Another Opinion On The Life of A Showgirl

Taylor Swift dropped her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, and people have been talking about it nonstop. Seemingly in response to criticism of her past album, The Tortured Poets Department, this tight, 12-song album feels both defensive and defiant. She’s answering back. 

It’s an album about the performance of fame, the exhaustion that comes with constantly being looked at, being loved and hated in equal measure. Its title alone acknowledges the spectacle of celebrity life, and that being a pop star today isn’t about privacy or mystery, but about the performance that comes with being watched. 

What’s fascinating is how this record arrives at a moment when Swift’s image feels almost mythological. Conversations surrounding the album’s concept often dismiss it as nothing new. But what makes The Life of a Showgirl stand out is how strange some of the lyrics feel, almost disjointed and even surreal. 

Swift has never been afraid to expose the contradictions of being a pop star, specifically about the intimacy and isolation that come with turning your life into art. She’s done this before in songs like “Do It With a Broken Heart” and “Clara Bow,” but here, the tone is sharper. It’s almost as if she’s narrating her own spectacle in real time.​

She's aware of the need to course-correct, and that’s part of what makes the album interesting. Swift has always been a master of narrative control, but people online are divided: Is it satire? Is she in on the joke? Their likes, dislikes, theories, and analyses all feed into a larger question: What is she saying?​

She starts with “The Fate of Ophelia,” the album’s only single, and arguably its emotional thesis. As the title suggests, it is a reference to the Shakespearean character Ophelia. In terms of production, I can’t get enough. It has a jaunty, pop tune that may not make you want to get up and dance, but might make you bop your head to it. 

“Elizabeth Taylor” once again proves that Swift and Max Martin make a great production team. Swift’s partnership with Martin continues to be a winning formula — a formula that she keeps rewriting.

“Eldest Daughter” is the centerpiece of the album. The lyrics read like a diary entry from someone who’s been praised her entire life for holding it together. However, the song’s use of popular internet phrases like “trolling” and “savage” feels a bit too online. These phrases offset the orchestral production in the background, and it’s one of those moments where you can feel the dissonance between Taylor-the-person and Taylor-the-brand.

Even still, there’s something sincere lying underneath. You get the sense that these songs are less about meme language and more about the loneliness of always being the one who has to perform emotional stability for everyone else.

Then comes “CANCELLED!” Some audiences seem to crave a deeper connection — a move away from the hyper-digital and toward things that feel tangible, handmade, and grounded — and “CANCELLED!” brushes up against that tension. ​

Half-pop, half-social commentary, this is one of those songs that tries to grapple with online culture head-on. Sometimes when art attempts to capture the internet too directly, it can be distant or awkward, and Swift isn’t immune to that. 

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the song isn’t supposed to sound timeless. Just like cancel culture, it’s messy, overstimulating, and fleeting.​

Then there’s “Wood.” The song leans quite hard into innuendo that it ends up feeling more corny than sexy. Personally, I think her best writing about desire has always been grounded in suggestion.​

It reminded me of her 2017 song “Dress” with her lyrics, “only bought this dress so you could take it off.” Here, she trusted the space between words to do the work. “Wood” doesn’t leave as much to the imagination, and maybe that’s the problem. It feels less like intimacy and more like commentary, and, frankly, I don’t need that much insight into her relationship or any particular part of her fiancé. 

Like some others on the internet, I’m hoping it’s a deliberate exaggeration. For years, people have reduced Swift's songwriting to who she’s dating, who the song is about. Maybe “Wood” is her way of saying “Fine, you want confessional? I’ll give you confessional.”

There is, of course, the title track, featuring Sabrina Carpenter, because what would The Life of a Showgirl be without another showgirl sharing the stage? It’s a meta-commentary on what it means to be a showgirl in today’s time. Swift has shown that she can master controlling the narrative around her, and in “The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter),” she’s extending that storytelling to include another performer. Swift’s and Carpenter’s voices together are playful and confident, a contrast between Swift's seasoned theatricality and Carpenter’s sparkling, irreverent energy. Carpenter takes a full verse, and Swift makes it clear that this isn’t just a cameo. Carpenter is here to stay.

That sense of self-awareness extends throughout the album. Swift always seems to know exactly what audiences want from her, and here, she resists that. We’ve gotten so used to the introspective Swift of folklore and evermore, those records that felt like love letters to storytelling itself. The Life of a Showgirl, by contrast, feels flashy, constructed, and even a little performative about its performance. 

Swift is a mirror of the culture that made her, and this album seems to understand that. It’s not just about being watched, it’s about how we watch her, how we turn women into stories and then criticize them for playing their parts too well.

I’ll admit that this album isn’t my favorite. Not yet, anyway. But I’ve learned never to underestimate the slow burn of a Taylor Swift record. When Swift released The Tortured Poets Department, some people were aggravated, confused, and bored. And now, one year later, many of those same people are begging for its songs to appear on popular television series, like The Summer I Turned Pretty. Maybe The Life of a Showgirl just needs time to find its moment. Or maybe it already has, reflecting us back and holding our attention as we watch, analyze, and debate every detail.