Lindsey Buckingham

Photo: Lauren Dukoff

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Lindsey Buckingham Holds Forth On His New Self-Titled Album, How He Really Feels About Fleetwood Mac Touring Without Him

Lindsey Buckingham has taken some life situations on the chin lately, from bypass surgery to Fleetwood Mac removing him. But as his new self-titled record attests, almost nobody is better at flipping awkwardness and darkness into joyous melodies

GRAMMYs/Sep 17, 2021 - 12:18 am

Lindsey Buckingham's new album comes prepackaged with obvious talking points. Crane your ear, and you can faintly hear the click-clack of MacBook keys assembling the following lede: Open-heart surgery, almost losing his voice forever, a looming divorce (they've since thrown that into reverse—love never fails!) and a certain über-dramatic rock institution handing him the pink slip.

But that readymade narrative leaves out the most important part, which is how it all comes out the other side of Buckingham's brain. For decades, the two-time GRAMMY winner alchemized pain and awkwardness into effervescent pop music like almost nobody else—and sold millions and millions of records as a result. How does he keep that psychological and spiritual mechanism well-oiled?

Perhaps the answer is best articulated in good ol' music: His new album, Lindsey Buckingham, which arrives September 17, is permeated with this big-picture thinking. And everything he's been through since he recorded tunes like "Scream," "I Don't Mind" and "On the Wrong Side"—honestly, the album is three years old now after a comical number of delays—gives the tunes added heft, import and longevity.

But for now, the singer/songwriter and guitarist can give it the old college try. "It's not like I'm attracted to any of the dark at all. It's just that I think it exists hand-in-hand with the light," he says over FaceTime. "There's nothing you can do about that." That was the attitude he maintained during the Jerry Springer-style lovers' fiascos that fueled Rumours, and it's how he feels today, when predicaments and headaches that "weren't on the radar" blindside him.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Buckingham during rehearsals for his current U.S. tour to discuss the long road to the new album and how he maintains a PMA with the Sword of Damocles over his head. Near the end, he spills the tea about why he's really no longer in Fleetwood Mac. (See Stevie Nicks' recent comments for the counterpoint.)

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

How's it feel to be rehearsing with your bandmates?

It's great! The camaraderie can't be beat. There's none of the politics that always were there with Fleetwood Mac. We had several attempts to get this album out over the last three years because it's been ready to go for over three years. Certain things kept getting in the way. So, we're finally here and it's good to be playing. I love it.

Is it weird to be promoting music you made a while ago? I didn't know it was so old.

You know, it's funny: When I did that duet album with Christine [McVie], my original intention—becuase I was working on this simultaneously—was to put it out back-to-back with that. Because of Fleetwood Mac politics, that didn't happen.

And then, after all the stuff we'd done with Fleetwood Mac, I thought "Well, rather than put the album out then, I thought I'd put out the anthology"—the best-of [compilation album] that I did in 2018, which was great fun and it was sort of cathartic to revisit all that.

And then [Wry chuckle] we really were starting to get ready to rehearse and then I had this bypass I had in 2019. That took some recovery. And then, we started to begin to rehearse—and then the COVID hit! So it's been kind of a running gag of trying to get this thing out and having to kick it down the road.

I think, in the process, the material itself—and certainly the subject matter—has taken on a somewhat deeper meaning given all that's happened over the last few years, you know?

You seem like you're in a great mood despite the turmoil.

Well, I mean, you know, stuff happens. Rock 'n' roll bands are rock 'n' roll bands. Health issues are going to come and go. So it's all good! I didn't know how I was going to feel at the beginning of rehearsals—whether doing a set twice a day was something I was even up for—but it all turned out to be great. I'm looking forward to it.

I remember seeing the news about the bypass surgery. I was so worried. Music fans worldwide were so worried. I'm so happy you made it back to 100 percent.

Oh, yeah. There was this moment that lasted for a few months because, in the process of doing that, somebody, I guess, a little overzealously jammed a breathing tube down my throat when they were about to do the thing. It kind of damaged my vocal cords for a while, but they came back. That was the other thing: I didn't know how my voice was going to be, putting it to the test, doing a set twice a day in rehearsal. But it's been pretty good, so I'm happy.

In general, what's your life been like since exiting the band?

Well, there have been a lot of things that weren't on the radar, that just sort of showed up like that. And, of course, the whole COVID experience was something nobody saw coming. That wasn't so difficult for me, in a lot of ways, because I lead a fairly insular life anyway. I'm somewhat of a loner. And when I'm working, I'm working by myself most of the time. Certainly, on solo work, all of the time.

You know, we've gotten through that, and I think that was harder on my kids than it was on me. I think there's been a lesson in there somewhere, although I'm not sure what it is. Now, I mean, my god. Everyone wants to go out and tour, but now we've got this Delta variant, and who knows where that's going?

In the meantime, you just sort of look at all the things you didn't see coming over the last few years and put them in context with where you are now, and it actually provides a little more meaning, I think, for the tour and putting the album out now as opposed to putting it out three years ago. I think the subject matter and the music itself probably resonates a little more because of all that, too.

You've always had a knack for making effervescent music out of difficult or stressful topics. What about this contrast, or this tension, continues to attract you all these decades later?

[Long chuckle.] Wow. I don't know! It's not something I wish on myself. Whether it's a band or a family or a long-term marriage, there are going to be challenges that come up that require not only that you adapt, but accept things that you can't change. You have to come to the realization there's only so much you can control—to try to concentrate on what is positive and try to keep your wits about you in a situation that can lead you off in not-very-constructive directions.

That's something on a more general level that goes back to Rumours, even—where we had this huge test and were maybe poised to fall prey to all the external expectations that there were out there. To make a Rumours II and to become a piece of product that had been formulized. Obviously, I made the choice to go another route. So much of it is about the choices you make with the challenges that come along and how you choose to process them.

I don't know. It's not like I'm attracted to any of the dark at all. It's just that I think it exists hand-in-hand with the light, and there's nothing you can do about that.

To qualify my question, it's not like you're wishing pain on yourself as grist for the mill for songs. Everyone deals with the awkwardness and darkness of life to one degree or another. But it's rare that someone like yourself can flip it, or alchemize it, into something joyous.

Right. Well, I think you've got to try to keep the overview. And, again, in the same way, to go back to Fleetwood Mac and the Rumours album and how we were going through all this stuff as couples and breaking up and not being able to get closure. I was dealing with a lot of pain at Stevie having moved away from me and yet I was producing the band and was the bandleader—you've got to make choices for the bigger picture, so you've got to rise above all of that.

I think that's something you learn how to do. You try to transform that into something more transcendent.

Back in that bacchanalian era of Rumours, how did you guys survive compounding, compounding, compounding crises where one of them would have ruined any other band? As you say, were you guys just seeing the big picture through all of it?

Well, I don't know! I'll take some of the credit for that, but I think you're talking about people who, on paper, don't even belong in the same band together. But the synergy we created because of what was greater than the sum of the parts, and I think underneath all that darkness, there was a lot of love for each other. There was certainly a huge amount of chemistry.

I think it's just what you try to do. You can choose to react darkly to a dark situation or you can choose to react in a way that is somewhat cathartic or transformative and gets you away from that—without denying it, but just sort of contextualizing it.

With all the highs and lows, do you remember that as a particularly happy time, or in some other way?

Both. But even so, obviously, you can concentrate on the musical soap opera that was so much the subtext of our success back then, but I think you just move on.

In your solo work, what do you feel you can say that you can't with Fleetwood Mac? You touched on the politics and how it's easy-breezy in this format, but from a songwriting perspective, do you write in one box or the other?

I think my lyrics have gotten better—I would like to think—over the years because they've become less and less literal. Some of that has been arrived at because the process I use to record solo albums is far more—I've said this many times—but like painting. Because I'm playing everything and engineering it, it's basically you and your work. It's you and your canvas, so to speak. A musical canvas.

I think the solo work has just allowed me to continue to improve, because that process has allowed for risk and pushing the envelope and discovery in a way that the political process of Fleetwood Mac sometimes disallowed. It allowed it during the Tusk album, but then there was kind of a backlash politically when Tusk didn't sell 16 million albums. Mick [Fleetwood] comes to me and says, "Well, we're not going to do that again."

Lindsey Buckingham. Photo: Lauren Dukoff

That's when I started making solo albums, because I realized if I was going to aspire to be an artist in the long term and continue to take those risks—and, to some degree, continue to thwart people's expectations of what they thought we were or I was—then I was going to have to do it with solo work. That's always where I've continued to grow as an artist, I think.

So, the songwriting has gotten, I think, more interesting and has more depth. It's also become somewhat indistinguishable from the production process, whereas with a band, you've got to bring in a complete song and bring it from point A to point B and it requires a lot more verbalization and politics. It's probably more like moviemaking.

The painting process is really something you can build and build and build off of. It's been an interesting sense of forward motion over the years.

It's fascinating that you've had this whole arc parallel to your journey in a major rock institution. This is your first solo album in a decade. What was your vision for it as opposed to the others, in any regard?

I think much of it was, again, subject-matter-wise: My kids are all basically grown up. I still have a 17-year-old daughter, but they're basically not children anymore. My wife and I have been together for 24 years. You start to have to—again, as I said—accept things and adapt to a thing you, perhaps, at one time, earlier on, you thought you'd never have to adapt to.

And yet I think you need to look at that with an acceptance and almost a celebration that that's just part of what it takes to keep learning and growing as a couple. To have your relationship continue to build on itself. Much of the album, lyric-wise, the content is addressing that: Lamenting it, but also celebrating it.

On a musical level, what I wanted to say, really, is something very simple and fundamental. I thought it'd be very cool to make more of a pop album than I've made before—maybe ever. But certainly since [1992's] Out of the Cradle. There was a sense of referring back to pop sensibilities that existed in Fleetwood Mac and in solo work, but probably in Fleetwood Mac to the point where you could probably connect the dots to a song like "On the Wrong Side" and "Go Your Own Way."

There was a conscious desire to circle back on something and revisit it. I wanted to make a pop album, and of course, there are a few tracks on there that represent the leftest edges of that. "Power Down" is one song that comes to mind. But generally speaking, the album has pop accessibility that I wanted to achieve, and I think, for the most part, I got there.

