Ahead of Taylor Swift’s ‘THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT’ album launch in 12 days, Swifties have been piecing together different theories that makes up her 11th studio album. Landing on the 5 stages of heartbreak theory, Taylor Swift swiftly confirmed it by creating a series of exclusive playlists to explore each stage.
First Stage of Heartbreak: Denial
The ‘I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life’ playlist features carefully curated slightly delusional and love-drunk songs, including ‘Lavender Haze’, ‘Cruel Summer’, ‘Wildest Dreams’ and more.
On Apple Music, Taylor shared that this ‘Denial’ playlist is “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.”.
Add the ‘I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life’ playlist to your Apple Music library.
Second Stage of Heartbreak: Anger
Some of Taylor Swift’s best hits are shrouded in edgy defiance, and the ‘You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad Songs’ playlist explores the notion of anger perfectly.
Featuring songs such as ‘Vigilante Shit’, ‘tolerate it’, ‘Better Than Revenge (Taylor’s Version)’, ‘Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor’s Version)’ and more, the ‘Anger’ playlist encaptures some of the rawest emotions one can experience in love.
Taylor shares on Apple Music that “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.”.
Add the ‘You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad Songs’ playlist to your Apple Music library.
Third Stage of Heartbreak: Bargaining
In the 5 stages of heartbreak, bargaining is usually where one start to negotiate and contemplate to make themselves feel better. Taylor’s got your back with the ‘Am I Allowed to Cry?’ playlist, encapsulating the complicated feelings that come with bargaining brilliantly.
Zeroing in on a meticulous selection of songs including ‘The Great War’, ‘this is me trying’, ‘Death By A Thousand Cuts’, ‘Haunted (Taylor’s Version)’ and more.
Taylor explains, “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.”.
Add the ‘Am I Allowed to Cry?’ playlist to your Apple Music library.
Fourth Stage of Heartbreak: Depression
It’s easy to wallow in the fourth stage of heartbreak, and being clouded by sadness helps one process emotions better. The ‘Old Habits Die Screaming’ playlist features Taylor’s greatest sad songs including ‘champagne problems’, ‘Dear Reader’, ‘my tears ricochet’, Castles Crumbling (Taylor’s Version)’ and more.
Taylor expresses that in this playlist, “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.”
Add the ‘Old Habits Die Screaming’ playlist to your Apple Music library.
Fifth Stage of Heartbreak: Acceptance
Acceptance brings one to the finality of one’s loss, and this is perhaps the stage, where one can hope to find peace. The ‘I Can Do It With a Broken Heart’ playlist is enveloped in songs including ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid’, ‘august’, ‘Clean (Taylor’s Version)’, ‘Begin Again (Taylor’s Version)’ and more.
Wrapping up the 5 stages of heartbreak, Taylor shares that “Here we finally find acceptance and can start moving forward from loss or heartbreak. 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.”.
Add the ‘I Can Do It With a Broken Heart’ playlist to your Apple Music library.
Find all things Taylor on Apple Music here.
Taylor Swift’s ‘THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT’ launches on 19 April 2024. Pre-save it here.
