Taylor Swift's Fortnight

I've given myself the task of writing about one song a week for 2024 because, well, I think it'd be fun.

Taylor Swift's Fortnight

Well, hopefully the only mixed song review of the year.

Here's the thing, that I think lots of Taylor Swift fans disagree with: I find Swift's music lacks an emotional element. Her lyricism? Oh yeah, it's there in oodles. The music, as a whole, not so much. I stand by the idea that the artist must do anything to make the art correct. I don't care about intention after a while. Accidental beauty is a large part of art (this principle is extremely important to ambient music, for example). I find Taylor too steely and guarded most of the time; only in the songs concerning maddening lust does she unloose, show her flaws, and thereby show her virtues too. A nonpareil singer for sure, fantastic writer, but musician? What's frustrating is that all of the elements are there, but they don't come out as expression, which cannot be controlled, cannot be molded, cannot be bent, it only comes out as itself. I covered lots and lots of songs this year; my take is that expression comes in all sorts of forms, some incidental, all surprising. We recognize it by a genuine desire for the artist to express, not as a professional, not as a musician, but as a person. Truly great music is a construction of a new language, the artist's. Hard criteria certainly, but one we can intuit somewhat. "TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT" shares far too much tissue with her previous albums, and her previous albums share too much tissue with the others. Artists should refine a theme, fine, and the songs, from a technical perspective, just get better and better, but the music never elevates into Idea, Concept, something bigger than itself. I don't think Taylor has given everything to the music. Should she? Great question. The answer is hers to give, it's no one else's.

What's frustrating for the audience is that she keeps getting close. She does enough strange things, "TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT" a great example of that.

From one perspective, you could argue that she's focusing on all the wrong details. The "fortnight" aspect of the song is unimportant, which makes me think it's cute i.e. harmless. A fortnight is two weeks. The song is really driving at the fact that it's been a long time since she last touched her ex-lover. It makes more sense to just say "two weeks" at this point. In fact, you don't need to say anything, as in Grizzly Bear's single "Two Weeks" where the distance is implied and never stated. It comes across as Taylor saying, "Hey, this is a neat word." Then, she fixates on the word "kill" for some odd reason - the first use, "Your wife waters flowers, / I wanna kill her", second use, "My husband is cheating, / I wanna kill him." Isn't the obvious rhyme "I wanna bleed him"? Why not allow yourself some imagery?

But that's why Taylor is an interesting artist: she somehow pulls off the overall effect so well that the specifics are never as important (see: "tattooed golden retriever" of "The Tortured Poets Department"). That "fortnight" is used in a cute and non-critical way is important to the low-stakes, incidental nature of the song. You know, a natural expression of the thoughts she's having at the moment. She has that ability to do things so easily that you can't pin awkwardness on her. In fact, you can put interpretation on that ease. For example, the use of the word "fortnight", that "oh, I just learned this neat word just now" feeling of it, itself can be used as a way for the artist to make fun of themselves. Think Destroyer. If she decided to use it seriously, the word would be her gateway to artists and feelings of old. Think Morrissey ("Keats and Yeats are on your side, / while Wilde is on mine", "Cemetery Gates"). She instead chooses neither, neither emphasizing the self-conscious nature of the song nor tapping into creative veins hitherto alien and unavailable to her. She doesn't lock in.

We could dismiss that as her playing with a persona, as pop stars are wont to do, but it's hard to ignore the execution of the song. That trembling delivery of "All of this to say, I hope you're okay, but you're the reason -" makes the song instantly memorable, particularly the vulnerability around the "you're" and the slight and agonizing ascent to "reason". It's such a good vocal delivery for a Soft Cell ripoff; I daresay she out-Mitski's Mitski in "Be the Cowboy". The line "I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary" is corny on paper, but delivered from Taylor's mouth it sounds genuinely despairing. Then the refrain: "I love you, it's ruining my life", the -ife of "life" sung so sharply it feels like "knife". This is a lot of effort for a song. It's difficult to look past.

