No, it’s not about the video game. “Fortnight,” the first single from Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” is a duet with Post Malone.
Before we delve into the lyrics, let’s get some temporal vocabulary: “Fortnight” means a two-week span. Hw much damage can two weeks do? According to this song, a lot.
The lyrics describe a torrid, short-lived and forbidden love affair that, as she says, has dramatic effects: “I love you and it’s ruining my life.” This line was already teased in an Apple Music playlist ahead of the album and in imagery, as if to say, “It’s Important.”
Click here for live coverage of the release of “The Tortured Poets Department.”
The narrator is, to put it bluntly, not well. She sings, “I supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me.” She was a “functioning alcoholic ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” suggesting that her substance use was a cry for help and attempt for someone to “notice” her.
How did she get here? The song appears to be about two neighbors married to other people. Now that the affair is over, they have returned to their old lives. This is not sitting well with our narrator.
“Now you’re in my backyard, turned into good neighbors / Your wife waters flowers. I wanna kill her,” she sings.
Domestic bliss is nowhere to be found in this nuclear family entanglement, as she sings, “My husband is cheating. I wanna kill him.”
She blames the other man’s “quiet treason” for how she ended up in this state, where all her “mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February.”
There is no cure for heartbreak, according to this song, though she tried: “I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary.”
The song ends the narrator being abandoned. The the man going to Florida in a car he won; he got the getaway car, she didn’t. Florida becomes a place of escape in this song and the song “Florida!!!” which Swift co-wrote with Florence Welch.
In that song, she sings of saving up for a time share in Destin, as if Florida is a goal and a place of future expectation: “Florida, is one hell of a drug / Florida, can I use you up?” A cheating husband who disappears also figures into the song.
It’s worth noting that, during a concert in Florida, Swift first acknowledged her breakup with Alwyn, saying, “We have a lot to catch up on.”
She already released imagery from the music video for “Fortnight,” which has some asylum vibes that match the song lyrics.
Read the lyrics to ‘Fortnight’
I was supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me
I was a functioning alcoholic ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic
All of this to say I hope you’re OK, but you’re the reason
And no one here’s to blame but what about your quiet treason
And for a fortnight there we were
Forever running to you
Sometimes ask about the weather
Now you’re in my backyard, turned into good neighbors
Your wife waters flowers. I wanna kill her.
All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February
I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary
And I love you, it’s ruining my life (I love you, it’s ruining my life)
I touched you for only a fortnight (I touched you)
But I touched you
And for a fortnight there we were, forever running to you
Sometimes ask about the weather
Now you’re in my backyard turned into good neighbors
Your wife waters flowers. I wanna kill her.
And for a fortnight, there we were together
Running to you, sometimes come and turn my sweater
And now you’re at the mailbox, turned into good neighbors
My husband is cheating. I wanna kill him.
And I love you, it’s ruining my life (I love you, it’s ruining my life)
I touched you for only a fortnight (I touched you)
But I touched you
And I love you
It’s ruining my life (I love you, it’s ruining my life)
I touched you for only a fortnight (I touched you)
But I touched you
I’m calling you, but you won’t be called?
Another fortnight lost in America
Going to Florida by the car you won
But it won’t start up till you touch, touch, touch me
#Taylor #Swift #Song
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