{"id":76024,"date":"2025-10-15T10:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T10:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/76024\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T10:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T10:47:09","slug":"taylor-swift-is-in-her-showgirl-era-what-does-that-mean-for-her-sacred-songwriting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/76024\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift Is in Her Showgirl Era. What Does That Mean for Her Sacred Songwriting?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music<\/a>Music<\/a>Swift has been criticized for the lyricism on her newest album. How has her writing evolved throughout her eras, and where does it truly stand now?\"\"Getty Images\/Ringer illustration\"\"<\/a>By Nora Princiotti<\/a>Oct. 15, 10:20 am UTC \u2022 8 min<\/p>\n

Taylor Swift\u2019s latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, suggests in its title an interest in artifice. The showgirl, clad in Bob Mackie sparkle in the album\u2019s promotional photography, is a facade in feathers and fishnets. This is the final product of a showgirl onstage, whatever you want her to be, humanity blurred out by the glare of klieg lights.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a compelling character for Swift to play. She\u2019s the world\u2019s most omnipresent entertainer, fresh off the glittering spectacle of the Eras Tour. But it\u2019s also an awkward one. For decades, Swift has told her audience that what makes her show special is the way she cuts through the gloss to share the person behind all the razzle-dazzle. No amount of shimmer is supposed to blind the listener to the woman, who, when out of her Louboutins and lashes, wrote these stories of her own life experiences and chose to share them. It\u2019s why I sometimes find myself wondering why other artists aren\u2019t pausing between songs at their concerts to talk to me. It\u2019s why identifying as a showgirl has never seemed to be important to Swift the way identifying as a songwriter has been.<\/p>\n

Swift has spent the past two years more clearly defining herself as pop\u2019s most ink-stained star. Her last album had her identifying as a tortured poet. Her engagement announcement with Travis Kelce was captioned: \u201cYour English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.\u201d And even as she cast The Life of a Showgirl as a wholesale return to pop, she went out of her way to head off the idea that her reunion with producer Max Martin, who is typically far more concerned with melody and word economy than storytelling or turns of phrase, would decentralize her lyric writing. On her New Heights podcast appearance in August, Swift said that Martin told her, “I loved the storytelling on Folklore. I don\u2019t want that to change just because we\u2019re making these infectious anthems; I don\u2019t want you to leave that behind.\u201d To which she said, \u201cI couldn\u2019t if I tried.\u201d Yet, even as Swift seems to hold her writerly identity closer than ever, her actual lyrics have<\/a> never<\/a> drawn<\/a> more<\/a> criticism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not since a short-lived conversation about Lover\u2019s lead single, \u201cME!,\u201d has the (thoughtful, well-reasoned) critical consensus about Swift\u2019s work suggested that her writing might be getting worse. But that critique, which began to bubble up around 2024\u2019s The Tortured Poets Department, is a prominent feature of the mixed reviews of her latest album. A New York Times piece lamented a flat reading of Hamlet<\/a> as the framing for the lead single, \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia.\u201d The New Yorker argued that<\/a> the \u201cweak lyricism in the Travis Kelce\u2013inspired songs,\u201d in particular, was to blame for stirring up a sexist and historically false argument that Swift can\u2019t write well from a place of romantic stability. In The Guardian, Alexis Petridis wrote that<\/a> \u201cthere\u2019s no escaping the fact that comparing her partner\u2019s knob to a magic wand constitutes weak writing from someone who made her name, at least in part, by being a sharper, wittier, more incisive lyricist than her peers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t agree on all counts, but it\u2019s a conversation that\u2019s kept me thinking about Showgirl, the ways in which Swift\u2019s lyrics have changed over time, and where she currently stands as a writer.<\/p>\n

