"The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024). She wrote and produced the song with longtime collaborator Aaron Dessner. A breakup song about an ex-lover, "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" begins as a piano ballad with blinking programming before transitioning into a vitriolic bridge.
In reviews of The Tortured Poets Department, critics uniformly praised "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" for its unrestrained lyrics, and several selected it as an album or career highlight. Upon release, it peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 18 on the Billboard Global 200, and the top 20 of singles charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. Swift included the song in the revamped set list of the Eras Tour starting in May 2024.
Background and release
Swift announced The Tortured Poets Department, her eleventh studio album, at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024, while accepting the Best Pop Vocal Album award for Midnights (2022).[1] She revealed she worked on the album in secret through 2022 and 2023.[2] In the leadup to and aftermath of its release, fans and the media speculated that the album's songs discussed her relationships in that time frame with the English actor Joe Alwyn, the English singer-songwriter Matty Healy, and the American football player Travis Kelce.[3]Republic Records released the album on April 19, 2024;[4] "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" is 14th on the track list.
Swift included the song on The Tortured Poets Department act of the Eras Tour, which she introduced at the May 9 show in Paris. During the performance, she dons a white military jacket and performs a synchronized march across the stage during the song's bridge with her backup dancers as a marching band.[5] She ends the performance by collapsing on the floor along with the band;[6] a pantomime skit follows in which her dancers revive her and force her into a new outfit to perform "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart".[7] Swift's romantic partner, the American football player Travis Kelce, joined the dancers onstage between the songs at the June 23 show in London, inviting extensive commentary and fanfare;[8]Rolling Stone dubbed it the best moment from the international leg of the tour.[9]
Music and lyrics
"The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" was described as a breakup song and a provocative "diss track" addressed to an unnamed ex-lover,[10][11] doubting the veracity of their relationship.[12] Sonically, the track is mostly built around piano and blinking programming.[13] The lyrics describe a man in a "Jehovah's Witness suit", accusing him of showing her off then ghosting her and attempting to buy drugs from her distant friend.[14][15] Swift audibly sighs several times during the song,[16] and her voice distorts upon entering the bridge.[17] The song is divided into two distinct parts, the first being an understated piano ballad[18] and the second a provocative one-chord bridge[11][13] in which the narrator bombards the subject with a series of questions: "Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? / Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed? / Were you writing a book? / Were you a sleeper cell spy? / In 50 years will all this be declassified?"[19] The bridge employs extensive references to espionage.[20] Grace Wehniainen of Bustle noted that the song highlighted the differences between a relationship's public image and private reality, comparing that theme to "Peace" from Folklore (2020).[12] Several music critics, along with some of Swift's fans, speculated the song's subject was English singer-songwriter Matty Healy, with whom Swift had a publicized romance, due to perceptions of his height, reported history of substance abuse, and a signature suit and tie he often dons during performances,[note 1] although Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of the Financial Times argued such speculation "miss[ed] the point" of Swift's work.[26] Healy's aunt reportedly acknowledged that he was the subject of the song.[10]
Critical reception
In reviews of its parent album, "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" received critical acclaim, and many identified it as one of the best songs on the album. In a ranking of all 31 songs from The Anthology edition of The Tortured Poets Department, Billboard ranked "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" in first place, with writer Jason Lipshutz considering the song "another Taylor Swift post-breakup takedown for the ages" and "the beating heart" of the album as a whole.[13] Naming the song a standout track, Ryan Fish of The Hollywood Reporter wrote "It’s perhaps the cruelest and most direct Swift has ever been on one of her breakup/revenge songs."[24]The Observer's Kitty Empire named it "the album's sickest burn."[23] Alex Hopper of American Songwriter and Callie Ahlgrim of Business Insider both chose it as a standout song on The Tortured Poets Department,[27][28] as did Mary Siroky of Consequence and Mary Kate Carr of The A.V. Club in otherwise underwhelmed reviews of the album.[29][30] Caroline Darney of USA Today selected it as the sixth best song on the album;[31] she and Grace Wehniainen of Bustle both opined that the bridge was among the best of her career.[12] Nate Jones of Vulture ranked it the 30th best song of her 245-song discography, dubbing it an "old school Taylor Swift knife to the heart." Jones and Lindsay Zoladz of The New York Times both named the track her best breakup song since "All Too Well" (2012).[20][32]
Other critics highlighted the song's intense lyrics and delivery. Chris Willman of Variety placed the song at 25th in his ranking of the 75 best songs by Swift, writing that it was her most scarring since "Dear John" (2010) and praising its "epic" bridge;[18] Zoladz called it "satisfyingly vicious."[32] Writing for Beats Per Minute, John Wohlmacher described it as a "no-holds barrage of verbal fists".[17]Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone opined that the song could be retitled "The Angriest Song I’ll Ever Write" for its heated interrogation-style questions and described it as a new perspective of her previous work.[19] Lauren Webb's review for Clash praised the track's "unrestrained bitterness",[33] and Will Harris's review for Q described it as a "vulnerable attack to the heartstrings."[25] Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of the Financial Times lauded the song as a "quietly venomous piano assassination."[26]
Commercial performance
When The Tortured Poets Department was released, tracks from the album occupied the top 14 of the US Billboard Hot 100; "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" opened and peaked at number 14 and made Swift the first artist to monopolize the top 14 of the chart.[34][35] It debuted and peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Global 200. It peaked at number 16 in Australia, making Swift the artist with the most entries in a single week with 29.[36][37] Elsewhere, the song charted within the top 20 in New Zealand (17),[38]Canada (18),[39] and Ireland (19),[40] and reached the singles charts of several other European countries.
^"Top Singles (Week 16, 2024)" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique. Archived from the original on May 31, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
^"ČNS IFPI" (in Slovak). Hitparáda – Singles Digital Top 100 Oficiálna. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Select 17. týden 2024 in the date selector. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
