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In the two years since the release of Taylor Swift\u2019s overwhelmingly dense, extremely pissed off, and possibly underrated The Tortured Poets Department<\/a>, the album has vanished into a cloud of smoke, explained away as \u201cesoteric\u201d on her fianc\u00e9\u2019s podcast<\/a>, and not often referenced as a totemic achievement in songwriting, perhaps in part because the battle scars of the \u201canthology,\u201d as she came to call it, are too raw and personal and messy<\/a> to get into. In the singer\u2019s new conversation with The New York Times Magazine about her songwriting<\/a>, The Tortured Poets Department gets a single nod in her discography, and it\u2019s the closing number, \u201cClara Bow,\u201d one of her most enigmatic, self-conscious songs, which she wrote with frequent collaborator Aaron Dessner.<\/p>\n The track is told from the point of view of a record executive, and it details three generations of female stars: one who looks like Clara Bow, who Swift specifies in the Times interview is meant to be Stevie Nicks; one who looks like Stevie Nicks, who is meant to be Swift herself; and one who looks like Swift, who is whatever future pop star you want to imagine (Olivia Rodrigo? Kidding \u2026). \u201cYou look like Taylor Swift in this light, we\u2019re loving it. You\u2019ve got edge she never did,\u201d she sings in the song\u2019s final moments. \u201cBasically, you learn that you\u2019re in this machine and they\u2019re trying to make you into this woman that they just idealized and then discarded,\u201d Swift explains in the interview. \u201cThe entertainment industry love-bombs women, right? \u2018We love you,\u2019 \u2018We don\u2019t know who you are. Why are you even here?\u2019\u201d Swift\u2019s evil record-executive character returns, Marvel-movie style, in her song \u201cFather Figure\u201d off The Life of a Showgirl<\/a>.<\/p>\n The push and pull of the entertainment industry\u2019s alternating (and\/or simultaneous) love and hate for Swift has been a recurring motivator across her storied career, but her conversation with the Times emphasizes how equally damaging that love-bombing has been for her psyche and perception of self. (For what it\u2019s worth, \u201cLove-bomb\u201d would make a great title for a future Taylor Swift song if she wants to continue this train of thought on TS13.)<\/p>\n By the time she was working on Red, she describes feeling both aged out of her success and completely at a loss for what to say. \u201cSomebody was like, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re 22 years old, and you\u2019re saying, \u201cAre you tired of me? If you\u2019re not yet, are you going to get tired of me?\u201d\u2019 Because it\u2019s usually something that you would sing about later in life,\u201d she says of her then-precocious sagacity. The more time goes on, the more Swift applies that love-bombing, perhaps, to her own relationship to her fans and fame. One of the more notable aspects of The Tortured Poets Department was her repeated frustration with those who both admire her and think they know what\u2019s best for her. Since Lover, Swift has come and gone with relative ease, doling out generous portions of concerts and documentaries and behind-the-scenes looks and then going away for months at a time. If there\u2019s something that feels especially notable about this era (sorry) of Swift\u2019s public persona, it\u2019s that she seems to have way more fun leaning into the darker sides of the same entertainment industry she derides. \u201cI\u2019ll tell ya, there\u2019s ten years for every year you\u2019re in,\u201d she says with a smirk, \u201cbut it\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n