In The Life of a Showgirl, it seems like Taylor Swift has fallen from grace when it comes to writing lyrics that make sense.
Before The Life of a Showgirl, Swift released 11 studio albums, with each one seeing her play and experiment with a variety of genres. She has either written or co-written all of her major albums: Fearless, 1989, Red, the list goes on. While Swift herself has been heavily scrutinized by the public eye for her relationships, pivot from country to pop, and meteoric rise to fame as an entrepreneurial-minded pop star, she has always been, at her core, a capable songwriter. “[Songwriting] is the purest part of my job,” Swift said in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “It can get complicated on every other level, but the songwriting is still the same uncomplicated process it was when I was 12 years old.”
Well, in The Life of a Showgirl, it’s difficult to see where this love for songwriting has gone.
Although the album’s 12 songs are sonically of Swift’s past caliber, the lyrics reveal a side of the pop star that her hardcore fans may call “raw” or “vulnerable,” but that I will call “clumsy,” “foolhardy,” and, at times “Tumblr-core cringe.” “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger,” Swift quips on the fifth track, “Father Figure.” While the Internet’s currently arguing about whether or not Swift’s embodying someone specific in this song about uneven power dynamics, that’s no excuse for juvenile edginess.
That same edginess can also be seen here, in “The Fate of Ophelia”: “But love was a cold bed full of scorpions / The venom stole her sanity.” Look, I love a Hamlet reference as much as the next guy, but I don’t think Ophelia was laying down in any bed with scorpions. Yes, it’s a metaphor for haters, but come on, Taylor.
There’s also the alleged Charli XCX diss track that feels like an unnecessary shot at the Brat star. “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave,” Swift sings in “Actually Romantic.” “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.”
If this is a shot at Charli’s 2024 track “Sympathy is a Knife,” it feels like it’s blowing the quote-unquote feud between the two pop stars out of proportion. “People are going to think what they want to think,” Charli said in a 2024 interview with New York Magazine, dismissing rumors about a feud. “That song is about me and my feelings and my anxiety and the way my brain creates narratives and stories in my head when I feel insecure.”
Finally, the album sees Swift employing a level of braggadocio that, quite frankly, she has yet to figure out how to wield. “What could you possibly get for the girl,” she croons on “Elizabeth Taylor, “who has everything and nothing all at once? Babe, I would trade the Cartier for someone to trust (Just kidding).” Although The Life of a Showgirl is definitely Swift airing out her complicated feelings about fame and the isolation that comes with it, the way she’s approaching this thesis is undermined by her need to prove that she also doesn’t care about what people think of her (but she also really does care, though).
“I have been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness,” Swift reminds us in “Eldest Daughter.” Okay Taylor, settle down.