Speaking of Soft Cell, that stalking synth? Best fucking instrumental I've ever heard in a Taylor Swift song. She and the synth ratchet up so much tension. I've never felt nervous when listening to a Taylor Swift song (except maybe "Maroon"). It's horribly disappointing she doesn't give this story a proper ending. She devolves into Swift-isms, which is to emphasize the all-powerful nature of love, rather than reflect on the character - not herself, but a character - who allows themself to be consumed entirely by love. You know, focus on their flaws. Considering she was capable of creating this character who was supposed to be sent away and pretended to be a functioning alcoholic, it's frustrating she didn't finish the character's Gothic madness.

(Then there's the music video itself, which is cute. You can do something kitschy, while retaining the darkness and eroticism of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" or preciousness of The Smiths' "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" or the actual torture of Mitski's "Geyser". Not the bland German Expressionism of "Fortnight".)

How fair is it to compare this to SZA's "Kill Bill"? Taylor here harbors a desire to kill her ex-lover's new girl. Still, it's not a fair comparison at all, so I'll only make a comparison to one aspect. SZA commits to the fantasy. Has SZA ever, at one point in time, wanted to kill her ex and his girlfriend? Probably. Does that matter? No, it doesn't. The speculation, the emotion matters. She put the speculation into song. This is fiction. "You was at the farmers market with your perfect peach, / now I'm in the basement, planning home invasion, / now you lying face-down, / got me saying over a beat -" YOU ARE WITH SZA IN THESE LINES, THAT'S THE POWER OF MUSIC. SZA commits to the madness so you, the audience, do not have to. SZA's most popular song? "Snooze"? "I'd touch that fire for you, / I do that three, four times again, I testify for you" - would she really do any of these things?? But that's to show you her conviction, the intensity of the emotion, as much as Bob Marley shot the sheriff.

There needed to be more torture in this Tortured Poets Department. There doesn't need to be actual torture. Sure, most poets are - Holderlin, Yeats, Shelley - but not Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens. Americans, in particular, are pretty good at being boring and good poets at the same time. We feel life's enormity; we do not necessarily have to live through it; it is fine to merely stare and balk at it. (That's almost Dickinson to a T.) Taylor is never overwhelmed; Taylor is never confused; Taylor is never ecstatic at the immensity of life; she goes through every song rationally, she sings every word confidently. It's why she's admired. It's why I admire her: I noted, in "Shake It Off", she never gets down about things. But this was the wrong concept to continue that character; this was the right album to renew herself, add a little more color to her persona. That is what Taylor is missing: she needs to engage with how songs feel. She's got this down pat with her lyrics, but not with the overall effect of the music, which means Jack Antonoff really did fucking fry her brain with his microwaved music. Again, unfair to compare with SZA, but consider how SZA approaches her singing when juxtaposed to the instrumentals of "Seek & Destroy", "Snooze", "Nobody Gets Me", "Special". Her voice is merely an instrument, but what an instrument. (I suppose I should really get to writing about her.)

I intended not to write about songs I disliked for this year, which hopefully conveys how much I do like "Fortnight". I also like the titular "The Tortured Poets Department" in all its melancholy. (That "I'm so depressed I act like it's my birthday" in "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" is SO cheesy but I can't think of anyone except Taylor who can pull off the meltdown-on-a-hairpin delivery of that line. Who else sings with such meticulousness? Michael Jackson? George Michael?) There's a great song here, that only Taylor could execute. But she needed to refine it, return back to the studio with a desire to surprise, shock herself and her collaborators. She merely came out with a good song. This is beneath an artist of her caliber, because she's literally a once-in-a-generation talent. In her mid-thirties, she should be Elvis-ing the fuck out of the world, with less peanut butter and bacon sandwiches. So, in my backwards-ass way, I'm really coming out as supporting Swift. You may need to take a break from tour - no one really likes touring - and regaining the rights to your songs to refresh your creative batteries. As if she's reading this, anyway.