, pulling out definitions, making lyric connections to previous Taylor Swift songs, and sharing any other tidbits I could think of and/or find.
Breakdown Down TTPD’s Variants
Throughout the rollout of the album, Taylor Swift announced four variants of TTPD, including one bonus track on each variant. On March 24th, I shared a full breakdown of those TTPD variants: The Manuscript, The Bolter, The Albatross, and The Black Dog.
I compiled all the information we have about each variant, plus lots of definitions, theories and ideas on what we might see in the album and each bonus track. I also include some general theories surrounding TTPD that have been circling around. This newsletter is for paid subscribers - but free subscribers can claim a free paid post to check it out, do a free trail, or subscribe for paid posts ($5/month) to access it!
To Listen for TTPD
The 5 Stages of Heartbreak Playlists
On April 6th, a fortnight before TTPD’s release, Taylor Swift shared 5 playlists taking listeners through the 5 Stages of Heartbreak: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The playlists are all available on Apple Music, with a special “Message From Taylor” briefly setting up each playlist. Since these playlists are not available on any other streaming service, I created them on Spotify, YouTube and Amazon Music - so you can listen to them wherever you prefer!
You can find all of the playlist links on this blog post. Since only Apple Music’s playlists include the voice messages from Taylor, I typed out each one and included those in the blog post as well.
Taylor Swift Songs/Albums To Focus On
A great way to get ready for TTPD would be to listen to the 5 playlists Taylor herself shared with us. After all, she shared them specifically to help prep us for TTPD. I’ve also come across a number of Swifties on social media listening to Taylor’s full discography in the days leading up to TTPD. I love to see it! That’s how I actually prepared for going to The Eras Tour, listening to one album every day for 10 days, and it was so fun.
Since we’re now only 4 days out from the album drop, if you want to narrow down your Taylor Swift song/album listening, here are 5 albums and 5 songs I would personally prioritize.
5 Albums
Reputation, Lover, folklore, evermore and Midnights. These albums are Taylor’s most recent. They also cover the timeline of Taylor’s dating relationship with Joe. TTPD looks like it could be the conclusion of that story. So refreshing your memory of these 5 albums could help make links to her past works, and better recognize their potential influences, while listening to TTPD.
5 Songs
“the lakes”, “You’re Losing Me”, “Hits Different”, “London Boy”, and “…Ready For It”. There are a number of Taylor’s past songs that I think could be referenced or connected to the new tracks on TTPD. I talk about many more in my tracklist breakdown. These songs are the ones at the top of my list.
I think the album could be sonically most similar to “You’re Losing Me” and “Hits Different” - her two most recent song releases and additions to Midnights. There could be so many cross-references with “…Ready For It”. I don’t think “London Boy” and “So Long, London” will have much in common sound-wise - in fact, I imagine they could be on opposite sides of the spectrum. But there could very well be lyric parallels between the two. And, of course, “the lakes” is a must - for The Lake Poets, and “take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die”.
Channel 13 (Taylor’s Version) on Sirius XM
Finally, if you want even more Swiftie listening, SiriusXM recently launched a limited-time channel:
…featuring only Taylor Swift music from her chart-topping 18-year career. Including all Taylor Versions, from the Vault tracks, live tracks, bonus tracks, and more. Swiftie superfans will share their favorite moments, all leading up to the release and celebration of her highly anticipated new album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT on April 19.
You can subscribe or get a free trial here (Not sponsored! I just think it’s super fun).
To Do Before April 19th
If you’re looking for more fun ways to prepare for TTPD’s release, here are some ideas you might want to add to your to do list.
Search for Apple Music’s “Word Of The Day”
On April 13th, Apple Music started a fun game for Swifties. They changed their bio on Instagram (and X), to say, “A word a day til the @taylorswift album drops 👀”. Taylor Nation then shared in their story a photo (in the form of a video) of the TTPD logo, tagging @applemusic and including the emojis 🔎📝. That video had a glitch. And sure enough, that same day if you looked through the Apple Music lyrics for Taylor’s song “Glitch”, random capilized letters throughout the song could be unscrambled to form the word “HEREBY”. April 14th’s word of the day letters were found in the song “peace”, and unscrambled to the word “CONDUCT”.