I definitely think of you as a melodist first and foremost. As opposed to favorite writers or musicians, per se, who are your favorite melodists out in the ether?

Well, obviously, Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach. Geez, I don't know. Henry Mancini. How's that?

Back to your recovery from the heart surgery. Was it scary to think that you might not get to sing again? I mean, that's your whole livelihood.

Well, you know, it was interesting, because there was only so much I could control about it and I was also, in a larger sense, just dealing with recovering from the bypass, which took a few months.

I was probably more concerned with the specifics of what I had to do just to recover from such an invasive procedure, but yes—there was a point where we first saw someone in Los Angeles, a doctor. She turned me on to a voice therapist who would come to the house and have me do exercises. None of that seemed to do anything.

Eventually, she referred me to someone in Boston, who I guess is the guy who deals with singers who have voice problems. My wife and I flew to Boston a couple of times and he looked me over and said, "Look, this is going to take care of itself. I can't guarantee you that your voice is going to come back 100 percent."

And it probably hasn't, really, quite honestly. It's probably come back 95 percent. In rehearsals, we decided to lower the keys of a couple of songs a half step because I was having trouble hitting the notes I used to hit. But some of that just comes along with getting older. That's something we've done continuously over the years anyway, so that's all there is to say about that.

But at the point where this doctor says to me, "I can't guarantee you it's going to come back to 100 percent, but there's nothing you can do. You've just got to wait and it'll do what it's going to do," I just stopped worrying about it because I realized it was just a waiting game I had to play. Again, over a period of months, my voice returned and it seems to be working quite well now, so we're good.

Did you have to carry around a notepad and the whole bit?

No, no, no. I could talk, but it was [Affects rasp] kind of like that for a while. It just was not clear for a month and a half or two months, and then I started to get better.

Now that you're back in fighting shape, have you been writing any?

Well, when COVID hit, we had just moved from the house the kids were raised in to a slightly smaller house that we built. Right after that move, COVID hit, and the studio was still in the process of being finished up. It's downstairs in sort of a guest house in the backyard, and it's in the basement of that.

It was funny: I didn't have any great motivation to go down and work when COVID hit. I'm not sure why. But after a few months, I said to myself "I've got to force myself to go down there." So I did, and I got into a routine for a few months down there where I ended up starting and finishing maybe three new songs. There is something to pick up from whenever it's time to make another album, but I haven't done a huge amount of writing, no.

Well, it's not a very inspiring time.

It's pretty strange, yeah.

I must ask: What went through your head when you heard that Peter Green had died?

Well, when I heard about Peter Green, the first thing I said was, "I've got to call Mick," which I did. Mick and I had probably talked once before that since all the Fleetwood Mac stuff went down. He texted and emailed with me and stuff, but we hadn't had a lot of conversations. He and I were obviously on completely good terms at that point and I think he felt bad about that whole thing.

He didn't really want that to happen, but that's another conversation. But he and I commiserated about Peter. He was actually way more [undeterred] about it than I would have expected because I think the term he used was "He died a king's death," which means you go to sleep at night and you don't wake up. That's what happened to Peter, but it was sad. It was quite sad, obviously.

He wasn't really on the scene for very long, but he left quite a mark. Mick and I were able to share our sadness about that, for sure.

Do you remember the last time you saw Peter or spoke to him?

I think the last time would have been in 2015—the last time we toured in the U.K. with Fleetwood Mac after Christine came back. He was a funny guy when it came to interacting with me. Obviously, he wasn't maybe in the best mental shape anyway; I don't really know the finer points of that. He was always a bit standoffish with me; I'm not sure why.

Maybe he felt, as John McVie once said to Mick, that what we were doing was a long way from the blues. It could have been that, or maybe it was the other way: Maybe he was slightly threatened by it. I don't really know. But he was never overly warm to me for some reason.

But it was in 2015, probably. He used to come to our shows.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in 1979. Photo: Ebet Roberts/Redferns via Getty Images

Feel free to not broach this at all, but is there anything you can share about where you stand with the rest of Fleetwood Mac at this time?

Look, that whole thing was really something that Stevie wanted to do. It was her doing. It wasn't Mick's doing or Christine's doing or John's.

Whatever she used as a pretense for my behavior in terms of saying she never wanted to work with me again was so minimal by comparison with what we'd been through over the previous 43 years that it didn't ring true at all to me. But on some level, I think she was a bit unhappy in her own life and was trying to remake the band slightly more in own image.

Again, this is all me theorizing—I don't know why—but I think over the last x number of tours, even going back to the Say You Will tour back in 2003, but certainly 2008 and '09, 2013, 2014 and '15, after Christine came back, my moments on stage were quite peak. I had many peak moments.

I had "The Chain"; I had "Tusk"; I had "Never Going Back Again"; I had "Big Love"; I had "So Afraid." I think my evolvement as a stage presence over time had sort of enlarged, and I think her—if you want to call it devolvement—as a stage presence over time had diminished a little bit. I think that was hard for her.

Obviously, she will be and was always the figurehead singer out there, but in terms of those peak moments, I don't think she enjoyed as many. And maybe she just didn't want to be around that anymore! I don't know. I don't blame her for anything, but I haven't really spoken with her about it.

