‘The Life of a Showgirl’: Taylor Swift’s Sunny Ode To Love and Settling Scores

Alci Rengifo

All attention is once again on Taylor Swift. As the dominating pop star of our time, a release of a new Swift album has become akin to the arrival of a much-anticipated blockbuster movie. Production for “The Life of a Showgirl,” her 12th studio album, took place during the European leg of the singer’s record-breaking “The Eras Tour,” and Easter eggs have been dropping for fans throughout this past year. Last October, while in New Orleans, Swift flashed all 10 fingers three times onstage. In December, at the final concert of the tour, she changed her stage exit from using an elevator platform to heading toward a bright orange door at the back of the stage.

At this point, following what Swift is doing next feels like deciphering an upcoming Christopher Nolan film. “I wanted to give a little subliminal hint to the fans that I may be leaving “The Eras Tour” era, but I was also entering a new era,” Swift said while announcing the album this past August on “New Heights,” a podcast hosted by her football star fiancé, Travis Kelce, and his brother, Jason Kelce. Much can happen in the span of a year. Just 13 days after appearing on Kelce’s podcast, Swift made the pop culture world stop when she announced her engagement to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the couple wrote in a joint Instagram post brimming with an all-American suburban flourish.

In 2025, the Swift saga has continued to burst at the seams. There was an announcement in May that she had finally regained the rights to the master recordings of her first six albums, and an “Album of the Year” Grammy win in February for “Midnights.” “The Life of a Showgirl” is its own beast, with premiere parties being held at hundreds of AMC movie theaters this weekend for the album’s release, consisting mainly of 89 minutes of insights into the record’s songs, along with behind-the-scenes footage and viewing of the music video for “The Fate of Ophelia.” Dozens of editions of the album have also been on sale, mainly on Swift’s site, several bundled with merch. An artist of Swift’s scale can now operate as both performer and a walking, breathing brand empire.

But it’s no secret that part of Taylor Swift’s mass appeal is the personal nature of her music. However many styles she experiments with, Swift’s albums are a chart of her bad (and sometimes good) romances, and the woes of fame, told through mostly autobiographical musings on life, love and the industry. Fans feel like they partake in her journey, like a friend who lets you read their diary. So what does a release like “The Life of a Showgirl” say about where the queen of the pop world is now? “This album is about what was going on behind-the-scenes in my inner life during this tour, which was so exuberant and electric and vibrant,” said Swift on Kelce’s podcast.

Beyond its massive marketing campaign, its sound and contents are certainly a shift from her 2024 album, the massive and moodier “The Tortured Poets Department.” Here she reunites with producers Max Martin and Shellback, who began working with Swift on her career-shifting album “Red,” had a stronger presence on her career-changing album “1989,” the record where her decade-long project collaborations with Jack Antonoff began, and helmed “Reputation,” along with Antonoff. Those three records were albums that helped solidify Swift’s place in the cultural pantheon. With Martin and Shellback tapped for this project, along with a glitzy visual rollout and one of the best TS album covers to-date, featuring Swift in glittery showgirl attire, many fans might have been expecting more energetic, pop-centric productions in line with Max Martin-TS collaborations like “Shake It Off” and “Bad Blood.” Instead, what we get on “The Life of a Showgirl” are mostly breezy tracks that pull their inspiration from a kaleidoscope of styles, with nods at other “showgirls” and songs that came before them.

Much of this album is essentially a celebration of finding love amid the hurricane of fame and an intensely scrutinized life. The title of “The Life of a Showgirl” has an intriguing bit of irony, since Swift, in fantastical showbiz fashion, opens the album from the point of view of her as a noblewoman alone in her tower, who, in her reference, escapes her Ophelia-esque fate after a hero rescues her heart. On “The Fate of Ophelia” (an obvious nod to Shakespeare’s most famous play, “Hamlet”), Swift sings, “I might’ve drowned in the melancholy / I swore my loyalty to me, myself, and I / Right before you lit my sky up.” After Swift became a fixture at her man’s games it’s no surprise she would pen the lyrics, “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes.”

