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We wrap up the timeline of the Masters that started in Pt. 2 and focus primarily on the events that occurred from 2021-2024 (i.e. the Rerecordings). We also discuss the surprise drop of 5 official Apple Music playlists by Taylor that represent the 5 stages of heartbreak (based on a fan theory that TTPD would mirror the 5 stages of grief). We end the episode by wrapping up our TTPD draft picks in prep for the album's release on April 19!
Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube [Our handle: @tspodnetwork]
For more of TSPN, visit our website at www.tspodnetwork.com
Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube [Our handle: @tspodnetwork]
For more of TSPN, visit our website at www.tspodnetwork.com
Creators & Guests
Host
Anna
Host
Jessi
What is TSPN | Taylor Swift Fan Published Podcast?
We are Jessi & Anna, 2 SwiftTokers who spend our free time down the rabbit holes of Taylor Swift’s art, analyzing lyrics, recognizing patterns, and hunting for Easter eggs. Our main goal is to be informative, insightful, and reflective about Taylor’s art and her impact on pop culture. This is designed to be a fun, stress-free podcast where you can come hang with us weekly as we talk all things Taylor.
This podcast is an independent and unauthorized fan publication. The podcast & its assets are in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the artist or any of the people mentioned or depicted in its content.
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Hey lovers, welcome to TSPN. All right, so today we've got a lot to cover. We are going to start by finishing the timeline for the master's re-recording debacle, right? So we released a two hour long episode which is labeled the master's part two where Jesse got from about the sale of the masters all the way up until the end of 2020. So we can do like a. quick little recap on some of the hot touch points there. And then we're gonna get right into the timeline so that we can finish that out for you. We are also going to talk about the Apple playlist drop that Taylor did this past weekend with the Tortured Poets department coming out here in a little bit less than two weeks. And I do wanna say with that, that just happened a few days ago. We are recording on Monday, April 8th. So happy solar eclipse day. Um, but we are, we've got a lot coming up this next week. So obviously the torture poet's department, Jesse and I are going to be in South Carolina. We've got, um, to finish the lyrical analysis. So there's a lot happening. So if anything drops specific like the Apple music playlist that Taylor dropped over the weekend. and we do not cover it on the pod. Check out our TikToks. Jessie Swift Talk does a lot. We'll maybe post some to the TS Pod Network TikTok, but it's gonna be really hard for Jessie and I to keep up with all the action that's about to unroll, especially as we come up to the album release, right? Like we expect almost every day there will probably be something. There was even some stuff today with the typewriter potential lyrics being released. So... Just know that our episodes are not gonna be the most up to date with that level of detail. So if you're like, oh my gosh, I'm dying to know what Anna or Jesse has to say about X, Y, or Z, we'll do our best in the next couple of weeks to try and be posting more actively to TikTok, just so that you guys can get that without it being a week behind when it actually occurred. And then the final thing that we're going to cover today after we talk about the Apple Music playlist and some of the things with TTPD is we're going to finish out our Tortured Poets Department draft. I'm really excited about this. And so what we'll do is we will finish it out for you. And then that way on Friday, April 19th, when the album comes out, we will have all of those ready for you to vote on the website. Once you listen to the album and you actually have a judgment on how good these songs are, you're gonna choose between Jessie or I, which one of us has the better team. And then real quick, before we get into the masters, I do wanna announce that on April 19th, we will have a very special guest. KJ Miller will be joining us and we are actually recording that here soon. So we are going to do a ton of fun background with her. If you don't follow KJ yet on TikTok, she has grown a huge following. She does a lot with Beyonce. She even did the series like Beyonce for Swifties, which is like really helpful where she breaks it down like as if we're learning about Beyonce in the same way that a lot of Swiftie creators treat Taylor's work. And she's gonna come on and this is her first really rollout of a new album as a Swiftie. So not only will we hear her story of becoming a Swiftie and really blowing up on TikTok surrounding some of her lyrical analysis and things she was doing early on with Taylor's work, but this is her first time with a Taylor album, right? So we're gonna have a little party. We're gonna celebrate tortured poets. And so obviously that will be a little bit prerecorded. So when you're listening on the album release day, that will be a prerecorded episode, but we're really hoping to jam pack it with fun and just celebrate the launch of the album with you on that Friday. And then of course, Jessie and I leading after the album release, we'll have plenty of other, you know, reaction footage, lyrical analysis. Like we're gonna be slaving away for you guys once the album's out. So just kind of hang tight as we get through these next few weeks, but without further ado. we've got a jam-packed episode for today. So before we get started though with the Masters, Jesse, let's give a little update on Hazel, because for those who have been following along, we had to skip a week here with this Masters part one, part two. So if you're going back, you gotta go back a couple of weeks to kind of get caught up. But last week, Jesse was out because her dog. was sick. So do you want to give us a quick update on how Hazel's doing and how you're doing overall? Oh my goodness. Yes. Well, shout out to you, Anna, because you did a fabulous job covering by yourself. I feel so bad. I was just not in the right space to record. We literally had about 48 hours where we did not know if she was going to make it or not. And she's only two, two and a half years old. She's a golden doodle and she's my baby. She's my dog. Yeah, I won't get into all the gory details, but she just, it happened so suddenly and so fast and she was coughing up stuff she should not be coughing up out of her lungs. No signs or symptoms prior. We took her to the emergency vet, barely made it. She wasn't even walking. And they saved her life. She made almost a full recovery. So she is hoarse, like her voice is like hoarse when she barks. Other than that, she's coughing a little bit with nothing coming up. She's on lots of medications. She had what they think is a bacterial pneumonia. So it was so scary. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It was terrifying. She was in the emergency room for two nights, I think, two or three nights. And we got to visit her, but she was very lethargic. And now she's probably, I'd say, 95% back to herself. So thank God. Thank you for all of your love and support too. I got so many messages and oh, it just, yeah. Yeah. Well, and honestly, the lovers can wait on the Masters Part 3. Everyone was very gracious and yeah, there may be times where I have something going on and it's a last minute thing. So we appreciate all the love Ultimately, the show must go on. So I kind of got tired of my own voice after doing a whole 60 minutes editing back a whole 60 minutes. I'm glad you're back so that it's, you know, split a little bit here. All right, great. Well, let's get started with the masters part three here. Okay, so If you guys watched, we've done a couple parts of this already. The first time I started talking about it, I talked about the difference between Scott Borschetta and Scooter Braun. And then we just went into kind of the meat and bones of what happened to Taylor's masters, why doesn't she own them and why is she re-recording? I really just did a one-on-one on all that. So. we kind of got to the point of it was a lot of back and forth. So there's a lot of back and forth going on between Scott Borsetta, Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records, and then Taylor Swift and her camp and her wanting to own her own masters, them telling her no, them trying to get her to sign an NDA that she did not want to sign. It's a lot. So I would suggest you guys go back and look at, watch that before. you listen to this part because it might be kind of confusing. So I left off on her releasing Evermore, December 11th, 2020. So April 9th of 2021, Taylor releases the first re-record. So that would be Fearless TV. I think she released Fearless, Taylor's version first to kind of say or show everyone that, hey, I'm Fearless and I'm going to do this. That was kind of what I got from that, the symbolic nature of that release. Um, yep. Fearless leader, you know? Um, also at this point in time, remember Scooter Braun was toting around her masters around town, trying to sell them and telling people that she's bluffing. She's not going to do it. She's not going to rerecord to try to get them unloaded because he knew she'd rerecord. Was this the same time though? Wait, wait, you're talking about April of 2021 was when Fearless or was that in 2020? He sold them off again in October of 2020. So he did successfully sell them. I should clarify that he successfully sold them off, but as he was saying she wasn't going to rerecord, he did not think she'd do it. So she kind of called it. So her decision