Tortured Poets Department songs that could actually be about dogs

Lyrics from The Tortured Poets Department — the only thing playing in our van for about a week after April 19th — I’ve decided fit dog world experiences.

3: My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

Is it a disservice to Swift’s metaphor to say that if we replaced “boy” with “dog” in the title, this might be a familiar story to many of us with chewers?

6: But Daddy I Love Him

I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing is one of the best phrases I’ve heard to describe the “extremes” of training method and adoption/breeding spectrums.

Vipers because these people are actually ruthless — the meanest things that have ever been said to and about me have come from folks who identify as force free or “adopt don’t shop”  and seem to think I am abusive or inhumane — and in empath’s clothing because they claim they act in the best interest of our fellow creatures. Oh, they’re so caring. They feel so much. (How one can preach compassion yet not show an ounce of it to other dog lovers still befuddles me.)

10: Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

For all the sweet-but-spicy “reactive” dogs out there.

In all seriousness, some of the verses make me think about how unfair our society can be to small dogs. We don’t respect their boundaries, we laugh when they’re uncomfortable, then we act surprised when they turn out “yappy” or “dramatic”. I was tame, I was gentle ’til the circus life made me mean / Don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth / Who’s afraid of little old me?

(And I actually know a dog who almost got his teeth removed as a last-ditch effort to keep him from biting. Thankfully, good training let him keep all his canines.)

11: I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

The chorus repeats I can fix him, no really I can until the very last line admits woah… maybe I can’t. A friend told me this song could fit her experience trying to rehabilitate a severe behavioral case. We laughed about it over the text conversation — time has passed, she’s doing so well, we all know she made the right decision — but I don’t think the undercurrent of heartbreak will ever leave.

13: I Can Do it With a Broken Heart

Cause I’m a real tough kid, I can handle my shit / They said babe you gotta fake it ’til you make it and I did

Oh how many times I was told to just “fake it” so I could project confidence in the thick of Scout’s fear reactivity. Of course it’s not quite that simple — dogs are by nature of our coevolution hard to lie to, plus there was valid reason to feel uncertain — but at a certain point I did realize we’d grown into the image I projected of us. Close to it, anyway. Even on our worst days I had to leave the apartment with her and pretend I sort of maybe thought we could handle the outside world.

And I cry a lot but I am so productive, it’s an art / You know you’re good when you can even do it / With a broken heart captures our first year and a half together. I was trying to do right by this dog. I was feeling overwhelmed — devastated, distraught, desperate — but I wrote so much, trained so much, ended up accomplishing so much. I think many of us with sensitive, reactive dogs can relate.

29: The Bolter

For that one dog who just doesn’t have a recall. (Okay okay, too literal, I know I should just give up on being funny — but does the end of the first verse not describe my childhood Bichon who couldn’t be trusted around an open door?)

Then she runs like it’s a race / Behind her back, her best mates laughed / And they nicknamed her “The Bolter”

30: Robin

These words make me think of two things. First, how much I love Scout. How much I’d do — have done — to keep her life sweet. When she feels comfortable, my timid dog is the purest joy and enthusiasm.

Long may you roar / At your dinosaurs / You’re a just ruler / Covered in mud, you look ridiculous / And you have no idea … Way to go, tiger / Higher and higher / Wilder and lighter / For you

Second, how I felt looking down at our foster puppies in the fall of 2022. How I imagine so many of us feel toward these glorious tiny creatures of a whole other species as we think about the life we might share together. (And, more literally, how we keep them alive when they lack self preservation. Confidence building meets curiosity curtailing is a fine balance to strike with a baby dog.)

You have no room in your dreams for regrets / You have no idea / The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean / You’ll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline / But now we’ll curtail your curiosity / In sweetness