Taylor Swift’s “TTPD”: Religious imagery for a spiritually fused age
The Tortured Poets section talks about the Good Samaritan, Jehovah’s Witnesses, altar sacrifices, and prophecy.
News article by Kathryn Post and Madeline McCrae | Religion News Service
When pop icon Taylor Swift revealed her religion in the 2020 Netflix documentary “Miss Americana,” she was clear.
“I live in Tennessee. I’m a Christian. That’s not what we stand for,” she said in 2018 of Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn’s opposition to the Violence Against Women Act and LGBTQ rights. He spoke in response to the opposition.
But these days, Swift’s beliefs seem more fluid. Her religious references are as eclectic as a Brooklyn thrift store, with well-worn Christian tropes juxtaposed with a more bohemian hodgepodge of witchcraft, divination, and paganism. Her latest work, The Tortured Poets Division, is a patchwork of religious allusions, from the Good Samaritan and Jehovah’s Witnesses to altar sacrifices and prophecy.
Whatever her personal beliefs, the mix is on display on this expansive 31-song double album (which racked up 300 million plays in 24 hours and became Spotify’s most streamed album in a single day) The doctrine represents a religious fusion of the religious writs of Millennials and Gen Z. big. Approximately 28% of U.S. adults recently identified themselves as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular,” according to a 2021 survey from the Springtide Research Institute, which surveyed a sample of 13- to 25-year-olds. It has been shown that 51% of the population uses tarot cards or cards. Engaged in fortune telling.
Swift knows her audience well and knows they dabble in everything from spells to astrology. Her talent has always been in finding common purpose with her listeners’ curiosity, heartbreak, and longing. And make no mistake, Wicca’s inherent feminism appeals to both Swifties and Swifties alike.
Although Christianity may no longer be the primary faith framework for her songs, Swift’s strict moral system remains on TTPD, and whether it’s a crucifixion or a witch’s burning, Swift’s strict moral system remains, whether it’s crucifixion or the burning of a witch, her own metaphorical resurrection. Celebrate while punishing bad boyfriends and finger-wagging church ladies.
Here’s how religion features in Swift’s latest contribution to the expanding canon.
Christianity
Although many of Swift’s early references to Christianity and religion follow the traditional good versus evil dichotomy, the references in TTPD criticize Christian hypocrisy and make existential statements about the nature of guilt and sin. I’m working on a problem.
When Swift sings about dating a “wild boy” in “But Daddy I Love Him,” she sarcastically calls on God to “save your most critical creeps,” He scoffs at “Sarah and Hannah at their Sunday best” who are just trying to save their children. People they hate. A similar theme appears in “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” which fans speculate is about Matt Healy, lead singer of the band 1975. are doing. Swift describes how people “shake her head” and say “God” at her relationships. Please help her,” but she says to those who doubt, “Your good Lord doesn’t have to lift a finger,” because she, and only she, can help this “dangerous.” Because it can turn a man into an angel.
In Cassandra, Swift continues to criticize critical Christians. She denounces the “Christian chorus line” who “spare no prayer for my soul” and quotes the Gospel of John with the line, “When the first stone is cast, a cry goes up.” (In John 8, Jesus tells the religious leaders who are about to stone a woman caught in adultery that anyone without sin should “first stone her.”) Masu.)
On the album’s ninth track, “Guilty as Sin?,” Swift blurs the traditional lines between sin and sainthood as she fantasizes about a lover. “What if I roll the stone away? / They’re going to crucify me anyway,” Swift sings. “What if the way you hold me/is actually sacred?” At the end of the song, she chooses “You and I…religiously.”
Swift also plays with themes of sin in “The Prophecy,” flipping the script on the Biblical Garden of Eden story. “I was cursed as Eve bit me / Oh, was it a punishment?” ”, implying that Eve’s agency in the scenario that causes sin is limited. Swift describes himself as another victim of fate, stating that he is “cursed” and wants to “redo the prophecy.”
magic
Since Swift’s 2017 album Reputation, the songwriter has turned to witch-hunt metaphors to describe her experiences being demonized by the media, Kanye, the Kardashians, and various ex-boyfriends. “They’re burning all the witches, even if you’re not a witch/So shine on me,” she sings on Reputation’s “I Did Something Bad.” Swift’s references to witchcraft sparked the most speculation in late 2020, when she released multiple remixes of her witch-themed song “Willow.” The song’s music and choreography from her hit Eras tour feature a cloaked figure dancing in the woods with an orb.
In TTPD’s “Cassandra,” which some have interpreted as a clapback to her feud with Kim Kardashian, Swift builds on her early witch-hunting imagery with an unmissable reference to being disbelieved and burned alive. It’s included. “There’s a riot in the streets / They’re shrieking when ‘Burn that bitch,'” she sings. “So they set my life on fire, I’m afraid/Do you believe me now?” she later added.
In “The Prophecy,” the image of witchcraft becomes even clearer. Here, Swift laments the “prophecies” that seem to dictate her turbulent love life. When her prayers did not yield a soulmate, she chose to rely on the power of other women rather than traditional religion, singing and relying on witchcraft and other forms of spirituality.
“And I look unsteady / Gathered with the saints around the magician’s table / Great women have faith / But even statues crumble if they wait,” she sings.
paganism
While there is often overlap between witchcraft and paganism, Swift incorporates references to broader, more ancient forms of paganism and mythology on her latest album. On “So Long London,” which is almost universally interpreted as a song about her ex Joe Alwyn, she sings, “You died on the altar waiting for the proof/You brought us to God in the bluest of days.” “I offered it as a sacrifice,” he sings. In the song “Peter,” which is full of references to J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” Swift invokes the “goddess of timing,” who tells her and those who have been waiting for her to “tell lies.” “Isn’t this the case?” he wonders. And on “ThanK you aIMee,” a diss track of sorts that incorporates Kim Kardashian’s name in the title, Swift alludes to the Greek myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is a man punished by God to roll a rock up a hill forever. .
“I pushed each rock up the hill / Your words are still just ringing in my head,” Swift sings, explaining the futility of trying to overcome a rivalry. do.
Finally, Swift dedicates an entire song to pagan mythology on “Cassandra.” The song is rich in religious references and encapsulates the album’s overall syncretism, ultimately revealing Swift as the Trojan priestess whose prophecies were never believed. The song is about a person related to.
“So they killed Cassandra first, because she feared the worst/And tried to tell the town/So they filled my cell with snakes, I’m afraid/Do you believe me now?” ?”
grab bag
Swift’s eclectic nods to religion don’t end there. In “The Smallest Man Ever”, Swift incredulously describes his ex-girlfriend staring into her “shining eyes” in his “Jehovah’s Witness suit” . This is a reference to the formal attire that Jehovah’s Witnesses wear when going door to door. To share their faith. Swift also incorporates images of angels and demons in “Albatross,” and in “The Prophecy,” the “cards on the table” and the allusion to spending money “to make someone say it’s okay” are similar to tarot. There appear to be veiled references to cards and tarot cards. Other forms of fortune telling.
Swift hasn’t said anything publicly about her faith since the now-famous 2018 documentary footage, but her stock of religious references continues to grow, adding to her generation’s cyclical sacred routine. It is clear that you are comfortable with it.
Of course, some see Swift and her countless followers as a religion in and of itself, but that faith group hasn’t yet entered the artist’s treasure trove of spiritually saturated lyrics.