to start with Fearless and all of that was before he had the ability to sell them to Shamrock. Yep, yep, yep. That makes sense. Yep. And Fearless did really well. I mean, Fearless Taylor's version did really well. What I think it did ultimately is get people really excited for the other ones. Because if you, I don't remember as much hype about Fearless TV coming out as I do like Red TV and then Speak Now TV and you know, 89 TV. Like it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, people didn't really know what to expect either. And I actually love that she started with Fearless, which is her second album. So just kind of thinking through, like, are these going to sound the same? Is she going to sound the same? Is she going to mix it up? Is it going to be kind of a new version? And so going that far back in her catalog and just showing like, no, I'm going to stick to the original production and try and mirror a lot of the same vocals, kind of set the tone for us. And then the vault tracks, too. I don't know that we really realized. what kind of vault tracks or how many treasures would be hiding in the vault tracks. So that was also kind of, again, once you do it once, then people get really, really excited for the rest. But yeah, I do remember it coming out. And those were my questions was like, how different will this sound? And is it really that big of a deal? You know, is it just gonna be the album again? And obviously it was a big deal. And the vault tracks definitely make that happen for us. I do think it's got a lit. I mean, you can tell I can tell the difference just because it's mixed and it's produced by Jack Antonoff and the originals were not. So from Fearless going forward, she has produced all her albums with Jack. And I don't know why she made the decision not to go back to Shellback and Max Martin for that and just choose Jack. I don't think Shellback and Max Martin were on Fearless though. I think their first one with her was Red. But to the same point. I don't remember who the producers were then on Fearless. I'd have to look it up. Yeah, but to that same point, I mean, not only is their newer production, I mean, the quality of music gets better. I mean, that album was released 28, 2008? Yeah. Yeah, 2008. So, I mean, to fast forward to 2021. 11 years, 12 years, 13 years. Yeah. And she did a really good job. Do you think she chose Fearless because it was 13 years after the original? Probably, knowing Taylor. I mean, yeah, it was really good. I don't think it did as well as some of the subsequent re-recordings did just because I just don't think people knew what to expect. Like you said, Okay, this is what we're doing. But then she had a lot of success with it. So then June 18th of 21, so about two months later, she announces Red Taylor's version and she announced it on Scooter Braun's 40th birthday. Love that. We love our petty queen. We do. We do love our petty queen. Like what can I do to ruin? Scooter's 40th birthday. I'll announce Red, Taylor's version. And that was far in advance. I believe she was going to release that on November 19th, but then she moved it back to November 12th for Adele because Adele was releasing her new album. So she released it a week early. But to go from an announcement in June to a release in November, Like that's not really heard of that often. That's a long time. Yeah, it really is. It really is. Yeah. And one the other. Just because she wanted to announce it on his birthday. She probably fucking did. She did. Well, and also the rev up for the Red re-release too, I feel like she had a lot more runway. And there was a lot more for us to kind of get excited about, especially the rumors of the 10 minute version, maybe being part of it. I remember that time being probably because it was so long that I remember it more than the other ones. Definitely. And like doing the vault. I mean, she did the vault for Fearless. But like... We were more excited about the vault. And I just remember being more hyped about that album in general. And it's gotten better with each one, the hype around it. And then the inclusion of Babe, which was originally saying, it was Taylor's song, right? She wrote it for Red, didn't release it with Red, but Babe was then given to Sugarland and she did duet on that. but then you've got Better Man, which was released by Little Big Town. So like the rumors that those were gonna be vault tracks and we were gonna get Taylor's full version with just her voice. Like for me, that was really exciting because at least we knew. Like obviously we're gonna love all the vault tracks because we're Swifties, but some of them we glue onto more than others. And those two, like being anticipated, I remember being like, those are some of the first that I jumped to whenever we turned it on. I... My favorite song of hers of all time is All Too Well. So when I listened to the 10 minute version, I, my jaw was on the floor. Like I, I can't even listen to the regular version anymore. I have to listen to the 10 minute version. I don't know about anybody else, but I can't do it. I have to listen to the 10 minute. I didn't listen to the 10 minute version right away because I knew it wasn't ready. Like I like legitimately, I don't think I listened to it for a couple of days. Like I just, yeah, because I knew it's one of my favorite songs as well. And I just like wasn't, I don't know what I was going through in my life, if I was stressed at work or if I actually had some shit going on, but I just remember being like, I am not in a place where I'm ready to absorb this. I went straight to it. It's a fucking masterpiece. That is her magnum opus, like right now. Like I think, I mean, I can't think of a, she has so many wonderful, amazing songs, but I cannot think of a song for me that beats it. Yeah, well, and it's really like even when she sings it on the tour, like when I think about the Airstorm movie, it is I mean, she looks beautiful. I mean, she's giving Queen vibes like, like when she sings that for 10 fucking minutes, like it is iconic. And obviously, the lyrics stand on their own. But I just think the fact that she had a 10 minute version, and she released it that many years later, and, and it's on her tour, like it's iconic. It is. And honestly, like I made sure to pay when I was at the show, the concert, I made sure to pay like a lot of attention to what was happening because that was around the time when people were saying they were getting like amnesia from the show. So I wanted to like make sure I remembered a lot. And that was one part that really sticks out to me that I remember because we were up further on the stage. So when we were watching her sing that we were behind her and we just saw behind her and then above her was a full moon and we were at Soldier Field, so it's an open dome and it was just spiritual, it was like surreal. Mm-hmm, yeah, so it was witch allegations. It was incredible. I love it. All right, I had this that I wanted to add in here just in case it rings a bell for anybody or it's important, but... In September of 2021, she wore a dress called the Esther dress in shamrock by reformation, which just sticks out to me because as you guys know, shamrock holdings has her work. So anytime she has anything on that's a shamrock or shamrock related, we need to like clock that. So I don't know what that meant or what it was for. It just September 2021. She had on a Shamrock dress. Yeah, maybe it was like her first clue to Shamrock Holdings owning it. Cause we didn't, did we know right away? We did. Yeah, yeah. But I think it's for, I've always said that I think she's gonna end up owning her masters at some point. So that could be a clue to that. Oh, like she started making the deals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Like obviously Shamrock owning it was. a fact and not going to change. But yeah, if she started feeling as though that was going to be her pathway to earning it, then maybe she would start Easter egging those Shamrock clues. And I'm going to talk a lot more about her owning her own masters or the fact that I think she's going to own her own masters when we get into the lyrical analysis next time of all this, because to me, it's in the lyrics. If I ever have a theory or I can't, you know, come up with something or I'm stuck on something, I always, always just go back to the lyrics. And that helps. The brick, you will shit if she says the word shamrock anywhere on Tortured Poets department. I cannot wait. Oh, I will lose it. Yeah, I will lose it. We'll call 911. Yep. Yeah, so fun fact, Jesse and I will be together if you haven't caught that for the Torture Poets release. So we'll have some footage, some reactions, all of that. We likely won't be able to put it on YouTube. You have to pay for licensing rights for YouTube and you have to also be a paid creator on YouTube. So hello, go follow us and subscribe if you don't already, because that's one of the things that it would open up for us is the ability to do reaction videos on YouTube. But we'll post stuff on TikTok and... We'll do our best to like get it up on YouTube without a, you know, crossing the lines. Will we be able to cut to like certain parts though? Nope. YouTube is so- Nope. YouTube knows. I've tried to put like three seconds of something. Yeah. It will, it will. I've done a ton of research. It'll take it down. It won't even let it go up. It will mute the whole thing. Yuck. Yep. How do people do that? They pay for it. So big creators can do it and you basically what you do is you get access to a library and I don't know what the cost is, right? Like is it $5 a song or is it $100 a song? I don't know, we'll see. And it probably varies, but you would basically purchase the rights