Swift\u2019s superpower as a songwriter is specificity. It\u2019s the way she can render an entire scene (\u201cThere\u2019s glitter on the floor after the party \/ Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby\u201d) or a whole story (\u201cYou made a rebel of a careless man\u2019s careful daughter\u201d) in just a few lines. She has a knack for metaphor, crafting vivid and memorable phrases like \u201cLoving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street\u201d or \u201cAugust sipped away like a bottle of wine.\u201d In her earlier days, she fit these details into neat packages. Her pandemic albums, Folklore and Evermore, were a demarcation point where she began to write in a more florid, poetic style, but she still communicated a distinct meaning within the wordier phrasing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, Swift often references Folklore when talking about how her writing has evolved. On that 2020 album, a critical darling and Grammy winner for Album of the Year, Swift leaned heavily into metaphor and used descriptive language and looser, less obviously biographical storytelling. One line she\u2019s highlighted as a personal favorite from Showgirl, \u201cI pay the check before it kisses the mahogany grain,\u201d from \u201cFather Figure,\u201d does seem written with that same sepia-tinted quill pen that got a workout on both Folklore and Evermore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a lot of the writing on Showgirl is hyper-literal, in a way that seems like a continuation of her writing style on The Tortured Poets Department. There\u2019s a stream of consciousness quality to that latter 31-song album as Swift weaves in and out of specific moments\u2014crying at the gym or reacting to a partner placing a ring on her left hand\u2014that I\u2019m reminded of on Showgirl as she sets a scene at the Plaza Ath\u00e9n\u00e9e in Paris or specifically references her partner\u2019s ex being preoccupied by her phone. Both Poets and Showgirl have Swift using much more modern (although not always current) language, especially when she references the internet. But what these two most recent albums most clearly have in common, especially when compared with Folklore, is that their overt focus is the concept of Being Taylor Swift.<\/p>\n

And as with Poets, a primary critique of Swift\u2019s lyrics on Showgirl is their tendency to be \u201ccringe\u201d\u2014whether she intended them to be or not. On Poets, she wrote stanzas like \u201cYou smoked, then ate seven bars of chocolate \/ We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist\u201d that often spilled out over bars of music. On Showgirl, the cringe is most visible in her\u00a0 embrace of mostly dated internet speak, like when she sings, \u201cDid you girlboss too close to the sun?\u201d on \u201cCANCELLED!\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m not a bad bitch \/ and this isn\u2019t savage\u201d on \u201cEldest Daughter\u201d or describes a vacation that was \u201cfuckin\u2019 lit\u201d on \u201cWi$h Li$t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

More on Taylor Swift\u2019s Latest Album <\/p>\n

More on Taylor Swift\u2019s Latest Album <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t take a universal view of these lines or, more broadly, of Swift using millennialisms in her writing; I have to look at each lyric on a case-by-case basis. On Poets, I find the Charlie Puth line to be both funny and a great encapsulation of the kind of rambling conversation you\u2019d have with someone who\u2019s constantly getting high, while the wedding ring lyrics on the title track come off as unnecessarily clunky. Another polarizing set of lines, \u201cI\u2019m having his baby \/ No, I\u2019m not \/ But you should see your faces,\u201d might be the best writing on Poets, for the tap-on-the-shoulder way it trolls Swift\u2019s entire fan base.<\/p>\n

There are moments on Showgirl that make me wonder whether Swift is trying to get a similar rise out of her audience. The use of the nonword \u201clegitly\u201d on the otherwise spritely title track must be a trap, tricking the grammar police into proving Swift\u2019s point about people always finding something to criticize, right? But I\u2019m less certain than usual that she\u2019s in on the bit. On \u201cWi$h Li$t,\u201d an apparent non sequitur about Real Madrid that builds to the \u201cfuckin\u2019 lit\u201d lyric is sung against a modulating chord progression that indicates these are words she wants us to pay attention to, although I can\u2019t figure out why.<\/p>\n

