The torch Jake Gyllenhaal once carried is now being passed to Joe Alwyn, who is no doubt going into hiding somewhere right about now—just as the hot single girls emerge, newly empowered with Swiftie energy.
Today, as she gears up for the April 19 release of her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift dropped a multipart playlist on Apple Music—featuring tracks from her own catalog—that chronicles the five stages of heartbreak: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And because Swift’s songs tend to be autobiographical and her moves fabulously calculated, we can’t help but think this playlist is a reflection of her own journey into happiness after the dissolution of her relationship with Alwyn.
Denial: I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life Songs
For denial, we get everything from the love-drunk oblivion of “Lavender Haze” to the upbeat flirtiness of “Style (Taylor’s Version)” and romance of “Treacherous (Taylor’s Version).”
Swift says: “This is a list of songs about getting so caught up in the idea of something that you have a hard time seeing the red flags, possibly resulting in moments of denial and maybe a little bit of delusion. Results may vary.”
Anger: You Don’t Get to Tell Me About Sad Songs
Then comes anger, with fiery hits including “Vigilante sh*t,” “Bad Blood (Taylor’s Version),” and, of course, the petty summer bop “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Taylor’s Version).”
Swift says: “These songs all have one thing in common: I wrote them while feeling anger. Over the years, I’ve learned that anger can manifest itself in a lot of different ways, but the healthiest way that it manifests itself in my life is when I can write a song about it, and then oftentimes, that helps me get past it.”
Bargaining: Am I Allowed to Cry? Songs
The third stage is bargaining, in which we negotiate and question everything, and try new things to make ourselves feel like everything will be okay. Here, Swift offers “Soon You’ll Get Better,” “Say Don’t Go (Taylor’s Version),” and Folklore’s heartbreaking “This Is Me Trying.”
Swift explains: “This playlist takes you through the songs that I’ve written when I was in the bargaining stage, times when you're trying to make deals with yourself or someone that you care about, you’re trying to make things better, you’re oftentimes feeling really desperate, because oftentimes we have a gut intuition that tells us things are not going to go the way that we hope, which makes us more desperate, which makes us bargain more.”
Depression: Old Habits Die Screaming Songs
The fourth stage is depression. And, while no one roots for Swift to be heartbroken and sad, it arguably is when she makes her best music. On this list, she includes “Champagne Problems,” “We Were Happy (Taylor’s Version),” and “Forever Winter (Taylor’s Version).”
Swift says that with this playlist, “we’re going to be exploring the feelings of depression that often lace their way through my songs. In times like these, I’ll write a song because I feel lonely or hopeless. And writing a song feels like the only way to process that intensity of an emotion. And while these things are really, really hard to go through, I often feel like when I’m either listening to songs or writing songs that deal with this intensity of loss and hopelessness, usually that’s in the phase where I’m close to getting past that feeling.”
Acceptance: I Can Do It With a Broken Heart Songs
Finally, we have acceptance, when we find peace and calm after the pain. Here we get empowering hits like “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” “Closure,” “I Forgot That You Existed,” and “Now That We Don’t Talk (Taylor’s Version).”
Swift says, “Here we finally find acceptance and can start moving forward from loss or heartbreak. These songs represent making room for more good in your life, making that choice, because a lot of time when we lose things, we gain things, too.”
Rosa Sanchez
Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper's Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets.