to the Tortured Poets Department and then either we pay for it out of pocket, right? In theory, we would make money off the streaming of the video. So hopefully get it back. Or Apparently some music is licensed like a co-op where the person who you're licensing from gets a cut of whatever you make off the video. So I'm happy to be fully transparent with y'all once we get to that point, as far as what that looks like, because I've been learning a lot lately. And there are tons of big creators that do reaction videos, and then there are ones who try and upload them and are like, what the hell? So that's kind of the secret sauce there is you can do it. You just have to pay for it. Also, I want to add to right now that if there is a trend or something you guys would like to see us do while we're in south carolina together and we're going to be with other creators too like Liz, Nikki, Courtney um Yeah, we're I mean Kenzie Hannah Um kyle we're going to be with a lot of different creators you guys. Um wonderful creators. So If there's a trend or something you want us to do or you want to see, let us know in the comments and we'll do it. Definitely, definitely. All right, so back to the shamrocks. I didn't mean to take us fully off track there. Okay, so shamrock dress, just clock that. It's on Taylor Swift Styled on Instagram. If you don't follow Sarah, please follow her. She is always up to date with Taylor's latest fashion. She's amazing. Yes. All right, so she releases Red November 12th and then on August 28th of 22. So we've gone almost a full year of Red, Taylor's version era, right? We're going to go through that era more when we go through Swiftie 101. But like that's what we went through. We went through almost a long time, wasn't it? I didn't realize it was almost a fucking year. Almost a year. Because now she's been like feeding us nonstop. So maybe rep won't come out till 2025 and we need to chill out because she's done this to us before. Well, and that was that time period was it felt long too. And we had a lot of theories because we didn't know when she was going to drop something again, you know, when she's silent like that, it's just almost easier to make up theories. And I remember doing a TikTok about how she was going to come out with TS10 before another rerecord. And I got so much shit and hate from people because they're like, there's no way she'd release a new album in the middle of her rerecords and this and that. And I remember the couple reasons I thought it was coming was Aaron Dessner, he posted about Carolina. So that's the only thing we got new was Carolina. We got that in spring. spring or summer of 2021. Or spring or summer of 2022. Because she released at the end of 2021, November. So then it would have been spring or summer of 2022 that Carolina would have come out. Yes, that's right, 22. Okay. So Aaron Dessner put 10 exclamation marks after Carolina. And Aaron has always been one to really watch because he gives clues just like Jack. And I'm like, oh, that's TS10. Like I think TS10 is coming. Then if you guys remember around July, I think they were celebrating Selena's birthday at a restaurant. And Taylor was doing this like 30, but she had her arms crossed in an X, like a Roma numeral 10. And really that's all I was kind of going off of with my theory. And I just kind of had a gut feeling. Everyone shit on me for it, everyone. And then, 828, 28. Don't you love when you get shit on? It's just like, I'm telling you, I've done political TikToks and there's nothing like getting shit on Swiftie Talk. I mean, I couldn't believe how many people actually thought that there's no absolute way that this queen could release a new album in between the re-records. Why would you ever underestimate Taylor Swift? Well, here's the thing. Now we've had the Eris tour and she has just proven she is unstoppable and invincible. So. Yeah, I mean, at the time only some of us knew. And yeah, I think there's a little bit different dynamics to online with Swifties. We've always been a good, calm, you know, supportive group. And there's always going to be ones that are going to shit on you no matter what. It's just it's part of just being on the Internet. But I say all that to say, I do think at that time you were one of probably very few creators who were making tons of theory videos regularly. And it just like it wasn't the nature of. what everyone was going through. So I'm sure you got a lot of, a lot of hate. Yeah. And so on August 28th was the VMA Music Awards and she did this TikTok to Pink Venom by Blackpink. And she starts out in like the ever more kind of era dress and then it switches to her in like the diamond chain. Oh gosh, draped in jewels. It was giving the bathtub in, look what you made me do. Like everyone I'm sure, I'm gonna speak for everybody right now, was thinking rap. Yeah, I immediately thought we were heading into a new era though. I was like, oh God, we're getting a new era. Cause I thought, remember in my mind, I thought TS10 was coming before rap or anything else. Yeah, so you were looking for it. Mm-hmm. And... I know that she's ushered in new eras at the VMA Music Awards. Those are usually very big for her. She's ushered in new eras there before. Once she got on stage and she won Video Music Award of the Year for All Too Well 10-Minute Version, she announces Midnight's. She said, my brand new album, my 10th studio album will be out more information coming at midnight. the name. So I got on TikTok and I said it's gonna be called Midnight. Yeah, well, because she did say the name. She didn't tell us it was the name. So yeah, she said, meet me at midnight or something, right? Yeah. Yeah, she said there'll be more information at midnight. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, that's the name of the album. It's midnight. So I left off the S but I was so close. You don't know how happy I was when she announced TS10 girl. I was like, Oh, you haters, like whatever, you know? Yep. However, I will say TS11 surprised the shit out of me. I will say that. Well, I mean, yeah. I think it shocked everybody, but. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would say so. For me, my biggest thing that I always said was she doesn't release albums in the spring like that. Like, what the fuck? It is April and we're getting a brand new release. She's always been a fall into holiday girly. And so. That's part of why I wasn't expecting it was less because like, oh, would she do it before the rest of the re-records? Would she do it while she's on tour? Like, sure, you could debate that all day. But the fact that she announced a brand new album in February, I think that's why the VMAs are such a big thing for her because of the timing of them. They're in September, October era, those months. Well, and I think Fearless was about the only album that was a spring album that she's released. Yeah, well, that was a rerecord. So that like doesn't count in my mind as far as when I'm thinking like the fall and then lover was started. She did that with more summer like late summer. Yeah, that was more summer. I need to talk, we need to talk about this shift because this spring now we have had Ariana Grande with Eternal Sunshine. We've had cowboy Carter with Beyonce. We've got Tortured Poets with Taylor. Now Billie Eilish is coming out with a spring album. We had Bleachers, a new album. So what's going on? There's a shift. There's some kind of shift right now. Yeah. Right? Because this is on her, when Billie announced today that she had a new album coming out in May, I was like, what's going on with all the spring albums right now, but by big artists? Is that normal though? I don't follow the trends of when releases happen by other artists. You know what I mean? No, this is not normal. I've never seen anything like this. That is interesting. Well, and to me, I would think that if you're going to have like a summer bop, you would release it like around this time, you know, but maybe not, because you could always release it in the fall and then drop the single for the summer. Interesting. I just thought I'd bring it up. If any, if you guys want to make comments and let me know if that's weird to you or not, I just feel like it's a weird time of year for so many big artists to be dropping such big albums. I mean, Ariana hasn't released an album in years, like a couple years, you know? And it's just, it's bizarre to me that between like, from March to the end of May, there's all these albums coming out. It's just wild. Well, the women are going to rule the charts. Yeah, hopefully. Girl power. All right, so we had the whole VMAs thing. Then at midnight, we found out it was called Midnights. We got the forward, we got a couple of pictures and everyone collectively lost their minds. My husband recorded me, it's on my TikTok. It's unhinged, as most of my stuff is. It was a different flavor of unhinged though. Like it was like, you know, you screaming versus just telling us some crazy theory. It was in raw real time. No, actually, I'm sorry. I think I did a reenactment of that. The raw, real unhinged was when she announced 1989 Taylor's version. Ah, you're right. You're right. Yep. But I, I remember leaping, like from one couch to another couch in my living room. I don't know why. When she announced it, I was, I left over furniture. Like Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise on Oprah back in the day. Do you remember when he jumped on the couch, loving Katie or whatever? I think I was just in shock, but I just got up and I like jumped from the couch to like the lazy boy chair and I don't know why. And then I threw stuff. I just started throwing stuff and I'm like, see, I told you, I was losing it. Eric should have recorded that. Yeah, yeah. He probably had his phone dialing 911 and stuff. Yeah, who was he? Just in case, just in case, yeah. It's so funny, my reactions are the opposite. Like I, whenever I go into shock, it's like frozen and you're like literally unhinged. I know, I was unhinged. Partly though, cause I think cause I was right and I was just like, but I will say when TS11 was announced I couldn't move. I was just like, wait, what? Like I was fully expecting reputation. And I'm like a new album. You went dark on me for like a day. I was like, Jessie's not going to reply. And you know what? We'll be fine. She'll be fine. She'll recover. That's what I do. I went into hiding. I didn't answer any calls, texts, nothing. Even the episode we did right after, I was out of it. If you watch that episode, I'm just kind of bloop, still processing. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, so that will be a glimpse of us here in a couple weeks once we hear it, I'm sure. I know. .. a TV on what the mood's gonna be. Yeah. For sure. Okay. So September 27th of 2022, Scooter opens up to NPR. So I'm gonna read that for you. On this week's episode of NPR's The Limits with Jay Williams, music mogul Scooter Braun joined the former NBA star and his longtime friend to discuss his life and career. During the interview, Williams brought up about Braun's recent conflict with Taylor Swift, whose catalog he acquired in 2019 from her former label Big Machine. Swift referred to the acquisition as her worst case scenario at the time. And she said that she was sad and grossed out by the way it had been handled in an impassioned Tumblr post. And we did read all of that in the last episode. Yeah, in part two. Shortly thereafter, she decided to re-record her early albums in order to reclaim ownership over them. So, this is in quotes. When you bought the rights to Taylor Swift's masters, it turned into a really big thing, Williams said in the new interview. Somewhat understating a scenario that Braun has said led to multiple death threats being aimed at him and his family after Swift directed her fans to contact Braun and former Big Machine owner Scott Borsetta about the deal. If you could go back in time, would you have handled it differently? Scooter says, yes, I would have. I learned an important lesson from that, Braun responded. I think a lot of things got lost in translation. If you're listening, I just rolled my eyes. I think... I think that when you have a conflict with someone, it's very hard to resolve it if you're not willing to have a conversation. I'm going to stop right there because in order to have that conversation, he required her to sign an ironclad NDA. Yeah, a non-disclosure agreement. And she did not want to do that rightfully so. So she couldn't have a conversation with him. So the regret I have there is that I made the assumption that everyone, once the deal was done, was going to have a conversation with me, see my intent, see my character and say, great, let's be in business together. I made that assumption with people that I didn't know and I learned that I can never make that assumption again. He's almost apologizing without apologizing like he's a narcissist. I feel like that's... Gaslighting. Allegedly, he's a narcissist. We're not doctors. Right. It's narcissistic tendencies. It's gaslighting. Okay, he says, in any conflict, you can say, I didn't do anything. It's their fault. He went on and you could be right. You could be justified. You could say this is unfair. I'm being treated unfairly. Or you can say, okay, I'm being treated unfairly. is feeling I can't fix this. So how am I going to look at it and learn from it? I didn't appreciate how that all went down. I thought it was unfair. Unfair really. But I also understand from the other side, they probably felt it was unfair too. So I choose to look at it as a learning lesson, a growing lesson, and I wish everyone involved well. and I'm rooting for everyone to win because I don't believe in rooting for people to lose. I think she took always rooting for the antihero right from that quote. I just love that she is like the poet laureate of our time, right? And he says things like a learning lesson, like bro. And I'm not good at English. All right, I know English is my first language and I say the most dumb shit sometimes, but like what you just read was a lot of... fluffy words like a learning lesson. And she says in the song, she says, I think it's time to learn some lessons. Like she totally takes bits and pieces from these interviews. Yeah, no, it's a good call out too. Well, he, this is before he lost all of his talent, right? We're still in 2022. Yep. Swift's claims that Braun subjected her to incessant manipulative bullying for years, and that he and Borsetta were holding her music hostage to stop her from re-recording it, were not addressed in this interview. His statement of regret wasn't exactly the apology Swift and her fandom may have been hoping for, but it's probably the closest they'll get to one. Now with that last statement, I'm almost wondering if he is under some kind of NDA. If you can't talk about some of that. What do you mean? Like he's under an NDA for what? I think he might be under some kind of NDA because it says, Swift's claims that Braun subjected her to incessant manipulative bullying for years and that he and Borsetta were holding her music hostage to stop her from rerecording it were not addressed in this interview. Meaning they couldn't address that part. Yeah. Or maybe he just told him it was all he maybe he just said these things are off the record. Like you're not allowed to ask them whether or not because I was wondering who he would sign an NDA to. Well, here's where I think it happened. I so Taylor did not want to work with Shamrock. We already talked about this because whatever she did with Shamrock, some of the royalties were still going to scooter. So she had told Shamrock that if you ever get scooter out of the picture completely, she would talk. Right. So I wonder if sometime between 2020 and 2022, two years, they had some kind of deal go down where Scooter exited Shamrock fully. Yeah, because to clarify, if you're not remembering from the last, even though he sold to Shamrock, made his whole 300 million back, he also was still tied to long-term royalties for those. And so the idea being Taylor wasn't going to even entertain any conversations with Shamrock. They had sent her a letter or had tried to get in contact and she said, I'm not going to be in touch with the Shamrock side of things while Scooter is still in the picture, while Scooter is still profiting off of her work that he had bought and then sold and was still getting royalties from. So that's what you mean by potentially him getting out with Shamrock. Right, exactly. And I think that the timing of this article, September 27th, 2022, was after she announced Midnight's was coming out, but before Midnight's was coming out. So he knew, he had to have known that there was some shit on Midnight's that had to do with him. And there was. Maybe. Yeah, the white collar crimes. Yeah, vigilante shit is about him, 100%. I mean, karma is about him. Well, that's stuff I'm going to get into with the lyrical analysis. And I'm going to get into more with the lyrical analysis because she's kind of guiding. If you really listen to her lyrics, she guides you on what's happening with the business end of it sometimes. So there are some things that she says that is leading me to believe that she is still working to get back her master recordings. I know she's re-recording and she's owning them that way. But do you really think Taylor is going to let it go 100% and just never try to get her real masters back? I don't know. So that's not in her personality. I feel like she, uh, she's a seal the deal, put a rubber stamp on it, call it a day until it's done type deal. Yep. And if she had to go about it this route, then great. We have two recordings of, you know, the same album. Who cares? Yep. But Okay. So then we have October 21st, 2022, Midnights is released. Um, her 10th studio album, uh, November of 2022, Taylor is legally allowed to rerecord reputation. Okay. So another Shamrock reference, 3-17-23 St. Patrick's Day, Taylor Swift starts her heiress tour. Why would she started on that day? lucky and she likes the shamrocks. I mean, there's my mind. Yeah, there's no other reason other than to point us to shamrock holdings. Like when I saw that was the start of her tour, I yeah, I lost it. Like I'm like, Oh my goodness, this is such a big thing. On 5-5-23, she announced Speak Now, Taylor's version at the Nashville show. I believe you were there the night before, right? Or the night after? The night after. That was the night one that she announced it, and I was at Nashville night two. And we were crazy enough to think she would announce another one because why the fuck not? Right? She could. Like just, because of the whole Midnight's Mayhem with me, which was the rollout of the Midnight's track names, people started to realize that the word May underlined. So then like there was a lot of discourse and theory land about is Meg going to be Mayhem? Like is she going to try and earn back all of her masters really quickly? You know, re-record everything, get it all out so that during the Eris tour she could own the work that she's singing. So that I think was a little bit of that. But now we understand. I don't think that really matters. She's like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to rush this. This is going to go out the way it needs to. I don't care that I don't own reputation. I don't have a reputation. Taylor's version. I'm still going to have a full reputation set regardless. Right. And I really struggled with how is she going to do this tour without owning all her work? I really thought she was just going to drop everything now because it just didn't make sense to me on how she would do it. But then you go back to the lyrics and she says, I'm taking my time. because you took everything from me. So she's saying, I'm taking my time with the re-records. And that made more sense. Like I said, when you go back to the lyrics, it'll just make more sense. She loves a slow kill too. Like, I feel like this is not, like it would be in Scooter's best interest for us to have gotten all the re-records already and be over and done with like two years ago. Mm-hmm, he's dragging, she's dragging it out. Yeah, and we have double. Anyone she should. Like we fucking love it. It's been bringing the fandom together. It's been bringing out, you know, more excitement. So why not? Well, and people that weren't around for those eras or didn't, weren't big Swifties or weren't even fans, they're getting to experience those eras now. Mm-hmm. Which is incredible. When I think about like, like the idea that like she'll wear something and it will be like, is that rep coded or is that, you know, speak now coded? And it like we... didn't like this is Easter egg layers, right? Like we used to think she was entering a new era because she would change her look. But now we get to like see things and think, oh, is she referencing an old era? So it's this kind of like nuanced, like theory land that it's created. And obviously once the reports are done, we won't have that anymore. We won't be able to like, nitpick like, is this pointing to, you know, is it going to be debut next? Is it going to be rep? And so it's fun. She should keep it alive as long as she can. I will say it's weird though that we've gotten a lot of bookends. So like for, you know, for the Midnight's album, it was TS hashtag TS Midnight TS, right? And now we have bookends again because it's debut and reputation. So the first album and then the last album that she didn't own, there's something to that. And then there's something to the fact that she announced week now on five and then released it on seven seven. The double is amazing. I agree. Well, and then TS11, that's, you know, there's something with like the double numbers. I don't know. We've got to find that out soon because it's looking boring. And we still aren't sure, like the 3-3 that on her 33rd birthday, her Instagram post, she was holding up the two fingers or the two hands, each holding three fingers up. And you know what? Maybe she just was saying, I'm turning 33, guys. Maybe that maybe there's nothing to it. Yeah, no, that's Taylor. That's that's Taylor Swift. Something she meant something else by that. I don't know what, but yeah. So, okay. So on July 7th, she speak now was released in Kansas city of all places because that's where, you know, Travis Kelsey is. Um, it was shortly after that he put her on blast on new heights podcasts and they started dating. And then August 9th of 23, we have 1989 announced in LA. LA never got a thank you post, which is still very weird. Um, and she walks off stage with a glass of white wine, which has always kind of represented 1989. So 10, 27, 23, 1989 was released, 1989 Taylor's version. And it's exactly, what was it? 10 years since the original it's on the. It's on the anniversary of the original. It's on the anniversary. I think it would be nine. It came out in 2014 and then 2023. So it would have been nine years later. Nine years, okay. But you're right, it was the exact same day. Mm-hmm, yeah. Now, I don't know about you. I loved, okay, so I love Speak Now, Taylor's version. I missed the little giggle that she had in it. Do you remember that? No, what are you talking about? What am I thinking of? Okay. Don't you worry, you're a pretty little mine. People throw rocks at things that shine and I... I think that's it. She giggled in it, the original one, and she didn't in the next one. What song is that? Ours? Live, yeah, ours. Yeah, she left out. Girl, I'm gonna have to go down the rabbit hole then. I don't know what you're talking about. But I loved it, and I like, and I love 1989 Taylor's version, I just wish. I wish we would have gotten more vaults because those vaults were fucking fire. I don't think it's over now. Why would you end the whole? No, fuck no. Is it over now? Is the last track? No, it's not over, Taylor. And I think the glitch is gonna be the double 1989. And I know, I mean, you guys can shit on me. I believe you. I've done tons of videos on it. I'm there too. Where is it though? I'm not over it. I don't know. And just the fact that the imagery was all beachy and very different than the original 1989. And then do you remember how like, it kind of got like storm imagery, like each of the merch drops, the background of the merch started out like a normal day at the beach, and then they got like darker as if a storm was coming in. And what is, there's a line about that, storms. I mean, first off, 1989 had lightning everywhere. It was the theme was lightning, right? You've got like the wildest dreams had lightning in the music video, style had lightning in the music video. You also had the Coachella jacket that she wore in the summer of 2016 with the lightning strike on the back representing the Calvin Harris Rihanna. This is what you came for. Like there was lightning theme happening and I just felt like that was the storm of the 1989 Taylor's version. like the illustrations kind of getting stormy. I was like, the dark version is coming. We're getting the second version. I could see it being like a rock version with like collabs. Yeah. But like, where is it? You know, she had to pit stop into heartbreak town for us. We're gonna get our little emotional hearts just torn apart for a little bit here for the spring. And maybe we'll get it in the fall. Maybe that will be the big... I'm on board with it. I thought there were way too many clues that there was a double 1989. Way too many. And obviously Torture Poets was a surprise. So it's really, you know, to me, I don't think we've gotten the glitch yet. If the glitch is something, I don't think we've gotten it yet. Me either. We're going to know. It's something you're going to know when we get the glitch. Yeah, like a double 1989. Yes, like a year later. I'm all for it. Maybe on the anniversary. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So then that brings us to two four of 24 at the Grammys when she won her 13th Grammy, she got up there and announced TS 11, the tortured poets department and shocked the whole world. Announcing a brand new album in the middle of a tour. I am on the fence on whether she's adding Tortured Poets as a set. I don't think she's going to. A lot of people think she is. I don't know. I think it'd be too weird to change up the set now, especially because there's a movie. What do you mean there's a movie? Oh, the Ares Tor movie. Yeah. I'm like, Tortured Poets is getting a movie. What? Yeah, I think. You're right. I would be surprised if she does. It will be a short one, maybe two or three songs. We could be completely off. It's not like we know anything. But I just, I don't know. We'll see. I do think what we are missing here with the timeline too. So if you guys are listening and you're not going in order right, we actually did talk a little bit about the scooter and the this past couple weeks made with UMG, which is the umbrella company that owns Taylor's current record company and her label and all the production and stuff is done under the UMG umbrella. And so there was news that Scooter, who is now the CEO of Hive Corp for the North American division, he signed a deal with UMG. He's seen with Lucian Grange, who is the CEO of UMG. whatever, he's top dog at UMG, who Taylor has been photographed with and has personally thanked. And so it is a little interesting. So I don't know, there might be more that comes out. If you wanna go back to the last episode, I did label it, it's like Scooter Hive UMG. It's really easy to find if you wanna kind of catch that. But that was an interesting thing to roll out during this time when we're doing the masters. And then of course we still owe you guys a lyrical analysis. So. The three parts were who are Scott and who is Scooter Braun, kind of some foundational stuff. We did the timeline in two parts here. So we did part two and then part three. We talked about Hybe and UMG on last week's episode and now we owe you some lyrical analysis. I know we've been kind of tinkering with that as we talk through. Jessie and I will fully record that and release that. Hopefully in the next week, we'll just do a surprise drop on you. Maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of next week. I'd like to get it out before Tortured Poets because I'd like you guys to be able to listen to Tortured Poets and only focus on that. We're not gonna come back to the Masters. But what's interesting is there will probably be lyrics and ties to this Masters saga on Tortured Poets. So it'll be nice to have that episode out so you guys can listen for some of it as well. And out of this whole debacle, the lyrical analysis and what songs are about who, about the work or Scooter Braun or Scott Borsetta, this is my favorite part. So you guys are going to want to watch that. It's going to be super interesting. Yeah. Thank you for it. Yeah. We're surprised dropping it. We're going to throw it out, but please do not think that we are half ass in it or that it's someone that is skip worthy because. you are correct in that. And that's actually why we didn't want to do it during this episode because we wanted to give it a full episode. Like there's a lot that we're going to discuss. So yeah, you'll