--- title: The Meaning Behind Taylor Swift's Track 5 Songs description: Taylor Swift's albums have a pattern: the fifth track is always the most devastating, vulnerable song canonical: https://time.com/6969042/taylor-swift-track-five-songs-tortured-poets-department/ author: Moises Mendez article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-04-19T13:36:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:29.450Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'So Long, London' is a Classic Taylor Swift Track 5 Song og:description: Taylor Swift's albums have a pattern: the fifth track is always the most devastating, vulnerable song og:url: https://time.com/6969042/taylor-swift-track-five-songs-tortured-poets-department/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte50380f058a29fc1/698a54db86f68e8a856f4edf/GettyImages-2053193467.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour - Singapore og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'So Long, London' is a Classic Taylor Swift Track 5 Song twitter:description: Taylor Swift's albums have a pattern: the fifth track is always the most devastating, vulnerable song twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte50380f058a29fc1/698a54db86f68e8a856f4edf/GettyImages-2053193467.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'So Long, London' Is a Classic Taylor Swift Track 5 Song > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: The Swifties Who Turned Their Fandom Into a Career [Watch (HLS stream): The Swifties Who Turned Their Fandom Into a Career](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/FYwMBbYR.m3u8) (8:22)  _Published 2024-04-18. Bonny Barker and Emily Hunt have gained an online following making videos about Taylor Swift, turning a fun side hobby to a full-time career. They discuss the community their channel has fostered, why Swift and her music mean so much to them and their supporters, and what it was like to get noticed by Taylor herself._  by [Moises Mendez](https://time.com/author/moises-mendez-ii/)  ## Moises Mendez Apr 19, 2024 1:36 PM UTC  Taylor Swift performs during "Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour" at the National Stadium on March 02, 2024 in Singapore. Taylor Swift performs during "Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour" at the National Stadium on March 02, 2024 in Singapore. Ashok Kumar—TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management  by [Moises Mendez](https://time.com/author/moises-mendez-ii/)  ## Moises Mendez Apr 19, 2024 1:36 PM UTC One thing is always for sure with [Taylor Swift](https://time.com/6342816/person-of-the-year-2023-taylor-swift-choice/): her most devastating songs will always be the fifth track on her albums. It’s a pattern that fans have noticed since 2012's _Red_. The fifth song on that album, widely regarded as her magnum opus, is [“All Too Well.”](https://time.com/6282468/taylor-swift-concert-memory/) But even looking at the albums before _Red_, the pattern was already there. In an Instagram Live she did before the release of _Lover_, Swift spoke about the phenomenon and admitted she didn’t really notice she was doing it. “As I was making albums I guess I was just kind of putting a very vulnerable, personal, honest, emotional song as track five,” she said. Because her fans noticed this, she upheld the Swiftian tradition, and it’s the track her fans look out for. By the time a Swift album gets to the fifth track, prepare for a crushing song that is, more often than not, depressingly gorgeous. Some of the fifth tracks over the course of Swift's career include: “Cold As You” from her self-titled debut album, “White Horse,” off of _Fearless_, “Dear John” on _Speak Now_, “Delicate” from _Reputation_, and “tolerate it” from _evermore_. These songs contain some of the singer-songwriter’s most biting lyrics, the kind that twist the emotional knife into anyone’s heart. Swift’s eleventh studio album is no different. Track five on her latest project, called “So Long, London,” hints at the slow breakdown of her relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn, who she dated for six years. According to _Entertainment Tonight_, the two broke up in April of 2023\. “The relationship had just run its course,” an anonymous source told _ET_. ## **How does Swift address her breakup with Joe Alwyn?** On _The Tortured Poets Department_'s fifth track, Swift gives a glimpse into the end of her relationship with Alwyn. Swift sings about carrying the weight of a relationship and learning to move on from an emotionally distant lover so that she, too, doesn’t go down with “the ship.” It seems like she did her best to hold on to their relationship, but that wasn’t enough to revive their dying romantic entanglement. “Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away. My spine split from carrying us up the hill,” she sings. "Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill. I stopped trying to make him laugh, stopped trying to drill the safe.” The lyrics suggest there seemed to be tension toward the end of their relationship. “And you say I abandoned the ship, but I was going down with it,” we hear her sing. “My white