This whole concept is such a throw back to Taylor’s first Easter Eggs. In her early albums, Taylor used to capitalize random letters in her lyric booklets, which could unscramble to form a hidden message to go with each track.
So here’s what we have so far:
April 13th’s Word: HEREBY
April 14th’s Word: CONDUCT
April 15th’s Word: ?
April 16th’s Word: ?
April 17th’s Word: ?
April 18th’s Word: ?
If you figure out any more words in the lead-up to TTPD’s release, drop them in the comments! I’m so curious to see what the final phrase ends up saying by April 19th.
Pre-Add TTPD’s Album
If you haven’t already, you can pre-add TTPD’s album wherever you prefer to listen to music. Here’s a few quick links, if you need them:
Pre-Add TTPD to Spotify here
Pre-Add TTPD to Apple Music here
Pre-Add TTPD to Amazon Music here
You can also buy physical and digital copies from Taylor Swift’s website, and in store at Target. It was actually just confirmed that Target will have physical copies of the bonus variants, in addition to the standard edition!
Plan Your Release Day Listening Experience
Do you know where you’ll be April 19th? I imagine we’ll all be listening to The Tortured Poets Department 😋 BUT, if you haven’t yet planned out where you’ll be doing your listening, it might be worth thinking about what you want your first TTPD listening experience to look like.
Do you want to dive in right when the album releases at midnight (if you’re in ET)? Or listen to it fresh in the morning? Do you want to have a listening party to experience TTPD together with friends? Or process it by yourself first before bringing in others? Whatever you choose, I’m wishing you the best listening experience!
Rank Taylor Swift’s Songs
Finally, a fun activity you may want to consider doing before TTPD releases is ranking Taylor Swift’s current complete song catalog. I’d never done a full song sort before. But I knew I wanted to before April 19th - just to get a sense of where things currently stand before a whole new album is added to the mix.
So a few days ago, I sat down and did my first complete Taylor Swift song ranking! It took me awhile - if you’re curious how long exactly, you can check out my latest YouTube video. I shared my process of ranking Taylor Swift songs (shortened, don’t worry!), plus my results at the end and how long it took me to complete the whole exercise. You could probably complete your own ranking faster than I did, and it’s a really fun exercise. If you’re at all interested, give it a go!
Here’s a link to my YouTube Video, if you want to see what you’re getting yourself into before diving into the process.
And here’s a link to the song sorter I used to complete the ranking.
Well, there you have it - Your Complete Guide to TTPD. Are you ready for it?! Are you feeling excited? Terrified? Both?
I cannot wait to experience this album with you, and will definitely share more TTPD content once it’s out. I have a reaction video possibly planned for YouTube, something TTPD-related for my next Dear Reader newsletter (going out to paid subscribers on April 22nd), and more to come. Let me know what you would be interested in seeing! In the meantime,
“And so I enter into evidence my tarnished coat of arms”,
Bekah
April 18th Update: With so much happening over the last few days, I figured a part 2 to this guide was in order - you can go read it here!
🎶 Can I Ask You a Question? 🎶
How are you feeling pre-TTPD release?
Have you planned where you’ll listen to the album when it drops? Which track are you the most excited about?!
Do you think you’ll tackle a complete Taylor Swift song ranking before TTPD releases? If you do, let me know your top 5 songs (and/or what you think your top 5 would be)!
🫶 There are now 700+ subscribers to the Dear Reader newsletter - I’m so happy you’re here! If you haven’t yet subscribed and are interested, you can subscribe ⤵️
💕 If you found value in this newsletter and know a Swiftie who also might also enjoy these emails, it would mean the world to me if you would share Dear Reader with them! ⤵️
💌 Missed past Dear Reader newsletters? Find previous posts in the archive.
🔗 Dear Reader newsletters may include affiliate links. These are items I use and love, and it’s a free way to support me and this newsletter.
i’m soooooo excited for fortnight ft post malone and i ordered every vinyl variant. is that insane? all my friends say it is 😜
Since sending out this newsletter 2 days ago, SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED!! Would anyone be interested in a part 2 to this guide??