Swifties are religiously convinced that TTPD is Taylor's magnum opus and a collection of exquisitely high grade poetry. And that the only reason the album got panned and receives constant negative attention on ATRL is because she's super successful and people are hating on her out of jealousy. We keep having heated debates about the neverending variants greed, but I think we should spend more time unpicking the actual quality of this record. So here's a collection of undeniably terrible lyrics from this album that should raise anyone's eyebrows, especially coming from a supposed "songwriter of this generation". This is no way an exhaustive list of bad TTPD lyrics, so feel free to suggest any other lines that I may have missed and I'll add them to the OP.  

 

1. And so I was out of the oven and into the microwave - This is from the prologue. She's referring to her relationship with Joe as the oven and with Matty as a microwave. It's not hard to understand what she is trying to say here, but it's terrible on every single level. 

 

2. We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist - terrible line and simply doesn't work even if we pretend they declared that while they were high

 

3. I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever - same reason as the above

 

4. But you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave, and I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen - Lana does this name dropping very well, but with Taylor this line sounds simply jarring and confusing (possibly because we know who Jack is in this instance) 

 

5. At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger, and put it on the one people put wedding rings on - an absolutely diabolical way of saying "ring finger" 

 

6. Did you really beam me up in a cloud of sparkling dust just to do experiments on? - awful cosmos metaphors all over this song

 

7.  Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym - already a bad line on the surface of it, but once you realise what "down bad" slang actually means it makes it even worse coming from someone of Taylor's age

 

8. Fʌck it if I can't have him, Cause fʌck it I was in love. So fʌck you if I can't have us - swearing just for the sake of swearing. Sounds really jarring 

 

9. Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies - when thesaurus is your best friend

 

10. So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street - I get the witchery imagery, but the gallows? Really? Nothing ever in her career came close to being this threatening to be able to draw this analogy 

 

11. "Who's afraid of little old me?" You should be - A really bad one, but she really took cosplaying this line seriously with weekly variant threats in attempts to block yet another more popular album of the week by scamming her way to the top 

 

12. You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me - like really? Your childhood/career were that bad that an average person wouldn't survive an hour in your place?

 

13. And you deserve prison, but you won't get time - implying that someone deserves prison for breaking up with her. This has to be the worst line on the entire album

 

14. He jokes that it's heroin, but this time with an "E" - making fun of someone's drug addiction is never cool 

 

15. We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I'd say the 1830s but without all the racists - no, just no. Simply doesn't work in any context even if she's eventually realises that she wouldn't be happy in that decade either. 

 

16. You know how to ball, I know Aristotle - really bizarre way of saying she knows philosophy 

 

17. Brand new, full throttle, touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto - suddenly Spelling is Fun doesn't sound so bad

 

18. Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman, but she used to say she wished that you were dead - no explanation needed (i hope) 

 

19. In the age of him, she wished she was thirty, and made coffee every morning in a Frеnch press. Afterwards, she only atе kids' cereal - Taylor, what is this??? This sounds so odd and jarring on every level 

 

20. Even statues crumble if they're made to wait - Statues eventually crumble. They aren't made to wait either - they don't have a choice. This doesn't make sense on any level even if she refers to herself as a patient statue. 

 

21. Stopped trying to drill the safe - referring to trying to get through to Joe

 

All of those + the absolute lyrical disasters that are My Boy, Down Bad and So Long London - all three songs are stuffed with metaphors to the brim just for the sake of finding thematic metaphors - worst kind of writing. 

 

What Swifties don't understand is that the writing on this album pales in comparison with Folklore and Evermore and Red etc, and this was supposed to be her grand poetic adventure. With so many lyrical missteps this album can only be described as "mid" at best, and don't get me started on the production.....

 

 

Edited June 24, 20242 yr by NEX

This obsession isn't healthy. The album came out in April. Move on already. 

Are you that mad some Swifties came at you because they disagree with your opinion in the album thread? 

You missed "touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto"

 

 

Her words are like Chinese water torture

 

touch some grass?

And I'm supposed to believe that is the talent and songwriter of a generation?

 

No ma'am. 