As far as the others go, you know—Mick and Christine—I was a little disappointed with their lack of strength in terms of not standing up for me at the time, but I think they all had reasons they felt they couldn't stand up to Stevie, because she basically gave them an ultimatum: "Either Lindsey goes or I go."

It's a ridiculous ultimatum. It would be like Mick Jagger saying "Well, either Keith goes or I go." I mean, come on! It's not going to happen! But if you've got to choose one, I guess you've got to choose the singer! [Edgy laugh.] I got a text or an email from Christine not long after that apologizing: "I'm sorry I didn't stand up for you. I just bought a house." So, that pretty much says it all, you know?

In the ensuing years, I certainly have had good conversations with Christine and everything is great, but mostly with Mick. He and I were and will always be soulmates and he's said "I'd love to get the five of us back together." Of course, he knows I would come back like a shot if that was something that were politically feasible. It remains to be seen whether that is or not.

But one thing I will say is that when all of that went down, I didn't necessarily feel left out because I didn't get to do that tour. The only thing that really got to me is—as I mentioned a second ago—we spent 43 years rising above so many difficulties in order to fulfill our destiny, you know. That has always been the legacy of Fleetwood Mac beyond the music: We always got to do that. For 43 years.

I did not see the show they did with Mike Campbell and Neil Finn, but I did see the setlist. It had Peter Green and Bob Welch songs and it had Crowded House [breaks into a giggle] and Tom Petty songs! I thought, "Well, it's awfully generic at this point. Some might even call it a cover band to some degree." It's probably not a fair term to use, but even so, I don't think it did anything but dishonor that legacy that we had built for those 43 years. That was the only thing that bothered me.

So, to be able to come back and reestablish that legacy would be quite meaningful, I think. Whether or not that's possible remains to be seen, you know? I don't blame anybody or hold a grudge against any of them, including Stevie. I know what she did, she did it out of unhappiness or perhaps out of weakness. It's all part of being in a rock 'n' roll band, I guess.

I don't know who really knows who in this circle of musicians, but I hope there wasn't any awkwardness regarding Mike and Neil joining the band.

Well, it wasn't with me because I never really interacted with them. I think there probably was in terms of coming to the band. I know Stevie was not happy with Mike Campbell later on because it was a "He's not playing that part right!" kind of thing. I've always been a fan of Neil Finn anyway, but, you know, it's a strange situation to come in like that.

When you made that point about Mike, my first thought was "Hmm... I think there's a guy who knows how to play those parts just right!"

[Mischevious laugh.]

You're very much an artist in the now and you have a whole creative future ahead of you. But when you look back on the arc of your career—all of it so far—is there anything you'd do differently or tell yourself as a younger man?

Oh, boy. I don't think so! Whatever my part was in making Stevie feel the way she did in order to have to give the band an ultimatum, I would obviously not do that.

I think one of the things that maybe has been a good thing for me over the last three or four years since that happened—and not directly because of that—but because of that and the bypass and perhaps COVID and whatever else, I've gotten a little less self-involved, maybe, and looked around me a little more. Maybe that's something I could have done better from time to time.

Jackson Browne On New Album Downhill From Everywhere, Balancing Music & Messaging

Taylor Swift performs with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 GRAMMYs

Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

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11 Artists Who Influenced Taylor Swift: Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Tim McGraw & More

From Paul McCartney to Paramore, Emily Dickinson and even "Game of Thrones," read on for some of the major influences Taylor Swift has referenced throughout her GRAMMY-winning career.

Glenn Rowley

GRAMMYs/Apr 22, 2024 - 11:24 pm

As expected, much buzz followed the release of Taylor Swift's 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, on April 19. Fans and critics alike have devoured the sprawling double album’s 31 tracks, unpacking her reflections from "a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time" in search of Easter eggs, their new favorite lyrics and references to famous faces (both within the pop supernova’s closely guarded orbit and the historical record).

Shoutouts abound in The Tortured Poets Department: Charlie Puth gets his much-deserved (and Taylor-approved) flowers on the title track, while 1920s screen siren Clara Bow, the ancient Greek prophetess Cassandra and Peter Pan each get a song titled after them. Post Malone and Florence + the Machine’s Florence Welch each tap in for memorable duets. Relationships old (Joe Alwyn), new (Travis Kelce) and somewhere in between (1975’s Matty Healy) are alluded to without naming names, as is, possibly, the singer’s reputation-era feud with Kim Kardashian.

Swift casts a wide net on The Tortured Poets Department, encompassing popular music, literature, mythology and beyond, but it's far from the first time the 14-time GRAMMY winner has worn her influences on her sleeve. While you digest TTPD, consider these 10 figures who have influenced the poet of the hour — from Stevie Nicks and Patti Smith to Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Arya Stark and more.

Stevie Nicks

If Taylor Swift is the chairman of The Tortured Poets Department, Stevie Nicks may as well be considered its poet laureate emeritus. The mystical Fleetwood Mac frontwoman earns an important mention on side A closer "Clara Bow," in which Swift ties an invisible string from herself to a pre-Rumours Nicks ("In ‘75, the hair and lips/ Crowd goes wild at her fingertips"), and all the way back to the 1920s It Girl of the song’s title.

