Taylor Swift Details How She Sees the 5 Stages of Heartbreak—and Shares Playlists for Each
Taylor Swift gave a not-so subtle hint that The Tortured Poets Department is a breakup album today. The singer released five playlists on Apple Music, each targeting a different stage of grief and heartbreak. She also shared her thoughts on each stage.
It’s worth noting that the names of the first four playlists are the quotes she included on her four different versions of The Tortured Poets Department.
Here, a breakdown of her thoughts, along with each collection of music she shared.
Denial
Of denial, she said, “This is a list of songs about getting so caught up in the idea of something that you have a hard time seeing the red flags, possibly resulting in moments of denial and maybe a little bit of delusion. Results may vary.”
The playlist is called “I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life,” which appeared on the cover of The Manuscript edition of Tortured Poets.
Listen to the denial playlist below:
Anger
When discussing the second stage of grief, Swift shared a little about her songwriting process. She said, “These songs all have one thing in common: I wrote them while feeling anger. Over the years, I’ve learned that anger can manifest itself in a lot of different ways, but the healthiest way that it manifests itself in my life is when I can write a song about it, and then oftentimes, that helps me get past it.”
The playlist is called “You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad Songs,” which appeared on the cover of The Bolter edition of Tortured Poets.
Listen to the anger playlist below:
Bargaining
For the third stage, Swift explained, “This playlist takes you through the songs that I’ve written when I was in the bargaining stage, times when you’re trying to make deals with yourself or someone that you care about, you’re trying to make things better, you’re oftentimes feeling really desperate, because oftentimes we have a gut intuition that tells us things are not going to go the way that we hope, which makes us more desperate, which makes us bargain more.”
The playlist is called “Am I Allowed to Cry?” which appeared on the cover of The Albatross edition of Tortured Poets.
Listen to the bargaining playlist below:
Depression
For the fourth stage playlist, Swift said, “We’re going to be exploring the feelings of depression that often lace their way through my songs. In times like these, I’ll write a song because I feel lonely or hopeless. And writing a song feels like the only way to process that intensity of an emotion. And while these things are really, really hard to go through, I often feel like when I’m either listening to songs or writing songs that deal with this intensity of loss and hopelessness, usually that’s in the phase where I’m close to getting past that feeling.”
The playlist is called “Old Habits Die Screaming,” which appeared on the cover of The Black Dog edition ofTortured Poets.
Listen to the depression playlist below:
Acceptance
For the final stage, Swift assembled more hopeful songs. “Here we finally find acceptance and can start moving forward from loss or heartbreak,” she said. “These songs represent making room for more good in your life, making that choice because a lot of time when we lose things, we gain things, too.”
The playlist is called “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” which is the same name as one of the tracks on the album.
Listen to the acceptance playlist below: