\n<\/p>\n
Perhaps you have heard that Taylor Swift<\/strong> has a new album out today<\/a> \u2014 just a wild guess! \u2014 and that it is called \u201cThe Tortured Poets Department.\u201d That title alone generated chatter before anyone had heard a note, and it got me thinking about some of my favorite songs that reference poets. And so I filled my inkwell, put a quill pen to my chin and cried, \u201cA playlist is in order!\u201d<\/p>\n Though there are no Swift songs on this mix, it does feature the two poets she name-checks on her latest album: Dylan Thomas (in a shaggy ode written by Better Oblivion Community Center<\/strong>) and that most poetic of rock stars, Patti Smith<\/strong>. It is also significantly shorter than \u201cThe Tortured Poets Department\u201d and its 15-song companion piece (known together as \u201cThe Anthology\u201d), which, as I suggest in my review<\/a> of Swift\u2019s album, is not necessarily a bad thing. And no, my friends, this playlist does not contain any Charlie Puth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It does, however, highlight songs by the Smiths<\/strong>, Bob Dylan<\/strong>, Lana Del Rey<\/strong> and more. Grab your favorite notebook, find a particularly pastoral patch of grass to lie in, and press play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Keats and Yeats are on your side,<\/p>\n Lindsay<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There are plenty of quotable lines on this jangly, stomping highlight from the sole album released by Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers\u2019s side project, Better Oblivion Community Center, but I am partial to this one: \u201cI\u2019m getting used to these dizzy spells\/I\u2019m takin\u2019 a shower at the Bates Motel.\u201d<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n How many people first learned that \u201cKeats\u201d didn\u2019t rhyme with \u201cYeats\u201d because of this song, from the Smiths\u2019 1986 album \u201cThe Queen Is Dead\u201d?<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAnd you read your Emily Dickinson, and I my Robert Frost,\u201d Simon and Garfunkel sing on this perennial English teacher favorite, from the 1966 classic \u201cParsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.\u201d \u201cAnd we note our place with book markers that measure what we\u2019ve lost.\u201d<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n On this haunting and thoroughly poetic closing number from her 2019 epic \u201cNorman _____ Rockwell,\u201d Lana Del Rey likens herself to \u201c24\/7 Sylvia Plath, writing in blood on your walls \u2019cause the ink in my pen don\u2019t look good in my pad.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cRelationships have all been bad, mine\u2019ve been like Verlaine\u2019s and Rimbaud,\u201d Bob Dylan sings on this bittersweet song from his 1975 masterpiece \u201cBlood on the Tracks.\u201d Hopefully he\u2019s exaggerating, since Verlaine and Rimbaud\u2019s notorious, stormy affair<\/a> ended when Verlaine shot Rimbaud and spent 18 months in prison for attempted murder.<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n Greta Kline, who records as Frankie Cosmos, spies on a crush in this muted ditty from her 2016 album \u201cNext Thing,\u201d and wonders, \u201cIs that Sappho you\u2019re reading?\u201d \u2014 perhaps asking, in a coded way, if the object of her affection is queer.<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n Finally, poetry and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll had never before swirled together as dizzyingly as they do on Patti Smith\u2019s 1975 release \u201cHorses,\u201d especially this ecstatic nine-and-a-half-minute track. \u201cGo Rimbaud!\u201d she cries, shouting out one of her heroes as the song accelerates toward its climax. \u201cAnd go Johnny go and do the Watusi!\u201d<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen on <\/strong>Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> or YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c7 Songs That Reference Tortured Poets\u201d track list<\/strong> Thank you to Jon Pareles for selecting the entire Friday Playlist<\/a> this week, while I paid my dues in the Tortured Album Reviewers Department. He chose one of my favorite Swift<\/strong> songs on the album \u2014 her duet with Post Malone<\/strong>, \u201cFortnight\u201d \u2014 as well as fresh tracks from Claire Rousay<\/strong>, Arooj Aftab<\/strong>, Lucy Rose<\/strong> and more. Listen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nListen along while you read.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n1. Better Oblivion Community Center: \u201cDylan Thomas\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
2. The Smiths: \u201cCemetry Gates\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
3. Simon and Garfunkel: \u201cThe Dangling Conversation\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
4. Lana Del Rey: \u201cHope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have \u2014 But I Have It\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
5. Bob Dylan: \u201cYou\u2019re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
6. Frankie Cosmos: \u201cSappho\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
7. Patti Smith: \u201cLand\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\nThe Amplifier Playlist<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Track 1: Better Oblivion Community Center, \u201cDylan Thomas\u201d
Track 2: The Smiths, \u201cCemetry Gates\u201d
Track 3: Simon and Garfunkel, \u201cThe Dangling Conversation\u201d
Track 4: Lana Del Rey, \u201cHope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have \u2014 But I Have It\u201d
Track 5: Bob Dylan, \u201cYou\u2019re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go\u201d
Track 6: Frankie Cosmos, \u201cSappho\u201d
Track 7: Patti Smith, \u201cLand\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nBonus Tracks<\/h2>\n