Intertwined in the Magic Fabric of Our Dreaming
Old Habits Die Screaming
A fascinating (and often annoying) aspect of being an avid fan of America’s pop darling is that you know a little too much about who the record is actually about. Swift is known for writing confessional-style, autobiographical songs that allude heavily to the real characters behind the tunes in the content surrounding the album, such as in the music videos and promotional materials. The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) tells four distinct stories in one, chronicling a year of experiences in the artist’s life:
Leaving a long-term relationship of over six years that had run its course, realizing that you both had grown apart;
Immediately rebounding from the aforementioned long-term relationship with a moody, depressed songwriter with an addiction problem that you had an 8+ year on-and-off again situationship with over the course of your 20’s, while finally deciding you want to try to make it work as a proper relationship;
Having said moody songwriter leave you out of the blue after 3-4 months of making grand promises of a long-term relationship, healing from that breakup, learning to believe that you can find healthy and supportive love again;
And in all of that, coming to terms with the fact that you’re single in your 30’s, something you didn’t anticipate being when you were younger, and asking yourself how and why that happened.
Geez louise! All of that in a 31 song epic of a record! I previously wrote in defense of Swift’s lyrical tendencies in this record, and how I personally love how messy it is, but I can see why it’s not for everyone. I love confessional work that aims to make the listener uncomfortable, but I recognize that most people might not want to confront their deepest insecurities when they turn on an album. If that’s you, I recommend her debut self-titled album or Fearless, and I respect that you might leave behind TTPD.
Fans of Swift have a tendency to read very far into her lyricism, seeking secret codes or inklings of who the record might be about. But, in TTPD, you don’t have to look that far to find the messaging behind the music. I recently saw a post about how The Black Dog was chock full of deep metaphors lurking beneath the surface of “plain” lyrics. While I often make this argument for a slew of songs within this artist’s catalog, I actually think The Black Dog is incredibly literal. But, I’ll reserve one very significant caveat to my aforementioned statement for the end - because of course, with Swift, it can’t ALL be literal.
For an album that is comprised of some of Swift’s most lyrical and flowery songwriting, The Black Dog feels like a return to form for an artist who thrives off of telling grand stories within short snippets of music. The piece starts with Swift explaining a classic 2024 conundrum - at what point post-breakup do you remove your ex from “Find My Friends” or Life360 or SnapMaps or whatever the kids are using these days to enable location sharing amongst consenting parties? Or do you just wait for the other person to do it? In the case of this song, Swift realizes that her ex never removed her ability to see their live location, and she sees that he is “in some bar called The Black Dog” without her.
This is where people on the internet were starting to surmise that the bar is the metaphor, and a place that doesn’t actually exist in reality - which I think is inaccurate. I think it’s a pretty universal experience to wonder how someone who you used to spend all of your time with is doing without you. Perhaps she didn’t actually look up the location of her ex boyfriend, but I don’t think it’s beyond the pale to suggest she may have wondered what he was doing on a lonely Saturday night. In the case of romantic relationships in your late 20’s or 30’s, I think it is an especially relevant experience to see someone move on quickly while you are giving grace to the grief of another failed relationship. You’re at the stage of your life where most of your friends may have gotten married or found their “person,” and the pressure to move on quickly to the next relationship after one fails is high.
There are many aspects to the lyrics of this song that I feel are wonderfully human, and traverse so many emotional spectrums. There are clear moments of anger - the song goes from lilting, simple piano with solo voice, to crashing calamitous drums with stacks of harmonies over the vocals. The central question - how was this so easy for you to just move on from? - pierces the listener like a knife in lyrics like, “do you hate me? Was it hazing for a cruel fraternity I pledged?” and in the emphasis on “I hope it’s shitty in The Black Dog.”
But then there are moments of introspection in quiet, none more poignant than the devastating way she sings the line, “And hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons,” which in comparison with the rest of the bridge is sung softly and in her head voice, almost as if she doesn’t want to admit the impact it had on her. There are many moments in this song where it feels like she is whispering something to herself in the dark of her room, not wanting to fully bring it into the light, but accepting its truth all the same.
While I think most of the song is pretty literal, I’ll say that the name of the bar itself feels metaphorical to me. In literature and mythology, a black dog is often used as an omen or a sign of negative future outcomes. A black dog has historically been used a tool in fiction to denote someone who is communing with Satan (#same), or as someone who is about to meet death. Or, as I believe Swift may have intended, the black dog is used to demonstrate a character who is about to contradict themselves. I think Swift is hinting that she believes the man she is writing about once promised her forever, but now is walking into a bar called The Black Dog, contradicting himself by finding his next lover, who she believes will ostensibly be too young to know “The Starting Line.” I think this is punctuated even more heavily by the way she penultimately ends the song with “I still can’t believe it.”
Or perhaps she is recognizing (in hindsight) the foreshadowed death of the relationship, as that she implies in other tracks on the record was long doomed to failure. There’s a reason why situationships don’t often become relationships, and it’s because one or both of you believes it won’t work for some reason. The earlier choruses call it the “magic fabric of our dreaming,” but in the last chorus of the song, she changes it to “the tragic fabric of our dreaming.” There is so much history between these two people that she can’t quite believe the magic is over, and that the tear is so irreparable that it will never be sewn together again. And in that there is tragedy - two people who were once thought to be perfect together, finding that the magic is no longer enough. Even more painfully, that old habits die screaming, and you still find yourself every now and again wondering on a Saturday night what bar you’re meeting that person in. Except then, you realize that they’re there without you, having already moved on.
I love the ending of this song because she doesn’t finish the last note or resolve the melody. Instead, she gasps for air, maybe in a sob, or maybe thinking that the song will continue. After all, the narrator gave years to this person in one type of relationship or another. You don’t often wonder what life will look like when that person is gone, you just presume that the fixtures in your life will always be there, no matter what. I think she takes the breath in because she thinks the song will continue, but then realizes that those days have passed.
After upping the tempo, layering rippling strings, and upper harmonies that almost sound like screams themselves, the song ends abruptly in quiet piano and solo voice. It implies that she either didn’t see it coming or didn’t want to accept that it was coming. It’s my favorite song on TTPD because I believe it sums up, in a remarkably short amount of time, the feeling of being left behind by someone you never thought would leave you. Even if you saw it coming, you might not be ready to accept it. The thought may have crossed the back of your mind, but after someone had been such a fixture for so many years, you don’t want to accept that they’re not someone you can tag along to the local bar with anymore.
Swift picks herself back up in other songs, and as we can all witness during Chief’s games, finds love again eventually. But that’s not the story she tells in this song, because she recognizes in The Black Dog that the pain of suddenly having to move on from someone you cared so deeply about is devastating, and she grants you permission to feel it. She invites you to scream along in the final chorus to an uproar of “I hope it’s shitty,” because she recognizes how shitty is it for the person left behind. The power of music is in its cathartic release - sometimes that comes in the form of dancing late at night in a club, or driving with your friend up the highway to a radio hit, and sometimes that comes in the dark of night where you remember that it’s okay to be angry, sad, and confused. And, it’s okay to hope that they hear it.