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Fresh Out the Slammer

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT (2024)

“Fresh Out the Slammer” is track seven on Taylor’s eleventh studio album, THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT (2024). It was released on April 19, 2024, through Republic Records. The song was written and produced by Taylor and Jack Antonoff. It uses the metaphor of a prison escape to explore the liberation from a restrictive relationship.

Background and Recording

Taylor started working on THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT immediately after she submitted her tenth studio album, Midnights in 2022. She started working on “Fresh Out the Slammer” specifically while she visited New Orleans that December. She spent her 33th birthday on December 13 at the city’s Esplanade Studios. Kevin Louis, one of the musicians who worked on the song (as well as “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “Florida!!!“), wrote: “For Taylor Swift’s 33rd birthday, she had the cats come to the studio and record a few tunes.”

The album’s conception took place when Taylor’s personal life was once again a widely covered topic in the press after her split from her boyfriend of six years, Joe Alwyn, and subsequent short-lived relationship with Matty Healy. Taylor described the creation of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT as her “lifeline” during this time:

«TORTURED POETS is an album that I think, more than any of my albums that I’ve ever made, I needed to make it. It was really a lifeline for me, just the things I was going through, and the things I was writing about. It kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life. And I’ve never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I’d needed it on TORTURED POETS.»

Taylor Swift

She continued working on the album in secrecy throughout the US leg of “The Eras Tour” in 2023. Upon its release in April 2024, co-writer and co-producer Jack Antonoff shared that Taylor recorded vocals for “Fresh Out the Slammer” on May 31, 2023, at Electric Lady Studios in New York City.

Lyrical Theme

“Fresh Out the Slammer” finds Taylor singing about a recently broken-off relationship. She boldly uses the word “slammer” (slang for jail) to paint the previous relationship as a prison: “Silent dinners,” “He was with her in dreams,” “Handcuffed to the spell I was under.” The lyrics all suggest a suffocating and controlling dynamic that Taylor already described in “Bejeweled,” a song on her tenth studio album, Midnights (2022). The line, “Don’t put me in the basement when I want the penthouse of your heart,” hints at the fact that her former partner, Joe Alwyn, was restricting Taylor from fully being herself.

In the epilogue for THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, Taylor mentions immediately knowing who she wants to rebound with after escaping jail…Only to find out that her brief fling with Matty Healy was also destined to be “tidal wave” that falls apart:

«Out of the slammer and into a tidal wave. How gallant to save the empress from her gilded tower. Swinging a sword he could barely lift. But loneliness struck at that fateful hour. Low hanging fruit on his wine stained lips. He never even scratched the surface of me. None of them did.»

Taylor Swift

All throughout THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, images of prisons, hospitals and asylums abound, suggesting Taylor felt trapped and policed in not only her romantic relationships, but also with the media, the public, and her fans.

Production

Produced by Taylor and Jack Antonoff, “Fresh Out the Slammer” begins with a western-sounding acoustic guitar and a reflective tone, reminiscent of classic country ballads. However, Taylor quickly transitions into a more dynamic pop sound, mirroring the song’s central theme of breaking free from a confining relationship and reclaiming one’s own life.

Live Performances

“Fresh Out the Slammer” received its first live performance acoustically on piano on May 24, 2024, in Lisbon during one of Taylor’s shows on “The Eras Tour” (2023-2024). She mashed the song up with “High Infidelity” from Midnights (2022). On July 27, she paired the song together with “You Are In Love” from 1989 (2014) in Munich.

Critical Reception

Callie Ahlgrim of the Business Insider said of this song, “I don’t know the intimate details of Swift’s love life, but I do know one thing. If you ever compare your relationship to jail time, my hope is that you’ll run — as fast and as far away as possible.”

Commercial Performance

Upon the release of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, “Fresh Out The Slammer” debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, during the chart week ending on May 4, 2024.

Lyrics

[Chorus]
Now pretty baby I’m runnin back home to you
Fresh out the slammer
I know who my first call will be to…
Fresh out the slammer

[Verse 1]
Another summer, taking cover
Rolling thunder, he don’t understand me
Splintered back in winter
Silent dinners, bitter
He was with her in dreams
Gray and blue and fights and tunnels
Handcuffed to the spell I was under
For just one hour of sunshine
Years of labor, locks and ceilings
In the shade of how he was feeling

[Pre-Chorus 1]
But it’s gonna be alright.
I did my time.

[Chorus]
Now pretty baby I’m runnin back home to you
Frеsh out the slammer
I know who my first call will be to…
Frеsh out the slammer

[Verse 2]
Camera flashes, welcome bashes
Get the matches, toss the ashes off the ledge
As I said in my letters, now that I know better
I will never lose my baby again
My friends tried, but I wouldn’t hear it
Watched me daily disappearing
For just one glimpse of his smile
All those nights you kept me going
Swirled you into all of my poems

[Pre-Chorus 2]
Now we’re at the starting line
I did my time.

[Bridge]
Now pretty baby I’m running
To the house where you still wait up
And that porch light gleams
To the one who says
I’m the girl of his American Dreams
And no matter what I’ve done
It wouldn’t matter anyway
Ain’t no way I’m gonna screw up
Now that I know what’s at stake
Here. At the park where we used to sit on children’s swings
Wearing imaginary rings…
But it’s gonna be alright. I did my time…