knuckle dying grip holding tight to your quiet resentment.” ## Transcript Taylor Swift song about Taylor Swift's most recent we decided to start a channel call me when you're about 5 months after the lover album came out and then the pandemic hitch and you just decided that you know, not only will wait needing something to say to fill out time with it. Also that people just we felt that people would not so understanding what we should have felt Taylor Swift was doing at the time and so we decided not moment that we wanted to be starting a YouTube channel so that we could just talk about the album's and should have shared why we think she's so incredible then a couple of months later. It just so happened that she surprised. Bike lure adding that was Alpha a big reaction to a brand new album is that was the video that really took off and I think so to put us on the the YouTube map stream. wildest dreams amazing When we put it all people really loved it, and I guess people want there. So just keep doing it. We had no idea that it would turn into what it has now. Like, we really just thought it would be a fun little side project prior to doing this full-time. I was actually working in banking. It wasn't something at the time that I was feeling super passionate about Taylor Swift is always be my number one. The definitely was no part of me. That's what that I could be making a job out of it patreon. He's the only way that we make money currently I doing this he took us less than a year to get to the point where a lot about subscribers on YouTube should have came over to the patreon platform with and wanted to support us in that way. I was able to quit my previous job and Bonnie was able to do to stop doing the the solar YouTube stuff that she was doing for fun up until that point. There's nothing better than being able to talk about Taylor Swift as a full-time jobs like I'm getting tired, even for a phoenix always rising from the ashes mending all her gashes. You might just have dealt the final blow. Sorry perfectly metaphorical for everything that she doesn't have a life Taylor Swift fans all such die-hard fans. And so I think it really makes them feel seen and understood when they're able to say to people who love Taylor Swift to the same level, but they do I can't express that excitement and joy of listening to her music. baby to sit up I think it's easy for people to feel like they can connect with us. And we feel the same by like reading the comments and all of them messages. Yeah over the years. A lot of people have told us that it feels like that just went on Facebook request friend and you know, a lot of them stay as well that they don't have a lot of people in their own lives. Love Taylor Swift's the way that they do so I think that can really mean a lot of people to feel like they've got like 2 online best friends who just get it at it's the same level that they do the community that we've managed to build from this YouTube channel has been just overwhelming like meeting people in real life and reading comments as well. Everyone is just so supportive and Give so much love and honestly, we always look at each other. We like I don't know what we did. Just get a negative comment. It just it's honestly a lot to say we try to just practice gratitude everyday cuz we like we can't believe how lucky we are to have such an awesome community. And I think it's just because they get so much joy from watching aljoy is this this is Joy Inception, I think in this day and age even though we're more connected than ever with the internet. I think a lot of people are also experiencing a lot of loneliness and isolation, especially after the pain. And so I think that being a pot of this community being a swiftie knowing that there's so many millions of people who were also a part of that community and who relate to her music in the way that we do it does really make you feel like you're not alone. She just is really great at making you feel connected and understanding are no martians and you are an experience in life in the same way. That some of our subscribers feel about us we feel about Taylor that she's able to so perfectly articulate the way that we feel that we feel like she's another one of our best friends when she's when we listen to Hillsong and she's asleep like the world's biggest Super-Sod the same time extremely fortunate to be able to go to five of the seven shows that he had tickets to the first two nights in Melbourne and the very last night. We were sitting around all day on the couch. It was quarter past 6 p.m. And we got a GM from Taylor nation, which is Taylor staying in and actually you were the one that are open today. This is why I like to invite you guys back for tonight show we can make it. Please let it snow. we rushed to the stadium through on an outfit and when we got there we were greeted by Taylor's dad's Scott and he delivered us a handwritten letters b a love True Lies Holiday Valley No. just coffee hand written letter Emily hot Sending my love Kayla to know that she loves out reaction videos and does feel supported by them. It just means the world to me. 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