Hear the Chairman fit the puzzle pieces of one of our favorite tracks together on new THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT digital album + bonus track “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys (First Draft Phone Memo).” 🧸💔
Plus, collect all previously-released digital albums with first draft phone memos! Available for 24 hours at store.taylorswift.com.
taylor explaining coney island to zane lowe in 2020 (skip to 37 minutes):
The perspective I was coming from was like a male perspective of regret or guilt after a lifetime of apattern of behavior, and i've been kind of touching on sort of things like that on the song tolerate it
did I close my fist around something delicate? did I shatter you? —> my boy only breaks his favorite toys / I’m queen of sandcastles he destroys
cause we were like the mall before the internet / it was the one place to be / the mischief, the gift-wrapped suburban dreams / sorry for not winning you an arcade ring —> the sickest army doll, purchased at the mall / rivulets descend my plastic smile / but you should’ve seen him when he first got me
did I paint your bluest skies the darkest gray a universe away? —> the voices in his head called the rain to end our days of wild
the sight that flashed before me was your face, but when I walked up to the podium, I think that I forgot to say your name —> he took me out of my box, stole my tortured heart, left all these broken parts
do miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there? —> but you should’ve seen him when he first got me
were you waiting at our old spot in the tree line, by the gold clock? did I leave you hanging every single day? —> just say when, I’d play again
Taylor Swift talking about her song 'My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys'
''My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys is a song that I wrote alone and it's a metaphor from the perspective of a child's toy being somebody's favorite toy until they break you and then don't play with you anymore, which is how a lot of us are in relationships where we are so valued by a person in the beginning and then all of a sudden, they break us or they devalue us in their mind and we're still clinging on to - So it's kind of like a song about denial, really. So that you can live in this world where there's still hope for a toxic, broken relationship.''
my boy only breaks his favorite toys is making me think of you fire off missiles because you hate yourself but do you know you’re demolishing me? and you make everyone disappear and cut me into pieces and i'm begging for you to take my hand but when you take, you take the best of me. and what would you do if i took this dagger in me and removed it? and it was rare, i was there, don’t you ignore me and you had me crawling for you, honey, i remember it all too well.