be it would be overwhelming if we did it right now. Yep. So All right, well, let's get into some topics from this week. So like I mentioned, we are filming on Monday. So if there's something that has come out and you wanna hear about it, just catch us on TikTok. We've got Jessie Swift talk, I'm at Creative Chronicles, and then we've got the TS pod network. But one thing that did happen that we definitely wanna touch on is Taylor released the five Apple music playlists, each representing It's the five stages of grief, but I think she called it this five stages of heartbreak, which stood out to me. And then a lot of people saying like, oh my gosh, that confirms the theory, that confirms the theory. It was in the, so if you go to Apple Music and if you're not a subscriber, I signed up for three months free, which I better fucking remember to like cancel it, but I needed to hear it. But there is a description that was written, it's written by Apple Music, but it's like on behalf of Taylor. And it does mention. the theory and that Taylor had heard the theory and that she was leaning into it. Do you have that pulled up? Do you want to, should we read it real quick? I do. Um, so it's not necessarily that the variants are the five stages of grief. Now whoever came up with that is brilliant though, because I do think that this album is going to take us to through the straight stages of grief of her relationship. I do think this album is the majority is going to be about Joe Alwyn. Um, But the different, okay, so you have five different playlists that Taylor made for Apple and she's done, I've had Apple Music forever and she's done this before. She left a message for each one. One is, I love you, it's ruining my life songs. So that one was kind of the denial. Like you're not, she said something about like being in something and not seeing the red flags, maybe. like being in that lavender haze. So the songs that are on that, number one, the first song, Lavender Haze. So then the second playlist she has is, Am I Allowed to Cry Songs? And that is her in the bargaining stage. Then she has, You Don't Get to Tell Me About Sad Songs. This one she explained as her anger, her anger phase. And I'm probably saying these out of order, These are just like the ones. Anger is second and then bargaining is third. It doesn't really matter, but just for if you're actually talking about the stages of grief and she does list second, third and first and all of them. Yeah. Old habits die screaming. This one she had said was kind of the depression stage of it. Okay. And then I can do it with a broken heart songs. And that one is, what am I missing? Receptance. Acceptance. Yeah, that one's acceptance. Yeah, so one thing is on each of them. So if you have Apple Music and you open up the bio, I do want to read what was written by Apple Music, because I think it's really important for those who think that this is confirming a theory versus what I think she really is doing, which is leaning into a theory and using it as an opportunity to give us more context into what we're headed into. So it says, when Taylor Swift announces an album, That's certainly what happened in the days after she unveiled the Tortured Poets Department. As intrepid Swifties began hunting and assembling and pinning clues to digital cork boards, eventually landing on the theory that the 11th studio album is sure to explore the five stages of heartbreak. So that's what I'm saying. She didn't say grief. She said five stages of heartbreak. And when Swifties agree upon a theory, Taylor takes an interest. So naturally, she's responded by crafting a series of exclusive playlists, choosing songs of her own that fit each stage. And then if you read each of them, then has a second paragraph that talks about, like this one says the fifth and final stage is acceptance, right? So I think what's important there is that it's clear that this is her leaning into the theory. She heard the theory, she's gonna do this because in my opinion, if this was planned, she would have had five variants. And so I wouldn't expect that the songs that go with the different variants or whatever the poem is on the back of the vinyl, I wouldn't expect that to be the theme. Although I do think the Black Dog will be depression. We talked about that. But I don't necessarily know if that's a one-to-one. If it is, then we're missing acceptance. Because acceptance, the playlist didn't get a poem. If you didn't know those playlist titles were pulled directly from the back of the vinyls. Each variant had a different little, I wouldn't even call it a poem, it's more of just like a mini phrase. And so since she didn't have five variants, she didn't have five poems, that final playlist, which represents acceptance, is actually just an album, or not an album, it's actually just a song title from the Tortured Poets department, and that's, I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, which is a great fit, right? It makes sense. So that's where I start to wonder if she kind of pieced this together after the fact once we got on Theoryland. And I love it because it really does confirm people's- probably fears that this is going to be a tragic album. But I do think it helps maybe give us some time to sit in the current discography and understand some context before we get into this. Yeah, because some of the songs in these playlists are just heartbreaking on their own. I really think this new album is going to destroy us. I can't wait. I'm down for Good Destroyed. Okay, so let's real quick just go through each and talk about any surprises. So starting with the first stage of grief or heartbreak, I love you, it's ruining my life, which is going to be denial. I thought this was so interesting because in the message she said denial or delusion. She also referenced ignoring red flags. Some of that stuff was like, whoo, okay, we're saying it. You were in a state of delusion for some of this. So. Well, and I think specifically to Joe, she had a TikTok video up when she came out with Midnights about Lavender Haze and said, you know, I've been with my partner for six years and we, you know, you do anything to stay in that Lavender Haze, which could have been what she's referring to as a red flag because that's track one on this playlist. So maybe that to her being in that bubble with him. safe and comforting, but really in reality, it might've been a red flag. Well, and just the need to like go back to like how it began, because she said that she learned that from Mad Men. Like that was one of the inspiration. And when it was used in Mad Men, the TV show, it was talking about like those early phases of a relationship, that lavender haze. And it's like when you're six years in, you shouldn't really be craving that. Um, you know, it, it does kind of seem weird that, you know, she's trying to get back to those beginning phase stages. And I even think, you know, when she sings in midnight rain and she's like, he wanted it comfortable. I wanted that pain. Like she was, she was aching to feel. Sometimes you fight with your partner to feel something, to make them feel like they care again. Um, if you're doing that, that's probably not normal, but like, that's not something you would do in a long-term healthy relationship. It's more like those early stages where you're trying to figure each other out. you're trying to understand like, is this something that's going to work? And so I always thought that Lavender Haze was kind of an anxious attachment song. And what's so funny is a lot of people really blamed the fans for, for taking her out of the haze, right? There was a lot of conversation about like, oh, why do people think they need to get married? And like, oh, like if you're constantly trying to like understand what's happening in their relationship, like she wants to keep it private. When she talks about like the 1950s and stuff like that. And so now I kind of am glad that this was on this playlist. Cause I think it dispels that feeling that was the, was she trying to stay in the lavender haze because she was trying to protect herself from the fandom and talk about peace, you know, like how she, she wanted to be in a relationship where that. outside world didn't exist or was she trying to say in the Lavender Haze because she felt unloved? That's a good point. I wonder if she kind of contradicts herself a little bit though, because in Lavender Haze, she talks about, you know, you either want a one night or a wife and it's very like feminist and I don't need to get married. But then you have, you're losing me where she says, you know, I wouldn't marry me either, pathological people pleaser. So I really do think. she wanted to get married. I think that was on the table and she was just delusional, justifying it maybe. Yeah, and I never took that line as her saying that it was wrong for people to think that. I think she's saying like, she wants to go back to the portion of, cause when you're early in a relationship, when the media was saying like, oh, it's only one night or a wife, that's normal. Six years in. That's not like, I just always thought some of the lines, even going to the Lover album, I just remember being like, this is a beautiful song for early stages of a relationship. Do you know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. Some of the song choices too, on this delusional red flag playlist are interesting because you have Snow on the Beach, which is a lot like Lavender Haze. Sweet Nothing that she wrote with Joe, and Glitch, which we need to note. Yep. But she's got lover on here. I mean, well, and I want to pause because sweet nothing. She wrote with Joe, you and I've had this conversation offline a ton. I'm not convinced that