Behind The Scenes of Taylor Swift’s New Album – The Life Of A Showgirl
Kayla Harper
On Monday morning, Taylornation made a post saying exactly what we’ve all been thinking since reading the words written by Taylor Swift herself in the official Eras Tour Book, “See you next era”. In their post which they captioned, “Thinking about when she said “See you next era…” ❤️🔥they featured twelve photos from the Eras Tour all in which Swift is wearing orange, solidifying fan theories that orange would be part of the colour palette from TS12 (Taylor Swift’s 12th album) and fuelling a fire that would wake Swifties from their after-Eras slumber into a spiral of theories and panic that Swift would be announcing a new album soon…but no one expected it would be this soon.
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Within the same time frame New Heights –a podcast that belongs to Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce and his brother Jason Kelce–posted a teaser for a surprise episode featuring a very special guest with a silhouette that fans quickly recognized as Swift.
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By the end of the day, it was confirmed that Swift would be appearing on Wednesday’s episode (August 13th of course) to officially announce and talk about her twelfth studio album, The Life Of A Showgirl. At this point the singer had only shared the album’s title, and an orange glitter vinyl, cassette and CD were available for pre-pre-order (?) on her website, which at this point had been updated to a sparkly teal and orange colour scheme– with no other information –not even an album cover.
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Appearing on the New Heights podcast episode might just be the closest we’ve gotten to seeing and hearing from Swift in her most authentic self and environment since the livestream in which she announced Lover in 2019.
On the podcast Swift shares what her life’s been like since the Eras tour concluded in Vancouver back in December 2024 – baking lots and lots and lots of sourdough; Kelce and Swift lovingly joked about Kelce’s declaration of love on this very podcast two summers ago for which Swift credits their relationship; fans gained more insight into exactly what it was like for Swift to get her masters back and why this feat has been so important to her since the beginning of her career; but perhaps most excitingly, Swift used this as an opportunity to officially announce her twelfth album, The Life Of A Showgirl, unveiling the album artwork, tracklist and more!
The Tracklist
The Life Of A Showgirl will have exactly 12 tracks, which is fitting since it’s Swift’s twelfth album. In the past Swift has been known to drop extended deluxe versions of her albums, however, she explains “There’s no other songs coming…this is 12. There’s not a 13th…there’s not other ones coming” (Swift, New Heights, 1:36:25). Sitting firm at 12 tracks, this makes The Life Of A Showgirl Swift’s shortest album to date, the record previously held by the standard editions of Fearless (2008) and 1989 (2014) which both had 13 tracks.
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Without even hearing any of the songs, fans have already started decoding what they think each song could be about based on the titles —which are some of the most interesting in Swift’s discography, but we feel that way anytime a new album drops.
Fans have noticed the album cover is similar to the famous painting Ophelia by John Everett Millais which ties into the first track, “The Fate Of Ophelia”.
Track two is titled “Elizabeth Taylor” after the famous actress, who Swift has been known to name-drop often, but most famously in her song “…Ready For It?” (reputation, 2017) in the lyrics “and he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor”.
Track three, “Opalite” is named after Swift’s favourite stone, Opal. For those who don’t know when Swift was a kid, she used to spend time at the store looking at Opals with her mom when she was younger to cope with being bullied.
“Eldest Daughter” takes the infamous spot of track five which is notorious for being the most emotionally vulnerable songs on each album. Swift is an eldest daughter herself and is most likely about to make eldest daughters across the globe feel seen.
Swift’s name has been pulled into a lot of drama over the years whether she’s involved or not, most recently with her longtime best friend, actress Blake Lively. Some fans speculate that may be what track 6 “Ruin The Friendship” is about.
Swift made sure to point out that in track 7, “Wi$h Li$t” the letter “s” is a dollar sign, so perhaps it has something to do with money, wealth or status which would make sense considering what a wish list is.
Swift also pointed out that track 10, “CANCELLED!” is all capitalized with an exclamation point at the end, Kelce informs us that this one is a “banger”.
The title track and last track on the album, “The Life of a Showgirl” is a collaboration with Swift’s friend and admirer, Sabrina Carpenter, who has been taking over the pop music scene for the last two years with her Grammy-winning album, Short n’ Sweet, and upcoming album, Man’s Best Friend. Fans have been theorizing and manifesting this collab for quite a few years now so it certainly has been “a long time coming” (“Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince”, Lover, 2019).
The Sound
Although no snippets have been heard and no singles have been announced, fans can expect The Life Of A Showgirl to be “a complete 180 from the songs on [The] Tortured Poets [Department]” (Kelce, New Heights, 1:39:26) as it’s full of “upbeat bangers” (Kelce, New Heights, 1:39:26). The Life Of A Showgirl is produced by Swift, Max Martin and Shellback. This is the first time since 2017’s reputation that Swift has collaborated with Martin and Shellback, so fans can expect the album will be most sonically similar to Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and reputation (2017).
The Concept
Swift explains that “this album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during [the Eras] tour” (Swift, New Heights, 1:31:13) as she was flying to Sweden to record in-between the European Eras Tour shows. Fans have been speculating that because of this behind the scenes look at Swift’s life during the Eras tour we may get an Eras Tour behind the scenes footage which finally answers why the final three shows in Vancouver were professionally filmed.
The aesthetic of the album seems different than anything we’ve seen from Swift before. It’s flashy, almost Burlesque at times and most reminiscent of her reputation album if it was Midnights, which is most likely due to the photos being done by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot, the same duo who did the photoshoot for reputation.
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The Merch
So far Swift has unveiled a standard sparkly orange vinyl pressing, cassette and CD for The Life Of A Showgirl. As well as four limited edition deluxe CDs with alternative covers and lots of goodies including exclusive photobooks and unique jewelry items -The “It’s Frightening” (red), “It’s Rapturous” (lilac) and “It’s Beautiful” (white) editions. Knowing Swift, more vinyl variants are sure to come. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were four alternative covers and colours to match the deluxe CDs.
The Life Of A Showgirl is “exuberant, electric and vibrant” (Swift, New Heights, 1:31:30) as Swift describes it, “This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time…I care about this record more than I can even overstate” (Swift, New Heights, 1:36:40-1:39:59). This album rollout might just be the most direct we’ve had from Swift in years, with a release date, tracklist and length disclosed within the first week. As of now, there are no confirmed single release dates, for the last few albums Swift has left fans anticipating until the minute they hit play for the first time. However, Swift loves to keep fans on the edge of their seats and is no stranger to a good surprise so who knows what could happen next…and that’s show business for you.
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