ALBUM REVIEW: TAYLOR SWIFT - THE LIFE OF A SHOWGIRL (03/10/25) - TRACK BY TRACK
When you think Taylor Swift, you may think of a blonde singer who often writes about her love life. Perhaps, if you are a little more acquainted, you might identify her as a pop star, recalling some of her hits such as ‘Style’, ‘Blank Space’, ‘Don’t Blame Me’, or you could go old school with one of her first international successes, ‘Love Story’. You may even know, after the global sensation that was her two year long Eras Tour, that she often creates full themes for her new albums, spanning decades and music genres, and if you’re really a pro, you know she self-identifies as an English teacher because of her love of lyricism and poetry.
Whichever one you are, this album might be for you.
The opening notes of ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ almost fool us into thinking Swift might be leaning into a softer style once again, in the vein of the Anthology section of her previous record, The Tortured Poets Department, but it is very clear, very fast, that this is not a soft album. This is an album for 80s synths, cheeky lyrics and, as always, many a reference.
This first track alludes of course to the Shakespearian character of Ophelia, driven mad and eventually to death because of her love for Hamlet, but plays with words, evoking fairytales in the first half of the chorus (“I sat alone in my tower - you were just honing your powers”) in juxtaposition with contemporary terms in the second half (“where the hell you been” “your vibes”).
The main theme of the record already shines bright in this first song: Taylor Swift is in love and she wants you to know it. The general public and media alike have, after all, been morbidly curious about the singer’s love life ever since she started writing songs about her teenage romances, and now she is finally willing to be more open. Very open - see track 10.
‘Elizabeth Taylor’ hauntingly continues with the theme of finding The One after many wrong ones, especially in a position of success and perceived happiness that someone like one of the first and most notable Hollywood stars of the last century, as well as one of the most famous popstars of this one, may find themselves. “Cry my eyes violet, Elizabeth Taylor”, not only references the starlet’s eye colour, often represented as a fascinating shade of liliac, but also evokes images of dark purple circles that one might get after crying for a long time.
‘Opalite’ is the first truly upbeat track of the record, continuing Swift’s trend of representing emotions through colours - ‘Red’, ‘Maroon’, ‘Lavander Haze’, the golden colours of love she references in ‘Daylight’ -, as well as summoning very clear images through words, as she often manages to do, with lines such as “this is just a storm inside a teacup”, that turn immediately visible.
Although Swift is often framed as one to always write about her love life, she shines brightest when she explores vulnerable feelings that she manages to somehow paint as both extremely personal and painfully universal (‘This Is Me Trying’, ‘The Prophecy’), and when she chooses to use a character, be it historical, fictional or of her own invention, to flex her storytelling abilities (‘The Last Great American Dynasty’, ‘Cassandra’, ‘Ivy’, ‘Cowboy Like Me’).
She shares that she wrote track 4, ‘Father Figure’, which samples the George Micheal song of the same name, following a writing prompt to explore the relationship between a powerful man and his young, naive protegèe, a fictional situation that the singer herself, as well as many others, may have found themselves in. The result is an unexpected, mixed perspectives tale where it is almost difficult to discern the truth and that sounds like a cool villain song in a musical production.
As Track 5 is notoriously the most heartwrenching ballad on any good Taylor Swift album, ‘Eldest Daughter’ was anxiously anticipated, and the slow piano leading us into it promises to break us as it should. The song delivers once again some powerful imagery - “every eldest daughter was the first lamb to the slaughter, so we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire”, subverting the wolf in sheep’s clothing saying. It explores the vulnerability of feeling like one always has to be cool and collected in a world where everyone is out to judge you, but takes a turn when, rather than delving into the experiences of eldest daughter in a general sense, it turns out to actually be about an eldest daughter finding love, and conciliating that with all her past fears, keeping up with what is more and more clearly the driving force of the whole record.
‘Ruin The Friendship’ is a curveball. It starts off as the story of two high school friends who maybe wish to be more, a more mature take on one of Taylor’s first hits, “You Belong With Me”, a fun teenage song about having a crush on someone you seemingly cannot have. And then it turns out to be a very raw cautionary tale with a tragic ending that a casual listener might miss, but it may easily be the most tragic track off this album disguised as a fun jazzy tune.
It is not the first time Taylor Swift dedicates a song to her haters - ‘Mean’, ‘Shake it Off’, ‘Blank Space’ even, but ‘Actually Romantic’ finds a new spin on the subject, with flirty lyrics and a guitar riff that makes us once again wish the artist would lean more into rock sounds, as she likes to experiment with genres.
‘Wi$h Li$t’ and ‘Wood’ are here to remind us, once again, Miss Swift is in love. She loves the idea of marriage and children and does not care for other materialistic possessions that other people may want, good for them. And she also, in the vein of Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Tears’, wants us to know through various levels of innuendos, she is very sexually satisfied by her soon to be husband. This is of course not the first time the 35 year old has talked about sex, with songs like ‘False God’, or ‘Dress’ - she has been horny before, but never raunchy. To be fair, the public has been asking about her love life for years. This is what you get - a fun tune that does not take itself too seriously, 80s vibes that are stronger than ever, with an intro that sounds so similar to ‘Want You Back’ by the Jackson 5 it may have been sampled.
If vault tracks for Reputation had been released, ‘CANCELLED!’ may very well have been one of them. It’s cheeky, angry, witchy and uncaring just enough, and is quickly becoming a fan favourite already, maybe because of its implications to the singer’s real life friendships that are speculated on by the media and public almost as much as her romantic relationships.
We think miss Swift may never stop finding new ways to write about her fiancée, as in ‘Honey’ she chooses to reclaim monikers that had hurt her in the past, but have taken on a new meaning in a different context, writing a straightforward love song that does end up feeling as sweet as honey.
The titular and closing track expands on another concept that Swift has written about before, in ‘The Lucky One’, ‘Nothing New’ and more recently ‘Clara Bow’ - what it really feels like to have the kind of fame and success that a showgirl, such as herself, may reach, and how different that actually looks from what a young person aspiring to have it might think. She chooses to feature Sabrina Carpenter, whose deeper voice not only fits the tune, but whose experience also somewhat mirrors the lyrics, as a younger artist who has grown up admiring Swift and is now her peer. Interestingly, despite all the warnings, the life of a showgirl seems to be unavoidable for those who are truly called to it. The track closes with audio of Taylor and Sabrina saying goodbye to the audience during one of their Eras Tour performances together, fitting in perfectly with the record’s intentions.
Taylor Swift is widely beloved and widely criticized. She has been one of the driving forces of the music industry for the past two decades, paving the way for innumerable young female artists who have come up since. She has demonstrated versatility in different genres and an extraordinary writing ability in records such as Folklore, Evermore and The Tortured Poets Department.
The truth is, she can do whatever the hell she wants. If she wants to write a full album about how happy she is to finally be in love after spending a lifetime searching for it, and she wants to be a bit silly with it, she can, she will - and she did. And she did it well, because she is incredibly dedicated and truly good at what she does, whatever that is.
Is she capable of writing a more complex, more varied, more lyrically nuanced record? I mean, yeah. This is the same woman who wrote “I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all / Dancing phantoms on the terrace, are they second-hand embarrassed /That I can't get out of bed 'cause something counterfeit's dead?”. She did it before, and she will do it again. In the meantime, if you want to dance and get silly with it, The Life of a Showgirl is the album for you.