On “thanK you aIMee” and “Cassandra,” the singer may take aim at Kardashian, who was infamously involved in the public drama that unfolded between Swift and Kanye West over his 2016 song “Famous.”
Taylor Swift isn’t done building her case to the fellow members of The Tortured Poets Department. In fact, she has now added 15 brand-new songs to the record.
The “Fortnight” singer revealed in a surprise 2 a.m. announcement Friday morning that her latest album, which already contained 16 tracks, was just the start of a much larger tale.
“It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” Swift wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”
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Similar to the first half of the record, The Anthology features several songs that may allude to Swift’s former romance with the 1975 frontman Matty Healy, such as the hazy “Imgonnagetyouback.” However, Swift also might take aim at Kim Kardashian — who was infamously involved in the public drama that unfolded between Swift and Kanye “Ye” West over his song “Famous” back in 2016 — on not one, but two tracks on the record: “thanK you aIMee” and “Cassandra.”
In 2016, Swift claimed that West didn’t tell her that his song would refer to her with the line “I made that bitch famous.” The rapper later asserted that he’d “had a hourlong convo with her about the line and she thought it was funny and gave her blessings.” In response, Kardashian, who was married to West at the time, posted a portion of the call between him and Swift — in which they talked about the song — on her Snapchat account.
On “thanK you aIMee,” Swift seems to bring back her penchant of using capital letters to spell out a secret message — and this time, that message might to be the name ‘KIM.’ She may be reflecting on how the feud changed her life, for better and for worse, on the acoustic track, which is all about acknowledging the pain that a high school bully named Aimee put its narrator through while also simultaneously thanking her for it, because they wouldn’t be the person they are now without it.
“All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel,” Swift sings. “Screamed, ‘F— you, Aimee’ to the night sky, as the blood was gushin’ / But I can’t forget the way you made me heal.”
The song’s lyrics go on to explain that it “wasn’t a fair fight” between the two, and that Aimee “wrote headlines” and laughed at “each baby step I’d take” to get back up and recover in the aftermath of the mess. So, the narrator “built a legacy which you can’t undo,” with Swift adding, “But when I count the scars, there’s a moment of truth / That there wouldn’t be this, if there hadn’t been you.”
While its lyrics may express gratitude in the end, feelings of resentment are definitely there too. “Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman / But she used to say she wished that you were dead,” Swift sings. “I pushed each boulder up the hill / Your words are still just ringing in my head, ringing in my head.”
“thanK you aIMee” also revels in the idea that the narrator got the last laugh. “One day, your kid comes home singin’ a song that only us two is gonna know is about you,” Swift sings in another lyric that may nod to Kardashian. In the years since their fallout, Kardashian has admitted to liking Swift’s music, and she and her daughter North West have posted videos of them singing and dancing to Swift’s songs on social media.
The alleged full version of Swift and West’s infamous conversation was eventually leaked in 2020, with Swift writing on her Instagram Story that it proved that she was “telling the truth the whole time” about the call that “somebody” had “edited and manipulated in order to frame me and put me, my family, and fans through hell for 4 years.” She might explore the initial wildfire reaction to it — and her frustrations at not being believed from the beginning — on another new TTPD track, “Cassandra.”
“When the first stone’s thrown, they’re screaming / In the streets, there’s a raging riot,” she sings. “When it’s ‘Burn the bitch,’ they’re shrieking / When the truth comes out, it’s quiet.”
The song lyrics and title reference the Trojan priestess Cassandra, who was given the gift of prophecy only for others not to believe her. The track goes on to recall that they “filled my cell with snakes,” which might be another nod to Kardashian, who shaded Swift by posting about National Snake Day just hours before releasing the notorious phone call on her Snapchat account. The singer later reclaimed the serpent as one of the key elements on her 2017 album, Reputation.
“So they set my life in flames, I regret to say,” Swift’s “Cassandra” continues. “Do you believe me now?”
But “Cassandra” seems to take shots at not just Kardashian and West, but also at the SKIMS founder’s entire family for not speaking out about the drama. “They knew, they knew, they knew the whole time / That I was onto something / The family, the pure greed, the Christian chorus line,” she sings. “They all said nothing / Blood’s thick but nothing like a payroll / Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul.”
She adds, “You can mark my words that I said it first / In a morning warning, no one heard.”
Swift’s new (now double) album, The Tortured Poets Department, is out now.