By Kim Harper
Taylor Swift’s new album dropped on April 19, 2024. “The Tortured Poets Department” is Taylor’s 11th era album. “Florida!!!” is the only song that includes three exclamation points. It also mentions Destin timeshares. All the Swifties are googling Destin now.
“Little did you know your home’s really only
A town you’re just a guest in
So you work your life away just to pay
For a time-share down in Destin”
The song is Taylor’s first collaboration with Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine. Taylor and Florence’s voices blend amazingly for the edgy track that sounds a little different from Taylor’s usual pop songs. They seem to be singing about a retreat to Florida to recover from heartbreak, but it takes a darker turn, mentioning hurricanes, swamps, cheating husbands and more.
“The hurricane with my name when it came
I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away
Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine
Well, mе and my ghosts, we had a h*** of a time”
Taylor told iHeartRadio about the song: “I think I was coming up with this idea of ‘what happens when your life doesn’t fit’ or ‘the choices you’ve made catch up with you’ and you’re surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgement. And circumstances did not lead you to where you thought you’d be and you just want to escape from everything you’ve ever known. Is there a place you could go?”
“I’m always watching, like, Dateline,” she continued. “People have these crimes that they commit, where they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida. They try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in. And I think when you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks, ‘I want a new name. I want a new life. I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all.’ And so that was the jumping off point behind where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? Florida.”
Fans are speculating that the song could have something to do with Taylor’s breakup with Joe Alwyn, which happened while she was touring in Florida on the “Eras Tour” in 2023.
From Taylor’s Instagram regarding the album: “The Tortured Poets Department. An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up… And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”
Floridians are honored that Taylor took notice of the sunshine state. It’s a beautiful place to retreat, to heal; but as Taylor knows, it’s not without its dangers and temptations.
“I need to forget, so take me to Florida”
You can check out “Florida!!!” here:
