AP Taylor Swift

"Never be so kind, you forget to be clever; Never be so clever, you forget to be kind." We're celebrating Women's History Month the only way we know how: looking at strong women in Taylor Swift’s music. Jenn traces the wisdom and boldness Taylor inherited from her grandmother in "Marjorie" (evermore, 2020), Jodi unpacks the resilience hiding in plain sight throughout "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart" (The Tortured Poets Department, 2024), and Maansi makes the case that "Eldest Daughter" (The Life of a Showgirl, 2025) is basically the anthem of every firstborn girl who had to figure it out before anyone else did. Plus: why the Iceland women's strike of 1975 worked, and why Taylor Swift might be the only person capable of organizing a global one.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Unlikable Female Characters, Anna Bogutskaya

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

Play the Patriarchy, Reductress

"The End of an Era" Documentary

"Marjorie," evermore (2020)

"I Can Do It with a Broken Heart," The Tortured Poets Department (2024)

"Eldest Daughter," The Life of a Showgirl (2025)

Iceland Women's Strike, 1975

 

Episode Highlights:

[00:34] Introduction to strong women 

[05:59] "Marjorie," evermore (2020) 

[16:03] "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart," The Tortured Poets Department (2024) 

[23:42] "Eldest Daughter," The Life of a Showgirl (2025)

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This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.

This week, we're going line by line through "Down Bad" from Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department (2024). Jenn, Maansi, and Jodi unpack one of the album's most emotionally raw — and unexpectedly hilarious — songs, diving deep into its extended alien abduction metaphor, what it really means to be "down bad," and how Taylor uses sci-fi imagery to explore love bombing, power dynamics, and the messiest stages of heartbreak. We also discuss how this song connects to last week's Hero's Journey episode, why crying at the gym might be the most relatable lyric Taylor has ever written, and what the repetitive, fading outro says about the cycle of emotional abuse. Plus: cow mutilation, Kate McKinnon's SNL alien sketches, Thor and Natalie Portman, and The Other Boleyn Girl.

Subscribe for free to get episode updates or upgrade to paid to get our After School premium content: aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe. After School subscribers get monthly bonus episodes, exclusive content, and early access to help shape future topics!

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Episode Highlights:

[01:12] What does "down bad" actually mean? From Google's AI overview to Usher to Grease

[05:50] Verse one line by line: Being beamed up, cosmic love, and the alien abduction metaphor

[13:08] The chorus: Down bad, crying at the gym — from the cosmic to the devastatingly mundane

[31:52] The chorus again: "Like I lost my twin" — Plato's soulmate theory and twin flames in Taylor's discography

[34:18] The bridge: hostile takeovers, indecent exposures, and Close Encounters — loving all the red flags

[36:20] "I'll build you a fort on some planet" — savior complex, desperation, and what fort-building actually means

[43:35] The stages of grief in one song: is this processing, or just a very messy beginning of processing?

[46:03] Getting to the purpose

 

Follow AP Taylor Swift podcast on social!

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Instagram → instagram.com/APTaylorSwift

YouTube → youtube.com/@APTaylorSwift

Link Tree → linktr.ee/aptaylorswift

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Libro.fm → tinyurl.com/aptslibro

 

Contact us at [email protected]

 

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Krowned Krystals — krownedkrystals.com, use code APTS at checkout for 10% off!

 

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This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z

This week, we're giving you a taste of something brand new: our full album deep dive series, starting at the very beginning with Taylor Swift's self-titled debut (2006). In this preview, we dig into the cover art, the context, and what it meant to introduce yourself to the world as a 16-year-old girl in a genre that had never really made room for one. Want the full track-by-track breakdown — from Tim McGraw through Tied Together with a Smile — and everything we unpack about ambition, identity, and the thesis statement Taylor locked in before she could legally drive. 

Subscribe for free to get episode updates or upgrade to paid to get our After School premium content: aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe.

After School subscribers get monthly bonus episodes, exclusive content, and early access to help shape future topics!

Stay up to date at aptaylorswift.com

 

🔒 Subscribe on Substack to hear the full episode, including:

Album Cover Art and Cultural Context

Track 1: Tim McGraw — the strategy behind Taylor's very first single

Track 2: Picture to Burn — Taylor's first revenge song and a hard pivot from track one

Track 3: Teardrops on My Guitar — unrequited love and everyone's origin story

Track 4: A Place in This World — the career song that closed the Eras Tour

Track 5: Cold as You — track five energy arrives right on schedule

Track 6: The Outside — what "outsider" really meant for a girl from Pennsylvania in Nashville

Track 7: Tied Together with a Smile — and why it still hits at any age

 

Follow AP Taylor Swift podcast on social!

TikTok → tiktok.com/@APTaylorSwift

Instagram → instagram.com/APTaylorSwift

YouTube → youtube.com/@APTaylorSwift

Link Tree → linktr.ee/aptaylorswift

Bookshop.org → bookshop.org/shop/apts

Libro.fm → tinyurl.com/aptslibro

Contact us at [email protected]

 

Affiliate Codes:

Krowned Krystals - krownedkrystals.com use code APTS at checkout for 10% off!