William Bowery means he sat down and wrote a song with her because of the way that she's done songwriting in the past. Like she said that with blank space, like she got a lot of the melodies on it from things that she had already written in her journal over the years. She like went back and like grabbed good. And so like, darling, I'm a nightmare, dressed like a daydream was probably something she had written down at one point. And so when she was writing that song, she went back and pulled. And so I start to question if some of the songs, I'm not saying every song that William Bowery wrote with her, Joe, were this way, but I could see where if he helped her write something from a poem or start something, if she used it, then did she credit him? But is she does that mean though that she's going to credit him on a lot of songs on tortured poets because I bet she's going to take a lot from you know conversations that you've said that before on here haven't you that you wouldn't be surprised if he's credited yeah I could see that um well and it depends on like where she draws the line like did he have to say it to her or did he write it down with her or you know to your point maybe they really did sit down in Um, but I also think she, um, would be more than willing to credit somebody who had any inkling of writing with her because she's very protective of when, you know, she wrote the song herself and when somebody else played a part. She's got Betty on this playlist too. Mm hmm. Yeah. My biggest surprise was obviously lover. I think a lot of people feel that way and lover is a beautiful love song. Again, early in a relationship. I love it for like. If you are just starting to date somebody or you're thinking maybe marriage is gonna be the end game and to think like, can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever? There is nothing wrong with still thinking of that song and thinking of it as a love song. I think that's something that I've seen a lot online where people are completely recategorizing these things. And it is interesting to note that is something that you probably wouldn't say years into relationship. Can we always be this close? Of course, dude. You know, we've already done six summers together, like, or whatever she said, three summers now. Um, but I do think that it's just, just be careful if you're somebody who's like kind of torn up about changing meanings of songs, it doesn't mean the song changed meaning, it just categorizes where she was at in her life when she wrote it. I saw something online that had me literally gagged. And it was that when she says, and at every table, I'll save you a seat lover. And I always thought that was such a beautiful romantic line, but now what if we're looking at it from the standpoint of he's never there with her at events and she's going to save him that seat anyway, just in case he shows up. Yeah. Oh, that's like, yeah. That's like, gut-wrenching. Well, and also like, I don't know. I just. Again, it's just like I always thought Lover was so weird. My husband and I started dating right around the time that Lover came out. And that's why I think it's so weird because songs like Cornelia Street, I hope I never lose you. I hope it never ends. I love that song that reminds me of our early days of like realizing like, no, like, please don't let this end. This is what it's supposed to be. And luckily I got the ring and we're fucking married and he's not going anywhere. Um, but that was a feeling that is natural to have an early stages of relationship. And again, I, I at the time questioned why is Taylor writing music that is mirroring where I'm at in my relationship, which was very early. Anxiety. Mm hmm. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know. Okay. Let's go to the next one. The next one was what anger, what comes next? Yeah. Anger is the next one. So the don't get, you don't get to tell me about sad songs. Exile is on here. That one stuck out to me because that's one that they wrote together. Yeah, and it's one of those songs that I could see like from an anger standpoint, it makes sense, but it's also not overtly angry. Well, another thing we need to say here too is not all these songs are about Jo. She didn't contextualize the Jo relationship for us. She put songs all the way going back to Fearless. She left off all debut and reputation because clearly Those are not songs that she owns and she doesn't want us streaming them. So I just think that it's, it's interesting to look at the ones when they were together and think, okay, you know, in the years leading up to this album, we're about to get where we at. Well, and I think she just wanted us to meet, like wanted to make a mad album for us, like our playlist, like of her angry songs or whatever. But you know, what also sticks out to me here with all the rumors that have gone. gone around is illicit affairs. Yeah, I liked that illicit affairs was on angry because I always really thought that was a beautiful song, but then when she sang it on tour, angry, it's a different song. Like it's fucking good. I need that version. Yeah. Like, can we, can we like, you know how we got all too well 10 minutes for like, you know, being annoying and Taylor finally being like, fine, you can have it. Illicit affairs, the angry version we need. That song goes hard. Yeah. All right. After anger is bargaining, am I allowed to cry? The Great War Man. That's my favorite. I love that song. That's one I really, that one has a lot of layers to it. A lot of layers of different things. Yeah. I thought it was interesting that she tucked Renegade at the end of this one too, because Renegade is by Big Red Machine. So it's not even really on any of her albums. And it is, I mean, if you guys haven't listened to Renegade, It's fantastic, especially if you're like a folklore evermore, Swiftie, go listen to it. It belongs on one of those albums. It's the same kind of, you know, vibe. Yeah. What was written for, for those albums, but then they decided it fit better on big red machines album. How long do you think it's going to last is the name of that album. Taylor actually came up with the name and. It's just so... She came up with the name of how long do you think it's gonna last? What year did that come out? Like 2021? It was right after Evermore. So it'd be 2020 or 2021. Well, Evermore came out in December. So, yeah, that's fucked up if that was an album name she came up with. Yeah, she came up with it and she's on two songs in it, Birch and Renegade, and she actually wrote Renegade and Renegade's full of anxiety. And it's a lot like you're losing me. Yeah, Renegade, that should have been a telltale sign that shit was hitting the fan. And we didn't know, because we were all, I think we're all in this, at least for me, I was in this puff cloud of like, she found her person. Like, Joe's perfect for her. Oh my God, I'm so happy for her. Like everything's like rainbows and roses. And you look and it's not, it really wasn't. Yeah, I never. like cared about Joe, like I didn't hate him or like him. Like it just like he was just a part of who she was, but like not a defining portion of how I experienced her as a fan. So to me, I just believed her when she said these songs were part fiction, you know, and I'm like, maybe she is like so happy and content that now she needs to write story, because she can't pull from her real life anymore because her real life is steady and normal. Yeah. Okay, then the next one would be Old Habits Die Screaming, which is depression. I think it's interesting Maroon is on here. I never really saw that as a depression song, but now I guess, I guess it is. What are your thoughts on Coney Island? That's one of your favorites. Ooh, that is one of my favorites. Coney Island. Um, that is got some depressive like undertones to it and grief. I mean, like. She literally goes through her relationships, you know, and says what happened, the catalyst that broke the relationship. Like when I stepped up to the podium, I think I forgot to say her name, Calvin Harris, Were You Standing With A Big Cake Down The Hallway, that was, you know, Jake Gyllenhaal. I mean, it's such a fabulous song. All right, and then the last one, I can do it with a broken heart. So this is obviously going to be the acceptance stage. These ones didn't really surprise me. I love that she started it with you're on your own kid because that is obviously a very important song to her. And it is a song of acceptance. Yep. Clean. And then the one is on there. And that's the song that they changed from invisible string to the one on tour. And invisible strings on there too. Yeah, I did hear some discourse about invisible string being on there, because that's one of those love song type things. And maybe it's coming from the place of accepting that Joe was meant to come into our life and maybe leave eventually. And a lesson learned. I mean, people come into our life for a reason, a season, or whatever the saying is. Yeah, definitely. So what were your thoughts when this came out, though? Did you? Because for me, I was driving and I like legitimately signed up for Apple Music subscription, the free trial. I fucking don't know. I just had to listen. I had to listen to them. And so for me, I was like, I remember driving and being like, what is happening? What is happening right now? Like fucking like she's not really done anything like this before. Yeah. Um, she, I wanted to listen to the messages first, um, to see if there were any clues or something in her messages. The last time she did something like this was when she created the playlist for the quill pen, glitter gel pen, fountain pen. So that's the last time she did it and had a message for each one. But yeah, so it is interesting. But that didn't recontextualize songs for us. That's what I mean by she's never done anything like this before and that she's very hush. about the meaning behind stuff. She lets us figure it out. She lets us interpret it the way that we need to interpret it in our lives. She doesn't tell us who the songs are about. She doesn't usually go back in time. And that's why when you're losing me was finally dropped officially on streaming. And then Jack released that story where he said exactly the date it was written. That was weird. We don't usually get that level of detail. And so for her to have said, like, these are songs that I wrote when I was in a stage of denial or delusion. You're like, that to me, that's why I was in shock. Because I'm like, she is telling us more. Like, if you think about any great artist in history, you don't usually get that level of detail, especially after the fact of what really drew the inspiration to the song. Mm hmm. Yeah, agreed. It's it. I think she's definitely this more than anything else. I mean, we all knew Red was about Jake Gyllenhaal pretty much, but we know this is going to be about Jo Alwyn. And maybe Scooter Braun and Scott Braschetta. Who knows, guys? Maybe some other announcers. Maddie Healy might have a song or two in there. Yeah. Very exciting. Should we punt over to our draft then and do our final picks? Yes. I'm so excited. All right, so we have been doing what we're calling TTP draft and shout out to those of you who have done your own. We've got tagged in a couple and oh my gosh, it makes me so happy. So Jesse and I have been going through and basically picking a team, right? Because there's 20 songs on the Tortured Poets department, if you include all the bonus tracks. and we are making our own little teams of 10. So we're just picking songs blindly. Like we have the name of the track so we can guess what we think it's gonna be and if it's gonna be a good one, we know what number it is, which is another clue if it's gonna be good. They're all gonna be good, let's be clear. But at the very end, we are gonna have it on our website. You can actually see it now. It's tspodnetwork.com backslash draft. But on the day that Tortured Poets is released, we will be opening up a poll where you could vote on which of our teams you like better now that you've heard the music. So we're just gonna finish out the draft, just knowing that it's literally coming out next week and we're gonna call them all out now. So I will start with the pick because Jesse got like first pick overall and then we'll kind of go back and forth. And they just a question, they don't have just the day it comes out. It'll go for a couple of weeks, right? Oh, good point. Yes. You can, we'll leave it open probably all year, honestly, because then people can watch this back and go vote. If you're watching this in July, go vote. Maybe one of us will come back. What'd you say? We'll end it on New Year's Eve. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right, so as a recap, Jesse has track one, Fortnite, track two, the Tortured Poets Department, track six, But Daddy I Love Him, and the bonus track of The Black Dog. And then I have So Long London, which is a track five, snagged that one, track eight, which is Florida with Florence and the Machine. I also have track 12, which is L-O-M-L, or like I like to call it LOM. And then my last one that I've already claimed is track 16, Clara Bow. So I haven't thought through this one enough. Um, I think I'm going to choose the manuscript. Oh, good one. Good one. That's a good one. I know. OK, I am going with track 13. I can do it with a broken heart. because 13 is her favorite number. Damn it, we blew one of them one. 13's her favorite number, and I Can Do It With a Broken Heart was one of the names of the playlist. So it's gotta be special. Fuck, I just messed up. I messed up critically, because I've always said that's tolerated part two, because break free and leave us in ruin, take this dagger in me and remove it. Believe me, I could do it. I can do it with a broken heart. Fuck. This is so fun. Oh my god. Damn it. I'm so mad at myself. This is why I shouldn't be like making notes over here. I need to be thinking. Okay. We're gonna have to do this for every album eventually. Yeah. Well, even if it's not coming out, we'll just do it. Although it does, it stings more whenever you don't know if it's good or not. Right. Okay, your turn. Fresh out of the slammer. I gotta have fresh out of the slammer. That one looks fucking good. Fresh out the slammer, good one. Oh yeah, I added an of there. It's fresh out the slammer. Oh my goodness. Okay, I know what I'm gonna pick. Are you ready for it? Yeah. I'm gonna scoop up the albatross. Fuck, I knew you would want that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you do the albatross, then I've gotta take the other last bonus track that's still available, which is the bolter. Damn, I knew you were going to. You're not going to get three of the four bonus tracks. Okay. My turn? Yeah. I'm going to go track nine guilty of sin because it's in Carolina. Guilty as sin, sleep in a liar's bed. Oof, that one's gonna cut. I think I need to take, you're gonna be mad at me. I can fix him, no really I can. That'll be a good one. I feel like that's gotta be, that's gotta be a good one. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I am gonna go with alchemy. Damn it, Jesse, okay. I mean, they're all good. I don't know why I'm mad at you. Like you have to be able to choose them. No matter how many times people explain what alchemy is to me, I don't understand it. But I feel like it's gonna be important. It's related to like, like astrology now too. Like I like read it as just like the turning of gold or whatever. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe maybe Taylor will teach us what alchemy means. Oh, I'm sure she will. Um, I feel like I need the smallest man who ever lived. Okay. Why do I think that's going to be about Maddie Healy? I'm going to go with Who's Afraid of Little Old Me because I think it's a play on Virginia Woolf. Okay. All right. So the only two that we have left are My Boy Breaks His Favorite Toys and Down Bad. I think I need to do number three. My boy only breaks his favorite toys. Something about Down Bad doesn't sit with me and I know everyone's really excited about it. It's just, it's not giving me enough in the title. That was, that's fine. Cause I would have picked Down Bad. I figured you would have. So I was like trying to figure out, did I want to like slight you and take the good one or? You could. Go with my gut. Go with my gut. Nope, we're good. So we've got it split. All right. So guys, I'm so excited. That was so fun. Yeah, we'll do this more often. We'll do more drafts and have opportunities for you guys to vote on stuff. Maybe like we talked about drafting, maybe like track ones or you know, whatever. We could sit here and do it with like 1989 TV and like each of us pick one that we love and then have people vote on, you know. Yeah, like who has the better favorites? Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right, so those will be up on the tspodnetwork.com website. You'll just do backslash draft or we have like a link to it as well. Once you get to the homepage and then on April 19th, go on there and vote. You're welcome to sleuth the site. In the meantime, if you want to just see the full list of what each of us has. Um, okay. And we also have more with the masters. So we will be recording the lyrical analysis portion here soon and dropping that the week of tortured poets. coming out. So maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ahead of the album release. So definitely keep an eye out for that. We'll tell you on TikTok when we're releasing it. And then of course we have KJ joining us for the April 19th release. Obviously we're not super women and we can't record our reactions, edit and post it that same day. So that's more of just a fun episode talking about being Swifties, talking about excitement around the album. So definitely join us on the day of the album release. And then Jesse and I have a lot of going on. We will definitely have to put videos up. We will do our best to be timely with reactions with extra content. So just hang tight after they release the Tortured Poets department because we're going to have, we're going to be like running like a freight train. I just know it. Yeah. You guys will get our initial reactions because when we record after Tortured Poets, it's still going to be fresh and fairly new. Yeah. Yeah, there's like the first time you hear the lyric reaction, which will film, but there's also like the now that I've had time to sit with it. Reaction is our first analysis and that might be different on how we feel like three or four weeks later too. Yep. And so as a reminder, if we want to be able to do reaction videos and include music on our YouTube, we need to be at least 1000 subscribers or more. just because that puts us at a level where we get access to additional things like copyright. So please, please go subscribe to our YouTube if you haven't already, give us five stars on all of the different podcast networks that you listen to us on and just know that we appreciate you. We are gonna be so busy this next few couple of weeks and we are doing it all for you guys. We are so thrilled to have started a podcast in the year of the Tortured Poets Department. So just hang tight. Keep tuned in with all of our socials. We'll keep you up to date on where we're at and what we're releasing. We will continue to have Friday episodes, but there's gonna be a lot more coming out. So stick with us and we look forward to seeing you next week. Bye.