A Guide to All the Literary References in Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’


Song: “The Tortured Poets Department” and “loml”

Lyric: “You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith” and “We embroidered the memories of the time I was away / Stitching, ‘We were just kids, babe‘”

Patti Smith gets not one, but two references on TTPD—one linking her with Dylan Thomas, and another to her memoir Just Kids. On Instagram, Smith reacted by posting a photo of herself and Thomas’s memoir (see below), writing, “This is saying I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Thank you Taylor.”


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *