At 2 a.m. Friday, Taylor Swift dropped 15 extra songs in what she called a “surprise double album.”
“The Black Dog” stands out from the pack on “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.”
A “black dog” is a term referring to feelings of depression, great sadness and lack of energy, according to the Cambridge Dictionary. In English literature and folklore, a black dog was a demonic hellhound that served as an omen of death.
In this instance, Swift refers to a bar, the “Black Dog” that she notices her ex going to one night. He has forgotten to stop sharing his location. Something so trivial invokes incredible sadness and thoughts of comparison, maybe jealousy. Swift writes an invented narrative that the ex is meeting a new girl who won’t understand a Starting Line song, because she’s too young to know about the pop-punk band from the early 2000s. Part of the lyrics are, “I move through the world with a heart broken. My longings stay unspoken, and I may never open up the way I did for you.”
The Black Dog is a London pub located at: 112 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5ER, United Kingdom.
The tender whimper on the last note captures perfectly the pangs of saying goodbye to a relationship.
‘Tortured Poets’ release live updatesWhat to know as Taylor Swift’s new album debuts
If you didn’t get the memo from the department’s Chairman, “Tortured Poets” is Swift’s 11th era album with 16 tracks and four bonus songs (four versions of the album each have a different bonus track).
Swift announced the project at the Grammys, when she won her 13th career Grammy for pop album of the year. Post Malone and Florence and The Machine are two contributors on the pop album.
Its track titles are brutal. Fans speculated the album was about Swift’s six-year relationship with English actor Joe Alwyn and their breakup. Both stars kept the relationship out of the public eye. The back of the first version of the album reads, “I love you, it’s ruining me,” serving as a dagger-to-the-chest harbinger.
The album was released during Swift’s two-month break from her massively popular and economically fruitful Eras Tour. “Tortured Poets” serves as an exclamation point to the behemoth success the billionaire has seen over the past year since the three-plus-hour show launched in Glendale, Arizona. Swift will return to the stage in Paris, France, on May 9. Fans anticipate that her newest era will be added to the show.
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