Taylor Swift releases ‘The Life of a Showgirl’

Goodbye, tortured poet; hello, showgirl. Taylor Swift begins a new era of her career — each one marked by the release of a new album. And the 12th is here: The Life of a Showgirl. After the more intimate release in April 2024 of The Tortured Poets Department, featuring 31 songs draped in flagship colors of black and white, Swift has gone orange and turquoise, with feathers and glitter, the latest backdrop to her honest and direct lyrics.

The new album has been eagerly awaited — more than six million people had it pre-saved on their Spotify accounts. It is a more danceable and fun album than some of her others, produced by the brilliant Swedes, Max Martin and Shellback. It’s not that she pretends to be a dancing queen, but there is less of the contemplative tones of previous albums, though the characteristic Swiftie depth remains. Fans expected this as she had already said this album would be more danceable; part of the album had also been leaked the day before.

The leak was due to the fact that millions of fans had bought her album not only through Swift’s store but also from Target supermarkets. The latter were too quick off the mark and delivered the album on October 2. Hence some of the album was available before the official release date with photos uploaded online of some of the lyrics. However, most of the fans, through loyalty to the artist, kept the album to themselves until the appointed time, and many of the songs that were leaked disappeared as the day went on, due to copyright infringement.

But at the stroke of midnight on October 3, the album became available to everyone. Swift accompanied the release, as always, with a post on her social media platforms. In it she states: “Tonight all these lives converge here. The mosaics of laughter and cocktails of tears. Where fraternal souls sing identical things. And it’s beautiful. It’s rapturous. It is frightening.” She finishes by saying, “I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right. A forever thank you goes out to my mentors and friends Max and Shellback for helping me paint this self portrait. If you thought the big show was wild, perhaps you should come and take a look behind the curtain...” She also posted nine images of herself as a cabaret performer, taken by the celebrated photography duo, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

Swift had been leaving clues regarding this album on social media, dropping lines of the lyrics along with an ephemeral installation in New York. The lyrics talk about money, materialism, dreams of an Oscar or a contract with Real Madrid, loneliness, internet trolls, canceled friendships, former lovers and relationships — of dreams fulfilled and others broken.

The first track on the album is also the first single, The Fate of Ophelia, in reference to the fate of Hamlet’s beloved who falls into a state of madness and drowns. The song also seems to have inspired the esthetics of the album cover. Although Swift has released more glitzy pics, loaded with feathers, glitter and pearls, this one is more intimate, with the water covering a bejeweled but disheveled Swift, her makeup smudged — a kind of behind-the-curtain shot away from the spotlight. The song itself explains she felt she was heading toward Ophelia’s fate but was rescued by someone who came into her life. The Fate of Ophelia was also the song that was leaked first and most widely.

The second song, Elizabeth Taylor, also stands out. A line of its lyrics was painted with lipstick on a mirror in New York, not unlike a scene from the 1960 film Butterfield 8: “Ooh, oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me.” Swift has made references to the late actress in a few other songs, such as in Ready For It?, from her sixth album, Reputation, but never so explicitly. As she herself explained on Graham Norton’s BBC talk show, which will be broadcast on October 3, it is a romantic song written from the actress’ point of view, because Swift feels they have lived parallel lives. In fact, she sings about a trip to Portofino where Richard Burton first proposed to Taylor; one of the first trips Swift made after her engagement to her fiancé, Travis Kelce, was to Portofino.

The fourth track is Father Figure, which takes its name from the late George Michael’s 1987 album; in fact, he is credited as co-composer. Those in charge of his legacy have said on social media they wish Swift, the song and the album luck: “We were delighted when Taylor Swift and her team approached us earlier this year about incorporating an interpolation of George Michael’s classic song Father Figure into a brand new song of the same title to be featured on her forthcoming album. When we heard the track we had no hesitation in agreeing to this association between two great artists and we know George would have felt the same.”

The song has, like almost all of Swift’s tracks, more to it: as she says on The Graham Norton Show, it is about Scott Borchetta and/or Scooter Braun. Borchetta was her first manager, while Braun was the all-powerful successor who discovered artists such as Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. Braun assumed the rights to all the albums released by Swift when Borchetta and her previous label sold them behind her back. That was in 2018. Since then, it has been open warfare. It was Swift’s idea to re-record those first six albums and take them on tour, along with her new ones, giving rise to her uber successful Eras Tour, which earned her millions. Finally, in May, Swift managed to buy back the rights to all those songs.

Among the most anticipated of her new tracks is also the last on the album — the one that gives the record its name: The Life of a Showgirl. It is a pop collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter, who was a fan and then Swift’s opening act and friend. In it, they sing about the life of an imaginary star, not unlike on the album Folklore. As Swift said in a podcast on Britain’s Magic Radio, it reflects her experience with her industry idols: “They just want to be honest with you about how hard this industry is and you do it anyway,” she sings.

Finally, there’s Actually Romantic, which is about — you guessed it — romance. It starts: “I heard you call me Boring Barbie when the coke’s got you brave. High-fived my ex and then you said you’re glad he ghosted me. Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face. Some people might be offended. But it’s actually sweet. All the time you’ve spent on me. It’s honestly wild. All the effort you’ve put in. It’s actually romantic.” Who she is directing this too — if anyone — is not entirely clear, although fans have their theories, and both they and some media outlets, including Variety, reckon the song refers to the singer Charli XCX.

Swift has inserted many more messages between the lines that will keep fans busy. She tucks them away, turning her lyrics into a riddle. Some will be explained quickly, given that there is a documentary hitting the screens on October 4; others may take years to work out. The Pennsylvania artist is nothing if not playful. She loves to keep the world’s Swifties guessing.

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