Taylor Swift’s new album ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ is out and fans are scrutinising it for Easter eggs and hidden meanings.
The singer’s 12th studio record was announced in August and since that day, fans have been busy sharing theories and thoughts about the subjects that each song might explore. Since its release this morning (October 3), fans need to speculate no longer.
Opening track ‘The Fate Of Ophelia’, the video for which is premiering during the Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party Of A Showgirl cinema release this weekend, invokes the tragic character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with Swift singing that she “might’ve drowned in the melancholy” like Ophelia if she had not been saved by her true love, NFL star Travis Kelce.
“Late one night you dug me out of my grave / Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia / Keep it one hundred on the land, the sea, the sky / Pledge allegiance to your hands, you team, your vibes”, she says, in an apparent direct address to Kelce.
It turns out that Kelce himself has been planting Easter eggs, with an Instagram post in July being captioned, “Had some adventures this off season. Kept it 100,” in what we now know is a reference to ‘The Fate Of Ophelia’.
Swift and Kelce’s relationship is also at the heart of ‘Wood’, singing, “Girls, I don’t need to catch the bouquet / To know a hard rock is on the way”. She was proven to be right, with the couple announcing their engagement in August.
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She also references Kelce’s podcast New Heights, singing: “Seems to me that you and me, we make our own luck / New heights of manhood, I ain’t gotta knock on wood.”
Elsewhere, Swift also pays tribute to a Hollywood icon with ‘Elizabeth Taylor’, referencing many of the late actor’s favourite places, including Portofino, Italy and Plaza Athénee in Paris, both of which Taylor was known to visit frequently.
Swift associates her own experiences navigating fame and scrutiny with what Taylor went through during her tumultuous life. “What could you possibly get for the girl who has everything and nothing all at once / Babe, I would trade the Cartier for someone to trust / We hit the best booth at Musso and Frank’s”.
The album features only one guest – Sabrina Carpenter on the title track. This track also reflects on the nature of fame, with Taylor describing a showgirl character named Kitty who “made her money being pretty and witty”, so “they gave her the keys to this city”.
In Carpenter’s verse, she sings, “She was a menace, the baby of the family in Lenox / Her father whored around like all men did, her mother took pills and played tennis.”
This appears to be a reference to Lenox, Massachusetts, known as the home of Tanglewood, a prestigious music venue. The song contrasts that refined world with the troubled life of the titular showgirl, painting the allure of the stage as both a trap and an escape.
‘Father Figure’ sees Swift interpolate George Michael’s 1987 classic of the same name in tribute, and Michael’s estate have since responded to the interpolation, writing on Instagram: “Thank you @taylorswift for including George in such a special moment”.
The rumour that has dominated the conversation around the album so far has been about the song ‘Actually Romantic’ and its supposed references to Charli XCX. On the track, Swift sings: “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave / High-fived my ex and then 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”.
While unconfirmed, this has widely been interpreted as a rebuttal to Charli’s ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’ from ‘Brat’, on which she sang: “Don’t know if I’m spiralling / One voice tells me that they laugh / George says I’m just paranoid / Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / Fingers crossed behind my back / I hope they break up real quick”.
This line stuck out to fans upon the track’s release, as Charli XCX is now married to The 1975 drummer George Daniel, while Swift was in a brief relationship with that band’s frontman Matty Healy in 2023.
Swift told Amazon Music that ‘Actually Romantic’ is “a song about realising that someone else has kind of had a one-sided, adversarial relationship with you that you didn’t know about. And all of a sudden they start doing too much and they start letting you know that actually, you’ve been living in their head rent-free and you had no idea.”
Charli XCX has yet to respond to ‘Actually Romantic’, while Swift has yet to confirm if the track is about the ‘365’ singer. While it’s possible that both ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’ and ‘Actually Romantic’ are blows at each other, Charli and Taylor Swift have both defended each other since the release of ‘Brat’ last year.
In August last year, Swift said: “I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011. Her writing is surreal and inventive, always. She just takes a song to places you wouldn’t expect it to go, and she’s been doing it consistently for over a decade. I love to see hard work like that pay off.”
Also on the album is ‘Cancelled!’, in which she sings about a friend of hers who has been shunned by society. Once again, there is no confirmation about who she is referencing, but some have suggested in could be Blake Lively, who Swift is close friends with and who has been the subject of social media abuse amid her ongoing legal dispute with Justin Baldoni. Swift has even been directly involved in the legal proceedings.
“Did you girlboss too close to the sun / Did they catch you having far too much fun,” she sings. “At least you know exactly who your friends are / They’re the ones with matching scars.
As soon as the new album dropped, fans were sharing their thoughts on the record, with some calling it “her best album” and the return of “pop perfection”, and others declaring it “the worst Taylor Swift album yet” and “boring and basic”.
Swift herself has said that the album “just comes from like the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life.”
The star has insisted that there are “no other songs coming” beyond the standard edition tracklist. More recently, she talked about the “luxurious” album artwork and said fans would see “more images than we ever planned”.
Swift will also make a return to The Graham Norton Show later today (October 3) to celebrate her album’s release.
She has also indicated that she has no intention of heading out on tour again anytime soon, after the gargantuan effort that went into her record-breaking ‘Eras’ tour.
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