Libro.fm - Looking for an audiobook? Check out our Libro.fm playlist and use code APTS30 for 30% off books found here tinyurl.com/aptslibro

This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z

"She had a marvelous time ruining everything" This week, we're doing a Show and Tell episode on one of literature's most enduring narrative structures: the Hero's Journey. We explore three songs through the Hero's Journey lens: Maansi unpacks the cross-generational dual hero's story in "The Last Great American Dynasty" (Folklore, 2020), Jenn applies the framework to "Down Bad" (The Tortured Poets Department, 2024),and Jodi walks us through how "The Life of a Showgirl" (The Life of a Showgirl, 2025) follows every classic beat, from the call to adventure to the triumphant (and pithy) return. Plus: the Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Hindu goddess Kali, The Traitors, and why Jodi thinks the bridge of "The Life of a Showgirl" might be Taylor's greatest bridge of all time.

 

Subscribe for free to get episode updates or upgrade to paid to get our After School premium content:

aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe

After School subscribers get monthly bonus episodes, exclusive content, and early access to help shape future topics!

 

aptaylorswift.com

 

Mentioned in This Episode:

The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell

The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins

The Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Star Wars (original trilogy)

The Last Great American Dynasty (Folklore, 2020) — Taylor Swift & Aaron Dessner

Down Bad (The Tortured Poets Department, 2024) — Taylor Swift & Jack Antonoff

The Life of a Showgirl (The Life of a Showgirl, 2025) — Taylor Swift, Max Martin, Shellback & Mathias Bielandt

 

Episode Highlights

00:36 Welcome and intro — what is the Hero's Journey (the Monomyth)?

17:43 The Last Great American Dynasty: Multiple hero's journeys in one song

31:57 Down Bad: The Hero's Journey when you're sent home against your will

43:56 The Life of a Showgirl: A textbook Hero's Journey

 

Follow AP Taylor Swift Podcast on Social!

TikTok → tiktok.com/@APTaylorSwift

Instagram → instagram.com/APTaylorSwift

YouTube → youtube.com/@APTaylorSwift

Link Tree → linktr.ee/aptaylorswift

Bookshop.org → bookshop.org/shop/apts

Libro.fm → tinyurl.com/aptslibro

 

Email us at [email protected]

 

Affiliate Codes

Krowned Krystals — krownedkrystals.com — use code APTS at checkout for 10% off!

Libro.fm — Looking for an audiobook? Check out our Libro.fm playlist and use code APTS30 for 30% off books found here: tinyurl.com/aptslibro

 

This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.

"Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in." This week, we're deep diving "hoax" from folklore (2020), written by Taylor Swift and Aaron Dessner. As a continuation of last week's Wuthering Heights episode, we go line by line through one of Taylor's most quietly devastating songs. We unpack the definition of "hoax" itself—humorous or malicious?—and find that the answer might be both. Along the way, we debate who's holding the twisted knife, trace religious undertones from the Lord's Prayer through "faithless love," connect Robert Burns and Of Mice and Men to Taylor's "best laid plan," and sit with the devastating wordplay of "my broken drum, you have beaten my heart." This is a song about betrayal by someone who knew exactly where it would hurt most—and the confusing, adult reality of choosing to stay anyway.

Subscribe for free to get episode updates or upgrade to paid to get our After School premium content: aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe. After School subscribers get monthly bonus episodes, exclusive content, and early access to help shape future topics!

Stay up to date at aptaylorswift.com 

Mentioned in this episode:

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

"To a Mouse," Robert Burns (1785)

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lord's Prayer

Episode Highlights:

[00:25] Introduction to "hoax" and the definition of a hoax

[02:11] "My only one, my smoking gun, my eclipsed sun"

[08:48] "Stood on the cliffside screaming, give me a reason"

[13:36] "Don't want no other shade of blue but you"

[18:14] "My barren land, I am ash from your fire"

[22:32] "You knew the hero died, so what's the movie for?"

[29:23] "My kingdom come undone"

[34:24] Purpose: vulnerability weaponized, betrayal by someone who knew you best

[39:10] The Wuthering Heights of it all

Follow AP Taylor Swift podcast on social!

TikTok → tiktok.com/@APTaylorSwift

Instagram → instagram.com/APTaylorSwift

YouTube → youtube.com/@APTaylorSwift

Link Tree → linktr.ee/aptaylorswift

Bookshop.org → bookshop.org/shop/apts

Libro.fm → tinyurl.com/aptslibro

Contact us at [email protected]

Affiliate Codes:

Krowned Krystals - krownedkrystals.com use code APTS at checkout for 10% off!

Libro.fm - Looking for an audiobook? Check out our Libro.fm playlist and use code APTS30 for 30% off books found here tinyurl.com/aptslibro

This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.