Taylor Swift surprised fans with a secret “double album” expansion of The Tortured Poets Department early Friday morning. The expansion, released two hours after the initial album, features 15 more songs titled The Anthology.
“It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” Swift wrote on Instagram. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”
The singer-songwriter unveiled her initial 16-song album at midnight ET on Friday. Two tracks are collaborations with Post Malone and Florence + The Machine. There are also four bonus tracks — “The Manuscript,” “The Bolter,” “The Albatross” and “The Black Dog” — that are featured on different vinyl versions of the album. The four tracks, along with 11 other new songs, are included in The Anthology.
On Instagram, Swift called the album “an anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time — one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.”
“This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up,” she continued. “There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”
Physical copies of the new album reportedly include a handwritten poem Stevie Nicks wrote for Swift, featured on the LP gatefolds or CD booklets.
The poem’s header reads, “For T — and me…” and throughout the poem, Nicks seemingly sets the stage for songs about heartbreak.
“He was in love with her/ Or at least she thought so/ She was brokenhearted/ Maybe he was too/ Neither of them knew. She was way too hot to handle/ He was way too high to try —/ He couldn’t even see her/ He wouldn’t open his eyes/ She was on her way to the stars/ He didn’t say goodbye,” the poem reads.
“He really can’t answer her,” the poem, dated Sept. 13, continues. “He’s afraid of her/ He’s hiding from her/ And he knows — that he’s hurting her/ She tells the truth/ She writes about it/ She’s an informer/ He’s an x-lover/ There’s nothing there for her/ She’s already gone.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Nicks rep for comment.
Swift also gives a shout out to Nicks in her song “Clara Bow” with the lyric, “You look like Stevie Nicks in ’75, the hair and lips.”
Ahead of the album’s release, Swift revealed that the album’s first single would be “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone. “I’ve been such a huge fan of Post because of the writer he is, his musical experimentation and those melodies he creates that just stick in your head forever. I got to witness that magic come to life firsthand when we worked together on ‘Fortnight,’” Swift wrote on Instagram alongside a photo with Post Malone.
Spotify also revealed Thursday that the album became the most presaved album Countdown Page in the history of the audio streamer.
April 19, 8:05 a.m. Updated with Stevie Nicks poem.