Yet in its flourishes, The Life of a Showgirl has the ingredients of Swift\u2019s best writing. There\u2019s the perfect detail that colors a whole backstory in a few simple lines at the opening of \u201cOpalite,\u201d in which Swift shares that her brother used to describe her tendency to pine after exes as \u201ceating out of the trash.\u201d There\u2019s the emotionally wrenching Act 3 reveal in \u201cRuin the Friendship\u201d when Swift finds herself, well, pining after a high school crush, but with the added gut punch that the scene takes place at a grave site. There are metaphors (\u201cLike a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse \/ That\u2019s how much it hurts\u201d) and elegant turns of phrase (\u201cShimmers that innocent light back\u201d) and punch lines (\u201cI would trade the Cartier for someone I could trust \/ Just kidding!\u201d) and moments of incisive perception (\u201cI\u2019m immortal now, baby dolls\u201d) that all stick. But these moments are fewer and farther between than usual, in a way that suggests that this was an album written on plane rides to and from Sweden during an exhausting world tour. But they are too present to use this album as evidence that Swift\u2019s pen has dried up.<\/p>\n

As for the cringe, well, it works when it works, and it doesn\u2019t when it doesn\u2019t. I get the sense that most of us are laughing along with her when she sings, \u201cNew Heights of manhood.\u201d What better wedding present for a bro than to compliment his phallus and his podcast in a single line? And the lyric \u201cI\u2019m not a bad bitch\u201d from \u201cEldest Daughter\u201d doesn\u2019t bother me, either\u2014it rings true to me as Swift revealing that the tough exterior she embodied on \u201cI Did Something Bad\u201d and \u201cVigilante Shit\u201d was a facade. The line \u201cPledge allegiance to your vibes\u201d is not exactly the stuff of poetry, but could anyone argue against the notion that vibes play a major role in the Swift-Kelce relationship and, thus, this album?<\/p>\n

I find myself less hung up on lyrics from The Life of a Showgirl that are a little corny than ones that don\u2019t communicate a clear meaning. It\u2019s not the random Real Madrid shout-out on \u201cWi$h Li$t\u201d that bothers me but the inscrutable perspective. In the song, Swift is casting her desire for a simple life against a list of luxury items, some of which she already has\u2014things that are being sought out by I\u2019m not sure who. Influencers? Other WAGs? General society? The song \u201cEldest Daughter\u201d eventually reaches a poignant conclusion about how love can chip away at the most hardened portions of one\u2019s exterior, but it trivializes that point with an opening verse that\u2019s mostly about internet comments. \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia\u201d is relentlessly catchy, and I believe that its Prince Charming had his act together a lot more than Hamlet did. But I\u2019d love to know more about the \u201cpowers\u201d he spent so much time \u201choning,\u201d unless I\u2019m meant to seek out those answers on \u201cWood.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

More often than usual when dissecting a Swift album, I\u2019ve found myself not entirely sure what she is trying to say with these songs. The highlights here from a writing perspective\u2014\u201cElizabeth Taylor,\u201d \u201cFather Figure,\u201d \u201cRuin the Friendship,\u201d \u201cActually Romantic\u201d\u2014are the tracks where her point of view is most clear, which allows for her signature lyrical precision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe fuzziness throughout the rest of the album is simply a by-product of pace. Swift has released more than 100 new original songs since 2020 and 43 in the past 18 months, in addition to playing 149 shows since the Eras Tour launched in March 2023. Or maybe it\u2019s that her life has grown increasingly rarefied and cloistered. Or that she has a desire to close off some aspects of her life to protect a serious relationship that\u2019s still somewhat new.\u00a0
If there\u2019s tension between Swift the showgirl and Swift the songwriter, could it be because she made one of her more plainly autobiographical albums in a moment when she\u2019s interested in hiding behind the veil of showmanship? Right now, the lyric from The Life of a Showgirl that\u2019s sticking with me is, maybe accidentally, among its most insightful. \u201cYou don\u2019t know the life of a showgirl,\u201d she sings on the title track. \u201cAnd you\u2019re never, ever gonna.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nora Princiotti<\/p>\n

<\/a>Nora Princiotti covers the NFL, culture, and pop music, sometimes all at once. She hosts the podcast \u2018Every Single Album,\u2019 appears on \u2018The Ringer NFL Show,\u2019 and is The Ringer\u2019s resident Taylor Swift scholar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MusicMusicSwift has been criticized for the lyricism on her newest album. How has her writing evolved throughout her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-76024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}