Things to Do in the Bathroom While Playing the New Taylor Swift DOUBLE Album
A track-by-track analysis
The bathroom is my favorite room, and Taylor Alison Swift is one of my favorite recording artists. She’s a very compelling writer, and I always enjoy her albums. For transparency, I must confess I listened to the entirety of The Tortured Poets Department not in my bathroom but in my living room in the middle of the night. Still, I imagined I was in a vast beautiful bathroom, the kind you might see staged with multiple vases of fresh flowers and 100 lit Voluspa candles on an Architectural Digest home tour video. It was a very nice experience.
And now, I present an array of bathroom activities paired specifically with each song.
Fortnight is for when you’re dancing around with hot rollers in your hair as you wait for them to cool down so you can brush out your curls and have fun beachy waves or maybe you just keep the tighter barrel curls like a pageant queen.
The Tortured Poets Department is for when you realize Matty Healy left something in your bathroom like a tube of hair oil or a typewriter and you really don’t feel like bringing it back to him so you just have your assistant FedEx it.
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys is the perfect song for when you find something else that BAGGADOUCHE left in your fucking bathroom, like those FUCKING annoying cigarettes he INSISTS ON ROLLING HIMSELF so you just set the whole pack on fire in your bathtub because it isn’t going to hurt anything or anyone, UNLIKE HIM.
Down Bad is for when you’ve had too much white wine at Tree Paine’s New York place on erotic scrapbook night with the girls so you came home and got the spins and now you need to puke but also you think you might have a panic attack, so you just kind of put your head on the cool toilet seat and wait, and then you notice your fucking rebound also left his stupid pocket harmonica that he says Stevie Wonder gave to him but you know he didn’t, and anyway it’s behind the toilet gathering dust so you grab it and throw up on THAT, and then you throw it out.
So Long, London is for when you’re going through your towels to see which ones are still fluffy and comforting and which ones are raggedy and have ancient period stains and simply need to go and also you think of how your ex really should’ve tried Zoloft.
But Daddy I Love Him is for when you’re doing a banishing ritual with your second-day period blood and a lock of greasy rebound hair, which you didn’t notice he left on the bathroom floor because you thought you swept up all the dumb hair he left when he decided to cut his hair himself as a joke to “surprise” you.
Fresh Out the Slammer is for when you’re trimming your pubes before taking your oral contraceptive because your pussy HAS been let out of codependent depression jail and it is ready to squish-sploosh its dripping self out onto these streets even if, unfortunately, it accidentally lands on THAT MAN first.
Florida!!! (featuring Florence and the Machine!) is for when your friend comes over and you both get in the bathroom to do your makeup at the same time and maybe take molly and also Florence sings about being in the bathroom so that’s a lyric you can sing real loud as you look at your friend and laugh and laugh.
Guilty as Sin? is for when you’re masturbating in the tub.
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me is for when you’re using your hairdryer as a microphone and scream-singing as loud as you want because your ex-boyfriend you were with for YEARS is really on one if he thinks you’re going to send him money for that last little utility bill he can totally pay himself, you were literally gone for 75% of the month it covered, and FUCK him AND Scooter Braun!!!
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) is for when you’re regrouting your shower tile and you find a piece of GUM that your recovery peen squished in there and just left?!? What the FUCK?! Disgusting.
loml is for when you decide you should really order the exact same shower curtain you had years ago, and then you put it up and it just looks bizarre in your new place so you take it down and then you put it on Poshmark and that pile of spotted dick puts in a bid?! Is he serious?!
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart is for when you are actually very depressed for the first month of the Eras World Tour tbh.
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived is for when you have to take a really painful but necessary shit and you promise yourself in the process that from now on you’ll drink 80 ounces of water a day and eat so much psyllium husk powder and Matty Healy is literally never allowed to use your bathroom ever again because he is the worst and you are NOT getting out of this bathroom without hemorrhoids and you know it.
The Alchemy is for when your starter dose of Zoloft starts working and you actually don’t experience any side effects and instead of wasting one more season with one more British person, you permit someone from America’s Middle West to dick you down, probably in your bathroom as well as other the many rooms in your vast luxury abode.
Clara Bow is for when you really need to do a VERY smoky eye and after all the blending your bathroom is full of smudged tissues but you look fantastic!
In conclusion, this is a very good album and I liked it very much.