For her part, Nicks seems to approve of her place in Swift’s cultural lineage, considering she penned the poem found inside physical copies of The Tortured Poets Department. "He was in love with her/ Or at least she thought so," the Priestess of Rock and Roll wrote in part, before signing off, "For T — and me…"

Swift’s relationship with Nicks dates back to the 2010 GRAMMYs, when the pair performed a medley of "Rhiannon" and "You Belong With Me" before the then-country upstart took home her first Album Of The Year win for 2009’s Fearless. More recently, the "Edge of Seventeen" singer publicly credited Swift’s Midnights cut "You’re On Your Own, Kid" for helping her through the 2022 death of Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie.

Patti Smith

Swift may see herself as more "modern idiot" than modern-day Patti Smith, but that didn’t stop the superstar from name-dropping the icon synonymous with the Hotel Chelsea and punk scene of ‘70s New York on a key track on The Tortured Poets Department. Swift rather self-deprecatingly compares herself to the celebrated Just Kids memoirist (and 2023 Songwriters Hall of Fame nominee) on the double album’s synth-drenched title track, and it’s easy to see how Smith’s lifelong fusion of rock and poetry influenced the younger singer’s dactylic approach to her new album.

Smith seemed to appreciate the shout-out on "The Tortured Poets Department" as well. "This is saying I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Thank you Taylor," she wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of herself reading Thomas’ 1940 poetry collection Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog.

Emily Dickinson

When it comes to iconic poets, Swift has also taken a page or two over her career from Emily Dickinson. While the great 19th century poet hasn’t come up explicitly in Swift’s work, she did reference her poetic forebear (and actual sixth cousin, three times removed!) in her speech while accepting the award for Songwriter-Artist of the Decade at the 2022 Nashville Songwriter Awards.

"I’ve never talked about this publicly before, because, well, it’s dorky. But I also have, in my mind, secretly, established genre categories for lyrics I write. Three of them, to be exact. They are affectionately titled Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics," Swift told the audience before going on to explain, "If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre," she went on to explain.

Even before this glimpse into Swift’s writing process, Easter eggs had been laid pointing to her familial connection to Dickinson. For example, she announced her ninth album evermore on December 10, 2020, which would have been the late poet’s 190th birthday. Another clue that has Swifties convinced? Dickinson’s use of the word "forevermore" in her 1858 poem "One Sister Have I in Our House," which Swift also cleverly breaks apart in Evermore’s Bon Iver-assisted title track ("And I couldn’t be sure/ I had a feeling so peculiar/ That this pain would be for/ Evermore").

The Lake Poets

Swift first put her growing affinity for poetry on display during her folklore era with "the lakes." On the elegiac bonus track, the singer draws a parallel with the Lake Poets of the 19th century, wishing she could escape to "the lakes where all the poets went to die" with her beloved muse in tow. In between fantasizing about "those Windermere peaks" and pining for "auroras and sad prose," she even manages to land a not-so-subtle jab at nemesis Scooter Braun ("I’ve come too far to watch some name-dropping sleaze/ Tell me what are my words worth") that doubles as clever wordplay on the last name of Lake Poet School members William and Dorothy Wordsworth.

Swift revealed more about why she connected to the Lake Poets in her 2020 Disney+ documentary folklore: the long pond studio sessions. "There was a poet district, these artists that moved there. And they were kind of heckled for it and made fun of for it as being these eccentrics and these kind of odd artists who decided that they just wanted to live there," she explained to her trusted producer Jack Antonoff. "So ‘the lakes,’ it kind of is the overarching theme of the whole album: of trying to escape, having something you wanna protect, trying to protect your own sanity and saying, ‘Look, they did this hundreds of years ago. I’m not the first person who’s felt this way.’"

Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney and Swift have publicly praised one another’s work for years, leading to the 2020 Rolling Stone cover they posed for together for the special Musicians on Musicians issue. The younger singer even counts Sir Paul’s daughter Stella McCartney as a close friend and collaborator (Stella designed a capsule collection for Swift’s 2019 studio set Lover and earned a shout-out of her own on album cut "London Boy").

However, Swift took her relationship with the Beatles founder and his family a step further when it was rumored she based Midnights deep cut "Sweet Nothing" on McCartney’s decades-long romance with late wife Linda. While the speculation has never been outright confirmed, it appears Swift’s lyrics in the lilting love song ("On the way home, I wrote a poem/ You say, ‘What a mind’/ This happens all the time") were partially inspired by a strikingly similar quote McCartney once gave about his relationship with Linda, who passed away in 1998. To add to the mystique, the Midnights singer even reportedly liked a tweet from 2022 espousing the theory.

The admiration between the duo seems to go both ways as well, with the former Beatle admitting in a 2018 BBC profile that the track "Who Cares" from his album Egypt Station was inspired by Swift’s close relationship with her fans.

The Chicks

From her days as a country music ingénue to her ascendance as the reigning mastermind of pop, Swift has credited the Chicks as a seminal influence in her songwriting and career trajectory. (Need examples? Look anywhere from early singles like "Picture to Burn" and "Should’ve Said No" to Evermore’s Haim-assisted murder ballad "no body, no crime" and her own Lover-era collab with the band, "Soon You’ll Get Better.")

