Let us go then, you and I/When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a tight end playing in the Super Bowl -- The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift, April 19

So the suggestion has been made to do a precover of this…

With guests Chief Keef and Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah.

(xp — although if someone wants to recruit them for the precovers, that would be cool too)

I think Taylor likes to give herself impossible challenges, like to write a song with the title “I Can Fix Him (Really I Can)” that isn’t terrible

Is the song called "Bonus Track:The Manuscript" or is it just an indication that "The Manuscript" is a bonus track? Becuz I really wish it is the former

"Fuck is this 'Bonus Track:The Manuscript'? Turn it up!"

"Three Minutes of Silence and then a Hidden Track" (Taylor's Version)

How you could list those but not "Fresh Out the Slammer"...

― Tim F, Monday, February 5, 2024 8:41 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This is where I audibly said "Oh come on!" to my cat

And what did your cat say in response?

"Things done changed on this side."

"fresh out the slammer" is something they say in pog tournaments iirc. "fresh out" means "polish."

So it's a Polish joke?

I wish Taylor would have included her Jason Aldean diss "Try That in a Ball Gown"

ILM pre-covers when

Chat gpt write me a song called “so long, london” in the style of taylor swift

(Verse 1)
In a city of echoes, where dreams collide,
Beneath the city lights, our love did hide.
Cobbled streets whisper tales untold,
So long, London, the story unfolds.

(Pre-Chorus)
Big Ben chimed, but our time ran out,
Heartbreak's symphony, I can't silence the doubt.
Red buses passing, taking pieces of us,
Fading in the rain, like an old love fuss.

(Chorus)
So long, London, where love once gleamed,
A double-decker ride through our shattered dream.
Your rain can't wash away the memories we've spun,
In this goodbye symphony, the love's undone.

(Verse 2)
Blooms of Hyde Park, witnessed our embrace,
Now they wither, lost in love's grace.
From the Thames to the West End stage,
Our love story ends, turning another page.

(Pre-Chorus)
Towers of London stand so tall,
Yet our love crumbled like the ancient wall.
The Eye keeps turning, but we stood still,
In this goodbye story, we find our will.

(Chorus)
So long, London, where love once gleamed,
A double-decker ride through our shattered dream.
Your rain can't wash away the memories we've spun,
In this goodbye symphony, the love's undone.

(Bridge)
Notting Hill's romance turned to dust,
Our fairy tale, now just wanderlust.
Regent's Park witnessed the tears we shed,
Farewell, my London love, our colors bled.

(Verse 3)
Past the Royal Palaces, where our love was crowned,
Now it's lost, in the silence profound.
St. Paul's Cathedral echoes our goodbye,
So long, London, beneath the tear-streaked sky.

(Chorus)
So long, London, where love once gleamed,
A double-decker ride through our shattered dream.
Your rain can't wash away the memories we've spun,
In this goodbye symphony, the love's undone.

(Outro)
As the Thames flows, so does time,
In the city's heartbeat, a broken rhyme.
So long, London, to the love we swore,
A chapter closes on the Thames' tranquil shore.

Not bad!

There has to be a line about losing a scarf in a double decker

Chatgpt add a line about losing a scarf in a double decker

Lost my scarf on a double-decker ride,
Winds of goodbye, where love can't hide

Love how ChatGPT makes sure everyone notes it has been a good software who's studied its touristic map

Hoping "The Manuscript" is wordplay on "the man you script"

The Man U Script.

The Manus Crypt

pls go away

Not sure which song I'm more excited for "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys Down Bad" or "But Daddy, I Love Him Fresh Out the Slammer"

Okay pre-cover people, your time is now.

The Tortured Poets Department ILX Pre-Cover Planning Thread

I think Taylor likes to give herself impossible challenges, like to write a song with the title “I Can Fix Him (Really I Can)” that isn’t terrible

well, what would you title a song about Matty Healy

"Love It If You Fucked Off"

"Did You Give Me Crabs?"

"I Knew You Were Trouble (When You Were a Shit to Ice Spice)"

“Fresh Out The Slammer” had better be wall to wall slam poetry about the American carcel state (or a 45 second hardcore song)

Out on bail, fresh out of jail, California dreamin'
Soon as I step on the scene, I'm hearin' Swifties screamin'

well, what would you title a song about Matty Healy

"Dont Worry (Your Band's Music Will Still Place High in ILM's Top 77)"

so at the grammys, taylor caught up with boygenius for a photo op. the latter were visibly distressed after having given an emotional interview about sexual assault. julien baker was crying. taylor asked them if she could rest her trophies on their heads for the photo -- the trophies she won by beating them, especially in the best album category.

earlier in the night, when taylor won best album, she dragged a visibly disappointed lana del rey onto the stage and made some condescending remarks to her about how she is "soooo grateful to be her friend." again, she had beaten lana for this award.

is she purposefully humiliating her opponents? like achilles dragging hector's corpse through the streets of troy.

the way i read this, taylor is relishing pop's final triumph over indie. the death of pitchfork is a key context here.

