Taylor Swift Drops Voice Memos From ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ First Draft

17 May 2024, 12:42 | Updated: 17 May 2024, 13:00

Taylor Swift is sharing the voice memos she saved after she had a first draft of new album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’.

Taylor Swift is the queen of letting fans inside her brain and after releasing ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ she’s giving fans an even deeper look at her thought process behind the new album.

Releasing three brand new versions of the album, Taylor’s dropped each with a bonus track – ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?’, ‘Cassandra’ and ‘The Black Dog’ – and accompanying voice note to share a little insight into the song and to show what the first draft sounded like as she played them on piano.

While the ‘Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me?’ and ‘The Black Dog’ voice memos are the very first drafts of the songs, ‘Cassandra’ has a voice note from Taylor explaining where she got the inspiration for the song from.

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Here’s what she says on each one.

Taylor Swift’s ‘Little Old Me’ voice note

Taylor introduces this voice memo with: “I’m gonna play this in one go, this is called, ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?’" before belting into the powerful song on piano.

However, she reigns in her belting vocals which feature on the latest version of the track for a delicate whisper when she sings the leading lyric.

She adds at the end of the voice note: "For the most part that was sort of almost what it should be. I’m gonna work on the melodies and the bridge so they don’t become repetitive, but that was just the framework and I might take some things out, but, yeah, just a song about being crazy!”

Taylor Swift’s ‘Cassandra’ voice note

Taylor gave fans a little insight into the meaning of ‘Cassandra’ in the voice memo, a song which fans think is about her feud with Kim Kardashian as well as her own life as ‘Cassandra’, a woman in Greek mythology who had the gift of prophecy but was cursed so no one would believe what she said.

Swifties think it refers to her feud with Kim when people turned on her amid their fallout, filling her Instagram with snake emojis – something Taylor references in ‘Cassandra’ with the lyric: “So, they filled my cell with snakes, I regret to say / Do you believe me now?”

Here’s what she says on the voice note: “I love this track so so much, this is either called ‘Cassandra’ or… no, I think it’s called that because in Greek mythology Cassandra was brought on by Apollo to always warn people of impending doom, but she was cursed to never be listened to. So, read into this what you will, based on our current cultural and social climate.”

Taylor Swift’s ‘The Black Dog’ voice note

In ‘The Black Dog’ voice memo Taylor reveals the song was nearly called something else, originally picking another lyric from the song for its title.

“This is called ‘Old Habits Die Screaming’”, Taylor says before she sings the first half of the song while playing piano.

The song’s thought to be about Matty Healy and the time they spent in a pub in London together. ‘The Black Dog’ also is a term used to refer to depression.

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