In a 2020 Billboard cover story tied to the Chicks’ eighth album Gaslighter, Swift acknowledged just how much impact the trio made on her growing up. "Early in my life, these three women showed me that female artists can play their own instruments while also putting on a flamboyant spectacle of a live show," she said at the time. "They taught me that creativity, eccentricity, unapologetic boldness and kitsch can all go together authentically. Most importantly, they showed an entire generation of girls that female rage can be a bonding experience between us all the very second we first heard Natalie Maines bellow ‘that Earl had to DIE.’"

"Game of Thrones"

When reputation dropped in 2017, Swift was on a self-imposed media blackout, which meant no cover stories or dishy sit-down interviews on late-night TV during the album’s roll-out. Instead, the singer let reputation speak for itself, and fans were largely left to draw their own conclusions about their queen’s wildly anticipated comeback album. Two years later, though, Swift revealed the dark, vengeful, romantic body of work was largely inspired by "Game of Thrones."

"These songs were half based on what I was going through, but seeing them through a 'Game of Thrones' filter," she told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. "My entire outlook on storytelling has been shaped by ["GoT"] — the ability to foreshadow stories, to meticulously craft cryptic story lines. So, I found ways to get more cryptic with information and still be able to share messages with the fans. I aspire to be one one-millionth of the kind of hint dropper the makers of 'Game of Thrones' have been."

Joni Mitchell

Swift has long made her admiration of Joni Mitchell known, dating back to her 2012 album Red, which took a cue from the folk pioneer’s landmark 1971 LP Blue for its chromatic title. In an interview around the time of Red’s release, the country-pop titan gushed over Blue’s impact on her, telling Rhapsody, "[Mitchell] wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons. Songs like ‘River,’ which is just about her regrets and doubts of herself — I think this album is my favorite because it explores somebody’s soul so deeply."

Back in 2015, TIME declared the "Blank Space" singer a "disciple of Mitchell in ways both obvious and subtle" — from her reflective songwriting to the complete ownership over her creative process, and nearly 10 years later, Swift was still showing her appreciation for Mitchell after the latter’s triumphant and emotional appearance on the GRAMMY stage to perform "Both Sides Now" on the very same night Taylor took home her historic fourth GRAMMY for Album Of The Year for Midnights.

Fall Out Boy & Paramore

When releasing the re-recording of her third album Speak Now in 2023, Swift cited two unexpectedly emo acts as inspirations to her early songwriting: Fall Out Boy and Paramore.

"Since Speak Now was all about my songwriting, I decided to go to the artists who I feel influenced me most powerfully as a lyricist at that time and ask them to sing on the album," she wrote in an Instagram post revealing the back cover and complete tracklist for Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which included Fall Out Boy collaboration "Electric Touch" and "Castles Crumbling" featuring Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams.

Tim McGraw

For one of Swift’s original career inspirations, we have to go all the way back to the very first single she ever released. "Tim McGraw" was not only as the lead single off the 16-year-old self-titled 2006 debut album, but it also paid reverent homage to one of the greatest living legends in the history of country music.

In retrospect, it was an incredibly gutsy risk for a then-unknown Swift to come raring out of the gate with a song named after a country superstar. But the gamble clearly paid off in spades, considering that now, when an entire generation of music fans hear "Tim McGraw," they think of Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is A Post-Mortem Autopsy In Song: 5 Takeaways From Her New Album

Taylor Swift performing during her Eras Tour with a guitar

Taylor Swift performs during her Eras Tour

Photo: Don Arnold/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

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Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is A Post-Mortem Autopsy In Song: 5 Takeaways From Her New Album

"There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed," Taylor Swift wrote of her new album. From grapplings with fame to ultra-personal reflections on love lost, her latest set of fountain and quill pen songs marks the end of an era.

Kelsey Barnes

GRAMMYs/Apr 19, 2024 - 05:38 pm

"All’s fair in love and poetry," Taylor Swift declared when she announced her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, at the 66th GRAMMY Awards.

Taken from the proverb "All’s fair in love and war," the pop phenom gave us a fair warning: there’s no limit to what she’ll go through to achieve her ends.

On the freshly released The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift has a few things to get off her chest — so much that it required a surprise second record, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, adding an additional 15 songs. The sprawling album is a masterclass in songwriting and so personal that it's analogous to performing a post mortem autopsy; The musical shapeshifter is here to exhume the tortured poets of her past and make peace with them.

In an Instagram post, Swift called the record an anthology that reflects "events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure." With the release of Tortured Poets, "there is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed…our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page."

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Describing Swift’s work as a collection of tracks about boys and break-ups has always felt underbaked and disingenuous, but much of The Tortured Poets Department is just that. In true Swiftian fashion, she plays on preconceived theories, opting to toy with the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — after a break-up, bringing listeners along on a peregrination exploring the depths of her relationships and personal growth.

Analyzing her feelings to craft songs is muscle memory at this point, but with every release Taylor Swift somehow does so with a refreshed and reimagined perspective. The stories she shares with her fans in TTPD might’ve made her feel like she died, but she’s a revenant no longer tortured by the whims and words of other poets.

With The Tortured Poets Department open for business, read on for five key points to consider when listening to Taylor Swift’s new album.