In this record’s most memorable moment of self-reflection, Swift begins the contagiously joyful “Opalite” with, “I had a bad habit of missing lovers past / My brother used to call it, ‘eating out of the trash.’” At 35, Swift is still young but after two decades of living life in the spotlight, she seems to have learned enough to reflect on her battle scars with the maturity of someone who is well-rounded. Instead of acting out when things don’t go her way, she continues to find a center, and remains poised. And now that she has seemingly found love with the jock next door, she acknowledges her mother’s words. “My mama told me / It’s alright / You were dancing through the lightning strikes / Sleepless in the onyx night / But now the sky is opalite.” 

Although much of “The Life of a Showgirl” is a loved-up, sunnier affair, the malevolent “Cancelled!” gets witchy as it references cancel culture, while potentially winking at the Blake Lively saga, in this record’s darkest moment. Here, Swift confronts the idea, as the title suggests, of living at a time where our culture can easily shut someone out. She seems to target the self-righteous who are quick to call for the cancelling of a public figure. “You thought that it would be OK, at first / The situation could be saved, of course / But they’d already picked out your grave and hearse / Beware the wrath of masked crusaders.” In yet another Shakespeare reference, Swift reminds us that she remains ready to launch a defense, warning “When they see us they’ll run / Something wicked this way comes,” and grows playfully defiant with the coda, “Good thing I like my friends cancelled / I like ’em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal / Welcome to my underworld.” It’s a statement of solidarity more than anything else since Swift has surely attracted detractors, yet has never been embroiled in the sort of scandal that could derail a career. When taking a political stance, she has been extremely careful not to be incendiary or intensely partisan.

“Father Figure,” a true standout and this album’s strongest conceptual track, cleverly interpolates George Michael’s song of the same name (to whom Swift gives a writing credit, in what seems like a strategic wink). Here, Swift plays with ideas of gender roles and being a paternal figure with boisterous glee. “I’ll be your father figure, I drink that brown liquor / I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger.” Frustration and sobering lessons come across when Swift reveals, “Your thoughtless ambition sparked the ignition / On foolish decisions which led to misguided visions / That to fulfill your dreams, you had to get rid of me.” Could this be a reference to Scott Borchetta, who signed her to his Big Machine Records? It was Big Machine who Swift continued to fight for control of her masters, after Borchetta essentially offered a Faustian pact where, if she remained with the label, she could “earn one album back at a time,” each time she recorded a new one. As Swift has described it, the effort to keep the rights to her recorded material was fraught with professional heartbreak. Is there also a nod to Swift taking “Deja Vu” and “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” composition credits for Olivia Rodrigo’s unwitting interpolation of “Cruel Summer” and “New Year’s Day,” after Rodrigo stated she copycatted both? Could there potentially be a reference here to a speculated falling out of sorts between her and Antonoff? In “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” Swift said she relates to both sides of this song, the mentor and pupil. But in the end, she reveals, “You made a deal with this devil / turns out my dick’s bigger / You’ll be sleeping with the fishes before you know you’re drowning.”

Throughout the years, Swift has retained her fighting spirit. But instead of taking aim at past lovers on this album, she continues to sets her sights on settling scores. Charli XCX is seemingly the subject of “Actually Romantic.” After she opened for Swift’s “Reputation” tour, Charli allegedly threw some shade at Swift because of her younger fanbase. Then came “Sympathy Is a Knife.” The track, off her 2024 acclaimed album, “Brat,” clearly referenced her secret hope for Swift and Healy’s demise, and was largely believed to be about Swift’s supposed negative effect on Charli’s mental health, from being in the shadow of such a massive figure. Both singers were involved with members of the 1975 at the same time. Swift had a long and lingering connection to singer Matty Healy before they tried dating again, and Charli was seeing drummer George Daniel, with the latter eventually getting married this summer. Swift pulls no punches on “Actually Romantic,” calling out Charli with blistering, revelatory fire. Atop a guitar riff that mimics the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?,” Swift sings, “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.” She continues, “You think I’m tacky, baby / Stop talking dirty to me / it sounded nasty, but it feels like you’re flirting with me,” painting a picture of Charli as a wild child “secret admirer” who is obsessed with her. Swift’s continuing wordplay aims to leave her opponent in the dust. “Hadn’t thought of you in a long time / But you keep sending me funny valentines / And I know you think it comes off vicious / But it’s precious, adorable / Like a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse.”

As intriguing as the feuds and settling of scores, is the deeper resonance in this material, when it comes to understanding the inner workings and growth of Taylor Swift. “The Life of a Showgirl” can feel like two Swifts vying for attention, or at least functioning as a dual exploration of the singer’s evolution. There is the suburban America-bred girl who feels the pull of her roots, openly contemplating a standard, settled existence. On “Wishlist,” which stylistically sounds like classic Taylor fare, she again alludes to this by admitting she wants to “have a couple kids,” as she dreams “about a driveway with a basketball hoop.” Then there is the bolder, ever-changing, slightly uninhibited Taylor Swift, the one that is becoming more adventurous with her pen, writing lines we would never have imagined from her a few years ago. On her alt-rock ode “Actually Romantic,” the idea of a standoff with another woman sexually excites Swift. “It sounded nasty, but it feels like you’re flirting with me. It’s kind of making me wet.” On “Wood,” while dressed in her best sonic impression of Ariana Grande, she tells us the key to opening her thighs. These brief moments hint at bolder lyrical territory she could and should explore further, leaving us hoping the modern Swift that the world has come to love, will soon enough leave all inhibitions at the door.

For now, “The Life of a Showgirl” appears as a bookend to a monumental era in both Swift’s professional and personal life, and while it is not built to last like defining records in the TS catalog, there are several upbeat pop tunes to keep fans grooving. Though, beneath all of its glittering, ecstatic packaging, much of “The Life of a Showgirl” can sound oddly inauthentic, in a way Swift’s work never has, and might even feel a bit aesthetically regressive to some, compared to the deeper output from an ascending Swift we have collectively been in awe of over the past several years. At a lean 12 tracks, written and produced solely by Swift, Martin and Shellback, it also packs in less nuance than what we have come to expect from a modern TS album, instead opting to fully embrace the commercial quality Martin brings to Swift’s work. And while Max Martin is No. 1 in his respective role, his and Shellback’s contributions here can feel like disjointed fragments of past projects and styles Martin pulled from the vault, ultimately leaving us yearning for the return of Antonoff and Dessner.

In the end, even with all its aha moments, “The Life of a Showgirl” might make you miss the old Taylor. While the album plays like a carefree product, this new “Showgirl” Swift squanders years of collaborating with indie pop royalty, as she eagerly mines her past and present musings, even blatantly recycling her own themes and lyrics, in order to manufacture and bottle her current era for quick consumption — all the while continuing to craft stories that invite fans to witness some of her intimate thoughts and moments. In an age of continuously recycled corporate sludge, it can feel perplexing to think profit margins might be directing the creative output of an artist like Swift, who has basked in complete creative control since “Lover,” and is known for her intimate lyricism and seemingly authentic presence. But everything on “Showgirl” is reaching for new marketable heights, where she goes bigger than “Clara Bow” with the track “Elizabeth Taylor.” Named after the legendary Hollywood actor, whose love life was riddled with disappointments, it reflects on the perils of female stardom through the struggles of finding big love when you have big fame.

Though “Honey,” which wittingly borrows its theme from a Katy Perry-featured episode of “How I Met Your Mother,” seems to evoke the truest sense of where Taylor Swift is right now in her life. The lyrics consider the insincerity of certain terms and catcalls when compared to them coming from someone who genuinely loves her. “When anyone called me ‘sweetheart’ / It was passive-aggressive at the bar,” she laments. The song then becomes a vision of exuberant joy. “Summertime spritz, pink skies / You can call me ‘honey’ if you want because I’m the one you want,” letting us know that the woman behind the pop culture giant can now lovingly wink at her past feuds, as she is sincerely content. Don’t we all feel this way during the flushes of a romance that seems like it will last forever? There is no room left for exes, or exes exes, when life is going so well. Life, however, is an ever-evolving story that keeps writing itself, and whatever turns Swift’s journey will take no one can guess. Rest assured, the world will keep listening to find out.

“The Life of a Showgirl” releases Oct. 3 on Apple Music.