Or maybe she is just awkwardly confusing "friend" with "peer"? I have no idea what her relationship actually is with these people. Maybe she's like Whitney in "The Curse"!

Travis Kelce floating in the sky during the Super Bowl is gonna suck

FUTK

combination of what treesh said and the fact she's basically an overgrown teenager (of the popular-girl variety, taken to its logical conclusion) who's not had to do any real adult stuff ever

my sympathy for her is non-existent tbh but how can she really hope to be taylor swift anyway, such a person is impossible

There was that pretty public thing about a decade ago where Swift’s backup dancers ditched her for Katie Perry mid-tour seemingly because she was distant and not fun. Since then it seems she’s done a lot of photo ops with female artists—Haim, LDR, boygenius—raising their profiles and helping her image.

so at the grammys, taylor caught up with boygenius for a photo op. the latter were visibly distressed after having given an emotional interview about sexual assault. julien baker was crying. taylor asked them if she could rest her trophies on their heads for the photo -- the trophies she won by beating them, especially in the best album category.

boygenius mimed kissing taylor's grammy unprompted. what did that mean???

taylor swift is enormously embarrassing at any given awards show but please stop this ohnotheydidnt shit

FUTK

lol

I doubt Lana was humiliated or bothered. She posted this montage y’day (I think they genuinely are “friends”)

(I don’t know what the last pic with the gun is about….)

she is gonna murder taylor swift for her crimes

Both Lana and Phoebe have been on Taylor records before, which you have to presume means they are on decent terms.

It occurred to me that Taylor ignored Celine Dion in part bc she was still focused on LDR after convincing LDR to join her onstage. I think that's who she was talking to behind her when she reached out for the trophy.

Treeship I don't intuit that your observations are reflective of TS's intention. LDR is on the TS album and I think TS was trying to celebrate her despite her loss, an "a victory for me is a victory for humankind" sort of narcissistic benevolence.

I felt a breaking point on Grammys night, myself, I've always admired TS as a songwriter but had this odd mental move where the Walmart vibes of her business practice eclipsed my respect for her artistry. I remember a decade ago I installed a widget on my browser that muted an artist who I'd grown exhausted of engaging with as a reader/listener, no articles about them would appear, their name would be redacted in situations where their name were to otherwise pop up. I felt the same desire after the announcement of TS's new album, this sense of exhaustion, a desire to "read nothing, hear nothing" about her for a year or five.

At my local, a couple of bartender friends are big Swifties and often have TS in heavy rotation, which I like-- I like TS's music. I was chatting with them, after the Grammies, about the fact that I felt this tipping point, and I was trepidatious to express this, expecting some pushback or defensiveness from the Swift faithful; but they agreed. One posited that TS's current artistic goal is strictly quantitative, that she wanted to break more records (for Grammy wins, for streaming numbers), and that it had nothing to do with any personal sense of artistry. The other reminded us that, along with "Tortured Poets", we also had Reputation 2.0 and self-titled 2.0 on the horizon, and could anticipate LP12 shortly after, that another two to three years of Swift-omnipresence was assured. I said, "god, why can't she Rihanna herself for a few years and come back when we miss her," and the two of them felt the same way.

I feel like even posting these thoughts are "contributing to the problem", like I might as well be commenting on all the Home Depots I saw yesterday while driving through the suburbs, and that even pseudonymously posting anything other than "yay" about TS will cause my leftovers to spontaneously spoil or something... I just need a break ffs

Today I learned that TS ex-Joe and Phoebe ex-Paul were on a What's App group called the Tortured Man Club. Coincidence?

i completely agree with that fgti. feel like she’s at the same point she was at between 1989 and reputation, but on an even vaster scale! little worried about this record tbh!!!

I was thinking this, this morning, when I cast my mind back to moments in my life where it felt as if something was "culturally omnipresent"-- MJ in the late 80s, "Titanic" in the late 90s-- that it does seem like TS's achievements to this end dwarf all other instances of the similar. The respect I feel for her about this fact is similar to the respect I might feel toward a devastating earthquake or an enormous tsunami, it's an awful "wow"

after MJ died I thought we'd never see anyone get that famous again but I guess I was wrong