It's Much More Than A Break-Up Record

Although the record orbits around a break-up, The Tortured Poets Department demonstrates Swift's ability to shapeshift as a songwriter. A song about a break-up is layered, typically forcing Swift to unveil her own flaws while wearing her broken heart on her sleeve.

The fifth track on a Taylor Swift album is typically the most emotionally cutting, and "So Long London" is no exception. On the standout track, Swift views the loss of her lover and the breakdown of her relationship to Joe Alwyn through the lens of the city they once shared together. It’s a cathartic release for Swift who point-blank notes the pain they inflicted upon her and how, in turn, they ended up just as heartbroken as she is.

The high-spirited "Down Bad" and subdued "The Smallest Man in The World" are two sides of the same coin. The former is hopeful that a love could be reignited, whereas the latter sees Swift at her grittiest, pointing the finger at her former lover. "Smallest" poses a series of questions, accusing her ex of being a spy who only wanted to get intel on her.

On piano ode "loml," Swift looks back at the "get-love-quick" schemes she first wrote about in "Why She Disappeared," a poem for reputation. The poem originally considered the death of her reputation and how its aftermath made her stronger while she was simultaneously nursing a new relationship.

The track has a similar energy to fan favorite "All Too Well," but is even more accusatory — seemingly unlocking another level of her songwriting prowess as she teeters between seething rage and mourning with lines about picking through a "braid of lies" spewed by a partner who "claimed he was a lion" but is really a coward. While Swift is honest about never feeling a loss so deeply, she maturely accepts that the effort she put into keeping the relationship afloat was all she could do. It’s distinctly different from the battles she bravely fought in "The Great War," "Daylight" and "long story short."

She's Grappling With Fame & Owning Her Choices

That Taylor Swift struggles with her own celebrity and the public's perception is nothing new. On reputation’s album prologue, she stated, "We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us."

On The Tortured Poets Department, Swift has never been more honest about her feelings towards those who claim to know better than she does. On "But Daddy I Love Him," she doubles down on these frustrations, taking aim at self-righteous "vipers" and "judgmental creeps" who condemn her choice of a lover. Swift holds nothing back, declaring "I'll tell you something about my good name/It's mine alone to disgrace."

Swift stated that her life sometimes feels like a public autopsy with people psychoanalyzing her every thought and feeling. Following the release of Midnights and her larger-than-life Eras Tour, Swift’s been in her "glittering prime" despite experiencing her long-term relationship ending and the media hysteria around it would make anyone feel the opposite. "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart" confirms fans' theories that the GRAMMY winner was indeed putting on a brave face.

On "Clara Bow" — a song named for the silent film actress whose public life was so scrutinized that she admitted herself into a sanatorium — Swift sings "Beauty is a beast that roars/Down on all fours/Demanding, 'More.'" Again, Swift plays with the double-edged sword of fame, comparing herself to a performing circus animal — something she sings about in "Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?"

Taylor Swift Gets By With A Little Help From Her Friends

Swift has always looked up to and honored the greats in her music and art, and Tortured Poets is no exception. She recruits rock icon and songwriter Stevie Nicks to help build TTPD’s world, and Nicks penned a poem featured in Swift’s physical album. Written in Texas, the poem is "For T and me..." and tells the tale of two ill-fated lovers. (Swift also namedrops Nicks in "Clara Bow," touching on the comparisons made between Clara, Nicks and herself.)

There are two additional guest appearances on TTPD: Post Malone appears on "Fortnight" and Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine is featured on "Florida!!!" (a surprisingly toned-down lead single). Swift particularly shines when paired with Welch, and the soaring "Florida!!!" sees their intertwined vocals creating a sound as infectious as the "drug" they sing about.

J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan inspired Swift on "cardigan" ("Tried to change the ending/Peter losing Wendy") but now the Lost Boy gets his own track on The Anthology’s "Peter." The ever-inquisitive Swift pleads, "You said you were gonna grow up/Then you were gonna come find me" and confronts this man who wouldn’t grow up. She even puts herself in the shoes of Wendy who waited for Peter Pan to return but has grown tired of waiting.

TTPS Is All Quill And Fountain Pen Songs

A few years ago, Taylor Swift categorized her songwriting according to three writing devices: glitter gel pens for fun tracks, fountain pens for songs using modern imagery and lyrics, and quill pens for tracks with flowery, figurative language. Although devoid of the glittery gel pen songs that comprise many of Swift's hits, TTPD and its accompanying anthology are steeped in fountain and quill writing.

Most of The Tortured Poets Department are fountain pen tracks — thanks to 2024 Producer Of The Year Jack Antonoff’s sleek pop production and synth use. Tracks like "Fresh Out The Slammer" and "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" are sharp, snappy, tongue-in-cheek tales of love affairs about to begin and coming to an end with the same sonic exuberance of past Swift & Antonoff songs, like "Out of the Woods" and "Getaway Car."

Tracks on The Anthology, mostly produced by Aaron Dessner, are stripped-back, folk-tinged quill songs brimming with sorrow and harrowing thematics and dives even deeper into her chaotic psyche. "The Prophecy" sees Swift beg to change a prophecy that has been laid out ahead of her — likely stemming from the pressure of being a global superstar when all she wants is to be loved.