UPDATE: Okay, so about an hour after I published this, she dropped the second half of what is, in fact, a double album. Back to the bathroom I go! I shall update as necessary.
The Black Dog is for when you need to go through your old makeup and throw out all the stuff that’s older than six months older, and did you know makeup can decay, you really should clean that out, and what is an annoying recycled rebound ex but a kind of crusty mascara tube that you used to think worked great on you and then you found something better but now you’re like, you know what, perhaps Maybelline Great Lengths IS the answer!
imgonnagetyouback is for when you take a glass jar into the bathroom, fart in it, and immediately seal it up and then give it to your giggling assistant to mail to the guy you thought loved you but really treated you like a fling because he’s ultimately not well and you want to wish him the best but you don’t yet so you simply must have flatulence delivered to his debauched lair.
The Albatross is for when your cramps are really, really bad and you’re bleeding like a stuck pig and you just need something beautiful and cinematic and comforting to distract you while you rock back and forth on the toilet waiting for the ibuprofen and CBD to kick in.
Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus is for when you do your Al-Anon meeting on the Zoom app on your phone while sitting in the corner on the bathroom floor because some days are just like that.
How Did It End? is for when you realize you may need to switch from Zoloft to Prozac under your psychiatrist’s care and maybe start Internal Family Systems therapy because honestly, why is this HAPPENING TO YOU and you’re tired of crying in your bathroom.
So High School is for when you are dating a fun, genial bro at long last and truly having a spectacular time and you do have to stay in the bathroom to pee extra a lot because you are drinking so much beer out of cans before crushing them on your respective foreheads but it’s fun? Who knew you’d be into this type of thing? Should you do weed? Maybe you will do pot drugs!
I Hate It Here is for when you are hiding in the bathroom and texting your friend to make a fake emergency call to you in exactly five minutes so you can dramatically act like you need to help her out and you can kick all these idiots out of your house because why did you even decide to host the family reunion this year?!
thanK you aIMee is for when you write a Kim Kardashian diss track in Dior rouge lipstick on your mirror while cackling on speaker with Tree Paine, who demands a bonus in advance, which you immediately grant because duh, you Zelle her $100,000 and label it “combat pay.”
I Look in People’s Windows is for when you rent a place with a bathroom that has a window but it looks right into somebody else’s window in the building next door but that’s New York, baybee! I saw the aloof cool guy across the street showering with his dong bush being ruffled by the breeze of the open window, which was a trip.
The Prophecy is for when you really would just like to see a cute separate toothbrush in a cute separate toothbrush holder next to your lonely toothbrush in its lonely toothbrush holder and you want to WANT to be alone and strong and proud but you’re honestly just really hoping for that forever love and then you remember you aren’t out of your favorite melatonin gummies like you thought so you eat a bunch of them and zone out listening to Enya because you deserve that and it’s FINE.
Cassandra is for when you’re soaking in the bathtub listening to the audiobook of Madeline Miller’s CIRCE as performed by Perdita Weeks.
Peter is for when you just finished listening to Harry Styles in the bathroom.
The Bolter is for when your sweet little gal friend calls you up and you love each other so much that you FaceTime on the toilet like Ilana and Abbi did in “Broad City” and she tells you she’s dumping yet another boyfriend and you’re like, “You are avoidant, babe” and she’s like, “Yeah, I know, I’m also a Virgo, his sweaters just sat weird on his body?” and you’re like, “Well, we will always be friends, but I gotta go because I’ll piss on FaceTime with you but I am not taking a shit this way.”
Robin is for when you are considering switching to blasting Robyn in the bathroom because “Call Your Girlfriend” cheers you up even though it’s honestly kind of a scandalous song!
The Manuscript is for when you decide to adapt your diary into a limited anthology series about Donnie Darko so you type the entire series out in perfect script format on the typewriter Matty Healy left in your bathroom because you will not take your foot off Jake’s neck any sooner than Beyonce will with Becky or Dolly will with Jolene, and that’s just his fate, he will be fine, and you’ll be glad to bang it out with the aforementioned Middle Western bro shortly.
Jesus fuck, Taylor, this was a sprint that turned into a marathon. Well done.
While I won't say this is the *best* thing I've ever read, it has to make the short list! Which I hope carries some degree of honor?
This is such over the top amazingness! <3