Taylor’s body of work revolves around love and what it means in her life. She documents her experiences with such fervor, it becomes her religion and the thesis to her life. Taylor once left her future to chance, but grew to find power in choosing it for herself. But no amount of planning, scheming, or praying can alter the course of love and relationships.

Love as a religion

In her early eras, she had faith in love and often prayed to find it. There’s an innocence in this perception of love, that love is enough. Outside forces can try, but with enough determination love will find a way. In these years, Taylor is naïve, and the villains of her love stories are clearer.

Hey Stephen | Cause I can’t help it if you look like an angel
Untouchable | Say that we’ll be together… Come on, come on, little taste of heaven
Ours | I’ll fight their doubt and give you faith

It’s during Red that her definition of love expands. She conceptualizes love as a sacred experience and one of rebirth and renewal, but discovers the hells created in its absence. The game of love chews her up, spits her out, and leaves her worse for wear. Through love and the toll it takes on her, she experiences the divine.

Holy Ground | And right there where we stood was holy ground
Everything Has Changed | All I know is a new found grace, all my days I’ll know your face
Red | Faster than the wind, passionate as sin
Sad, Beautiful, Tragic | And you’ve got your demons, and darling, they all look like me

Taylor’s desire for love is tied to the public’s perception of her, most clearly evidenced in her 1989 era. While she satirizes the public’s perception of her through Blank Space, the rest of the album demonstrates how deeply she wants it. Taylor wants to keep her good girl image, but knows that she will be demonized for who she loves and how she tries to keep it. Her childhood beliefs hold true here, that if she endures… perhaps it’s worth it.

Blank Space | I can show you incredible things…gagic, madness, heaven, sin
Style | I’ve got that good girl faith in a tight little skirt
Style | Long drive, could end in burning flames or paradise
Wildest Dreams | I thought heaven can’t help me now, nothing lasts forever
Wildest Dreams | He’s so tall and handsome as hell, he’s so bad but he does it so well
Slut! | If they call me a slut, it might be worth it for once

When Taylor’s reputation tanks, she sings of love as her salvation. It’s a piece of paradise that she creates in a world determined to believe the worst in her. The security she develops during this time gives her the confidence to declare love as the religion of her life in… Lover. Despite her own insecurities and uncertainties, she wants it to define her. She believes in the power of love.

Don’t Blame Me | For you, I’d fall from grace (For you, I’d go through everything I already went through)
Don’t Blame Me | Something happened for the first time in the darkest little paradise
Cruel Summer | Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes
Cruel Summer | No rules in breakable heaven
False God | Honey, hell is when I fight with you
False God | I Know heaven’s a thing, I go there when you touch me
False God | They say the road gets hard when you’re led by blind faith
False God | Even if it’s a false god, I’d still worship this love
Daylight | I want to be known for the things I love, not the things I’m afraid of

folklore continues this trend of love as her religion, but misgivings begin to surface in hoax. These hesitations and questions continue in evermore, and she begins to wonder if the paradise promised is a lie. As a side effect of the pandemic, people comment far less on her personal life and the public’s perception of her becomes more positive.

invisible string | Hell is the journey but it brought me heaven
peace | the devil’s in the details but you’ve got a friend in me, would it be enough if I could never give you peace?
hoax | This faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in
tolerate it | I made you my temple, my mural, my sky and now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life
ivy | I’d meet you where the spirit meets the bone in this faith forgotten land
evermore | Do you miss the rogue that coaxed you into paradise and left you there

By Midnights, Taylor is critically acclaimed and experiencing a career high. There are few mentions of religion here, but the few mentions are clear. In Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, she knows that people have criticized her for seeking love and that she should have known better for dating a grown man… But no one asked why an experienced older man was dating an inexperienced young girl? She became responsible for someone else’s poor judgment and got dragged through the mud for it.

Anti-Hero | She’s screaming up at us from hell (meaning that she doesn’t believe she’ll end up in heaven and that she’s a bad person)
Midnight Rain | My town is a wasteland…but for some it was paradise (Town to her has sometimes referred to Hollywood, and it’s a desolate hell… But some people think it’s heaven)
The Great War | We drew up some good faith treaties (To do something in good faith is to believe in the other party’s best intent, but we also know this song is about love and fighting for it)
Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve | …and I damn sure never would have danced with the devil
Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve | The god’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven
Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve | You’re a crisis of my faith, would’ve could’ve should’ve, if I only played it safe

Despite her wildly successful Eras Tour, she went through two high-profile breakups. The Tortured Poets Department is the conflict between her and the public’s expectations of her. As mentioned in many of her previous songs, paradise is found in love, but what happens when the public doesn’t love who she does? She becomes determined to fix him, so she sets the wheels in motion to rehabilitate his image so people can see what she does.

But Daddy I Love Him | God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what’s best for me
But Daddy I Love Him | You ain’t gotta pray for me
Guilty as Sin? | What if I roll the stone away? They’re gonna crucify me anyway. What if the way you hold me is actually what’s holy?
Guilty as Sin? | If long suffering propriety is what they want from me, they don’t know how you’ve haunted me so stunningly. I choose you and me, religiously.
The Albatross | The devil that you know looks now more like an angel (This song is about people believing she’s as bad as they say, but she is capable of saving her new lover)
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) | He had a halo of the highest degree, he just hadn’t met me yet
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) | But your good Lord doesn't need to lift a finger…I can fix him, no really I can
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) | They shake their heads saying “God help her” when I tell them he’s my man

The public wants Taylor to reflect perfect values perfectly, and that’s too much to put on one person. When her lover creates the same hell she’s gone through again, it validates the public’s opinion of him. He is as bad as they say, and despite her own efforts, perhaps she is too. Taylor needs to reckon with the fact that she chose this life of celebrity and fame, but in doing so, has consigned herself to a life where she might not find the love she writes about.