This Is The End Of An Era (Or A Chapter)

To her occasional disdain, Swift's highly personal songwriting has created a global obsession with her inner life. Although she's tired of the "public autopsy," Tortured Poets offers her time to reflect on the "events, opinions, and sentiments" over a time that was equal parts transient and transformative.

From her growth from the country-twanged teen singer on her self-titled debut to woman who is fearless in her pursuit of happiness, love, and peace, Swift has transformed time and time again. By viewing her work in eras — or, in this case, a chapter in a book of her life — it’s clear that Swift sees this current chapter of her life coming to a close, turning the last page and no longer longing to look back.

One could argue that Swift is an unreliable narrator, only ever presenting her side of the story. But she says that while considering the pain described on TTPS, many now-healed wounds turned out to be self-inflicted. With these stories immortalized, Taylor Swift has spoken her saddest story and is now "free of it." The tortured poets and poems will no longer take up space in this next chapter of her life.

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Taylor Swift performs during "Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour" at the National Stadium on March 02, 2024 in Singapore.

Photo: Ashok Kumar/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

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Taylor Swift’s New Album 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is Here: The Tracklisting, Guests, Easter Eggs & More

Just over two months after Taylor Swift announced 'The Tortured Poets Department' at the 2024 GRAMMYs, the sprawling, bracingly personal album is here. Before you open the department door, arm yourself with the following knowledge.

Morgan Enos

GRAMMYs/Apr 19, 2024 - 05:20 pm

We’ll be wandering through this Department for the foreseeable future.

Not only has Taylor Swift unleashed an absolute maelstrom with her 16-song new album, The Tortured Poets Department; she’s dropped a whopping 15 additional tracks via its expanded version, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.

Clearly, there’s an absolute treasure trove here — for Swifties and the merely Swift-curious alike. A mostly downbeat and discursive affair, The Tortured Poets Department feels like the shadow cast by the gilded, giddy, exhilarating Eras Tour, which isn’t over yet. (Which makes all the sense in the world, as she was simultaneously chipping away at the album while crisscrossing the globe.)

If you’re reading this, you’re probably bracing yourself for this long, solemn, darkly funny journey. Don’t go alone: here’s a brief breakdown of what you should know going in. (And keep checking GRAMMY.com, as there’s plenty more Taylor and Tortured Poets coming your way.)

The Tracklisting

As previously reported, here’s the standard tracklist for The Tortured Poets Department:

Side A
"Fortnight" (feat. Post Malone)
"The Tortured Poets Department"
"My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys"
"Down Bad"

**Side B**
"So Long, London"
"But Daddy I Love Him"
"Fresh Out the Slammer"
"Florida!!!" (feat. Florence + the Machine)

**Side C**
"Guilty As Sin?"
"Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?"
"I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)"
"Loml"

**Side D**
"I Can Do It With a Broken Heart"
"The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived"
"The Alchemy"
"Clara Bow"

**The Expanded Tracklisting**

Aside from The Black Dog Edition, The Albatross Edition, The Bolter Edition, and The Manuscript Edition — which consist of the standard edition of the album with its titular bonus track — here are the additional tracks that complete The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.

"The Black Dog"

"Imgonnagetyouback"

"The Albatross"

"Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus"

"How Did It End?"

"So High School"

"I Hate It Here"
"thanK you aIMee"

"I Look In People’s Windows"

"The Prophecy"
"Cassandra"
"Peter"
"The Bolter"
"Robin"

"The Manuscript"

The Guests

Physical copies of The Tortured Poets Department feature an original poem by the one and only Stevie Nicks.

Titled "For T and me…," the poem starts off with "He was in love with her / Or at least she thought so / She was brokenhearted / Maybe he was too." It goes on to trace a doomed relationship — one party being "way too hot to handle" and the other "way too high to try."

Elsewhere, Post Malone lends a haunting vocal to opener and lead single "Fortnight," and Florence + the Machine elevate "Florida!!!".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiqoZyauhdA

The lion’s share of the album was produced by Jack Antonoff; Aaron Dessner handled a handful of tunes on the standard edition and the majority of The Anthology.

The Easter Eggs

Where do we begin? For starters, most of the songs seem to be directed at ex Matty Healy of the 1975, but Joe Alwyn and Travis Kelce seem to pop up here and there as well.

In the title track, Swift describes embracing the "cyclone" of a relationship with a partner akin to a "tattooed golden retriever." And they’d be remiss to compare themselves to Patti Smith or Dylan Thomas or any other famously tortured poet of the 20th century: "We’re modern idiots… we’re two idiots."

Elsewhere, Lucy Dacus of boygenius — and Antonoff himself — pop up ("But you tell Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave / And I had said that to Jack about you / So I felt seen").

Far be it from us to speculate on exact subjects, but there are shades of depression ("You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days"), a betrothal that wasn’t to be ("You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? / I died on the altar waiting for the proof") and the racket of fame ("The circus life made me mean").

As usual, Swift has dumped puzzle pieces on the carpet — daring her ardent, global fanbase to start at the edges and work their way to the center. But never to this degree, across such an ocean of material.

Tortured poets — and those who fall in love with them — assemble!

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