It's kinda crazy how she went from folklmore to this kind of writing.

 

I hope TTPD is like Lover in the sense that TS12 will be a complete change-up cause...

 

Edit: there are obviously some gems on TTPD (most of which are on the anthology half). I'm mostly dragging the standard version.

 

Such a disappointment. She could've ChatGPT'd better lyrics

As a swiftie, I'm embarrassed. Thank God I didn't spend $ on the original album and all those 37 variants (and counting).

15 minutes ago, NEX said:

11. You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me - like really? Your childhood was that bad that an average person wouldn't survive an hour in your place?

Omg this is why her haters are so dumb. They can't comprehend the simplest metaphor.... 

This about the industry, not about her childhood home.... Jesus... 

Edited June 16, 20242 yr by Badgalbriel

10 minutes ago, NEX said:

11. You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me - like really? Your childhood was that bad that an average person wouldn't survive an hour in your place?

Also for someone who wants to claim to know about bad writing, a lesson on good reading might not be too bad. This is why reading in context instead of isolated sentences is a good thing, because only then might you have understood she's talking about the media circus that comes with being insanely famous like she's been since she was a teenager and the isolating feeling that comes with it. 

Edited June 16, 20242 yr by Klein

7 minutes ago, NEX said:

12. And you deserve prison, but you won't get time - implying that someone deserves prison for breaking up with her

this is some kind of reading comprehension i would expect from 5 year old kid, not adult person  

What a way to spend your Sunday morning. Yikes. 

11 minutes ago, NEX said:

1. We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist - terrible line and simply doesn't work even if we pretend they declared that while they were high

 

2. I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever - same reason as the above

 

3. But you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave, and I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen - Lana does this name dropping very well, but with Taylor this line sounds simply jarring and confusing (possibly because we know who Jack is in this instance) 

 

4. At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger, and put it on the one people put wedding rings on - an absolutely diabolical way of saying "ring finger" 

 

9. So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street - I get the witchery imagery, but the gallows? Really? Nothing ever in her career came close to being this threatening to be able to draw this analogy 

 

10. "Who's afraid of little old me?" You should be - A really bad one, but she really took cosplaying this line seriously with weekly variant threats in attempts to block yet another more popular album of the week by scamming her way to the top 

 

17. Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman, but she used to say she wished that you were dead - no explanation needed

These are some of the worst she's written in her career I fear, most of which are coming from the title track 

 

I agree with you mostly, but there are much worse lines in this album you could've included! LOTS of them. 

wow she sucks! thanks for sharing so i will never have to listen again since that leak a few days before release 

Taylor is masterful at gaslighting her fanbase. They think it's a lyrical masterpiece just because she named the album "Poet Department". 

so another OTH disguised as fan who got clocked in main thread so made base thread to drag her

lol

14 minutes ago, Klein said:

Are you that mad some Swifties came at you because they disagree with your opinion in the album thread? 

No ma'am. The album thread has turned into an echo chamber of unadulterated praise. Any form of criticism is extremely unwelcome. So forgive me for creating a thread instead of posting it there 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Badgalbriel said:

Omg this is why her haters are so dumb. They can't comprehend the simplest metaphor.... 

This about the industry, not about her childhood home.... Jesus... 

 

9 minutes ago, Klein said:

Also for someone who wants to claim to know about bad writing, a lesson on good reading might not be too bad. This is why reading in context instead of isolated sentences is a good thing, because only then might you have understood she's talking about the media circus that comes with being insanely famous like she's been since she was a teenager and the isolating feeling that comes with it. 

Oh wow, I may have gotten one wrong. Let's ignore the other 20/30 terrible lines. Typical Swiftie behaviour: deflection. 

It's funny because she used to have better lyrics as a teenager, or maybe it's just that they were more appropriate back then. 

18 minutes ago, Talento said:

You missed "touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto"

 

 

Just reading the lyrics is genuinely more entertaining than actually listening to the album.

Literally the worst songwriter of our generation.

25 minutes ago, NEX said:

8. Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies - when thesaurus is your best friend

 

so cringe when she does this... good songwriting is not about knowing the biggest words lmao