Down Bad | For a moment I was heaven struck
loml | When your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes
loml | Well you took me to hell too
So Long London | You swore that you loved me, but where was the clues? I died on the altar waiting for the proof?
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived | Was any of it true? Gazing at me starry eyed in your Jehovah’s Witness suit, who the hell was that guy? (He came as a messenger bringing the promise of salvation/heaven, but he was a liar like the rest of them)
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived | I would have died for your sins, instead I just died inside
The Black Dog | And hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons, even if I die screaming, I hope you hear it.

On planning and scheming

For a long time, Taylor sang that fate and chance played influenced the course of her life. As she’s grown, she’s taken more responsibility and credit for her own successes. In addition to faith, Taylor began describing her love as crimes of passion, a type of planning and scheming to get what she wants.

But Daddy I Love Him: Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid, tendrils tucked into a woven braid
Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus: I changed into goddesses, villains, and fools… Changed plans, and outfits, and rules
The Alchemy: I circled you on a map
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?: … Put narcotics into all of my songs
Florida!!!: You can beat the heat if you can beat the charges too
imgonnagetyouback: Pick your poison babe, I’m poison either way (like a checkmate)
Guilty as Sin?: I dream of cracking locks

A counterpoint to all her scheming in The Tortured Poets Department is that her best laid plans don’t always come to fruition and blows up in her face. This album is perhaps the first time that she’s mentioned her failed plans and how she has dealt with the emotional consequences of them.

loml: A con man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived: You deserve prison but you won’t get time
Cassandra: So they killed [her] first cause she feared the worst
The Prophecy: Please, I’ve been on my knees… Who do I have to speak to about if they can redo the prophecy?
The Black Dog: All my longings stay unspoken… [along with] all those best laid plans.

On failed love

What is difference planning and scheming and what does it have to do with love? Planning and scheming are ways to get what you want, to control a situation, to manipulate it your benefit. We plan hangouts with our friends because we want to enjoy each other’s company, our plans are aligned. A villain schemes the hero’s downfall because they want to win, their plans are in conflict. Yet, a villain is the hero in her own story. She wants to win as much as the hero does. Is the villain scheming or planning for her success?

Both, the difference is in our perception of it.

Taylor is perceived to be manipulative and a genius. In this the specific example of Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?, “narcotics in all her songs”… Why would Taylor put drugs in her songs? She writes every lyric and meticulously orchestrates the production. Is she a villain for drugging her audience like a cult leader does? Is she a hero for capturing our feelings so accurately? Does it matter? She is the mastermind behind why her partners love her and her fans adore her. If you are a fan, you accept it. If you aren’t, you loath it, an unintentional side effect of her cleverness.

Mastermind | What if I told you I’m a mastermind? And now you’re mine, it was all by design… cause I’m a mastermind.
Mastermind | If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Mastermind | …I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since, to make them love me and make it seem effortless. (about lovers and and fans)
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? | That I’m fearsome and I’m wretched and I’m wrong, and I put narcotics in all of my songs

To tie it to the religious imagery, Taylor believes herself to have more power than God. She once left love up to chance, but she has grown to understand that she has more authority than it in her own life. In The Tortured Posts Department, she believes her planning and scheming can improve this man… But she can’t fix him. Her faith in love is tested, but that also means faith in herself. This choice, and the unintended consequences her previous choices, have lead her to this conclusion: that she will never find love, and she planned and schemed and wrote her own fate.

The Prophecy | I got cursed like Eve got bitten (Eve chose to bite, and Taylor chose the curse of fame)
The Prophecy | A greater woman wouldn’t beg, but I looked to the sky and said, “Please, I’ve been on my knees, change the prophecy.”
Come in with the Rain | Talk to the wind, talk to the sky, talk to the man with the reasons why (This line makes me wonder if she was rerecording debut at the time, fun)
The Prophecy | A greater woman has faith [in love], but even statues crumble if they’re made to wait
The Prophecy | Pad around when I get home, I guess a lesser woman would’ve lost hope
Dear Reader | If you knew where I walking, to a house, not a home, all alone ‘cause nobody’s there

If she can give it her all and still end up alone, perhaps she is the problem. She is the reason she succeeds and she is the reason her relationships fail. The choices she’s made about sharing her belief in love and her emotional journey has consigned her to a life where it’s up for public consumption. It’s hard to be everything to everyone. She asked us nicely not to do that once before, and The Tortured Poets Department is the first time she’s said enough for her own desires to be held to the standards of god.

But Daddy I Love Him | Too high a horse for a simple girl to rise above it
Dear Reader | You should find another guiding light
Clara Bow | It’s hell on earth to be heavenly

I don’t think this changes her belief in love at all, but her faith has definitely been shaken. She believes in love and masterminds its machinations, yet no amount of planning and scheming and belief in it can help her keep it. Despite her best efforts to fix him or change herself, her partners might have plans of their own. How heartbreaking is it when your lover still will not choose you.