My other top highlights on TTPD Part 1 are Guilty as Sin, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me, and the actual named SONG Tortured Poets Department which I feel is overlooked?
Let’s start with the only one I made a note of on my first listen which was Little Old Me and I wrote “that bridge!!”.
Which… oooh, it is a good bridge but honestly the chorus is better.
But the bridge…
… I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me
You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me
…
Put narcotics into all of my songs
And that’s why you’re still singing along
So good! Because, I know we all wonder if she does put narcotics into her songs? Why are they so addictive? And the reference to her being “raised” in the asylum (the industry) is just so apt.
The chorus
… So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
“Who’s afraid of little old me?”
I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean
“Don’t you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth”
Who’s afraid of little old me?
Well, you should be
Honestly, what is the ABSOLUTE BEST about this song is after she debuted it on the Era’s Tour. OOOhhhh the set design, the choreography. THE MEME’S that people have done to this song!
I am putting this embed that starts at 1:16 at the best part… The moving platform, how she sings it, it’s amazing.
And the meme’s of people at their office, on those moving platforms with their friends pushing them around? I will be SO MAD if I never get pushed around on a platform lip syncing to this song. It is now on my bucket list. I wish I could find one of the videos I’ve seen of people doing it at home but I’m not searching hard enough at the moment!
The best!!
Another AMAZING line:
“You don’t get to tell me about ‘sad.'”
Yeesssss! Exactly, Taylor.
I love this song but I don’t love every second of it though. Sometimes I’m in the mood to listen and other times, it’s a skip. But, it is certainly is a work of art.
Guilty as Sin
Oh man. Taylor has published over 250 songs in her lifetime (so far) and this is the first one where she is talking about masturbation, so THAT’S fun? haha – The Reddit threads about this song!
But this song definitely hits. It’s usually not a skip but probably at the bottom of my top 5. But… so good. All the lyrics are very quotable and she writes about an affair that hasn’t happened but… easily imagined it through her genius words.
This song is definitely about Matt, and how she… potentially cheated on Joe with him? It’s a mystery. But Downtown Lights is a song by the band The Blue Nile, which The 1975 interpolated on their track ‘Love It If We Made It’. Apparently Matt has also said that it’s one of his favorite songs so… we have all assumed what we assumed!
I love how it starts, the beat, and then the music so delicate.
My boredom’s bone deep
This cage was once just fine
Am I allowed to cry?
I dream of cracking locks
Throwing my life to the wolves
…
I’m seeing visions, am I bad?
Or mad? Or wise?
Am I allowed to cry? Good question. But the dreams of just throwing everything away for someone and then questioning if she is bad, mad, or wise? Another good question! The chorus is lovely and addictive.
What if he’s written ‘mine’ on my upper thigh
Only in my mind?
One slip and falling back into the hedge maze
Oh what a way to die
I keep recalling things we never did
Messy top lip kiss
How I long for our trysts
Without ever touching his skin
How can I be guilty as sin?
ahhh. I read “hedge maze” as going into the overthinking section in your mind, and then getting lost in it. Is it dying just pleasurable in the dream or dying using a metaphor for la petite mort? We shall probably never know! But the poetry of the words is amazing, as usual.
And is it true that there is no such thing as bad thoughts?
Someone told me
There’s no such thing as bad thoughts
Only your actions talk
These fatal fantasies
Giving way to labored breath
Taking all of me
We’ve already done it in my head
The bridge she goes into is so beautiful and absolutely haunting.
They don’t know how you’ve haunted me
So stunningly
I choose you and me
… Religiously
And then the 3rd chorus she does is PERFECT in her tone. She lilts it up on the “MINE” and “upper thigh” and it’s addictive. What a way to “die” indeed.
And then she AGAIN repeats the ending of the song from the beginning and it just is so evocative. Her person is contacting her again, she hasn’t thought about it in awhile and is it time to cry yet?
He sent me ‘Downtown Lights’
I hadn’t heard it in a while
Am I allowed to cry?
Le sigh.
The Tortured Poets Department
I never go to this song to actually choose to listen to it! Every time it plays on my shuffle, I think, oh, this is so good. It’s upbeat, it’s warm, it’s compassionate. It’s again, totally about Matty and not Joe. This whole album is a just an OUTPOURING of angst about how Matty came into her life but hey, I’m here for the songs!
Anyway. She’s captured so many intense feelings about a relationship here, the craziness, the self-doubt, the insecurities, and fears. It’s such a great song but still not one of my top favorites. But I won’t usually skip it when I hear it!
But you’re in self-sabotage mode
Throwing spikes down on the road
But I’ve seen this episode and still loved the show
Who else decodes you?
I’ve seen all your craziness and still love you and know you. And the way she cheerfully makes fun of them both during the chorus, which is great. And it’s just so soothing the whole thing.
And who’s gonna hold you like me?
Nobody
No-fucking-body
Nobody
And I love the lyrics she uses, always!
But you awaken with dread
Pounding nails in your head
But I’ve read this one where you come undone
I chose this cyclone with you
And who’s gonna hold you like me?
Great song! Just not in my top 5!
TTPD Review
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