Album Reaction & Review From A Day 1 “Teardrops On My Guitar” Radio Disney Stan
These are my nearly stream-of-consciousness thoughts during my second listen through The Life of A Showgirl (and maybe a 3rd, a 4th, & a 5th as I continued to work through and edit this 🙂 ). The first listen was with headphones and all alone. I want to check back in after more listening, more processing, more research… But for now, these are my raw, mostly uninfluenced thoughts without seeing what the internet and the world think, only what my friends and I think.
I feel compelled to set a warning… I love Taylor Swift a LOT, just like you, probably, if you’re reading this. I’ve loved her for so long. I’ve grown up with her! True love will acknowledge faults, disappointments, and, in general, be honest, so I fear this review, at times, can be biting and critical. It wasn’t my intention to do so. My only goal was to approach what Ms. Swift tells us with my true feelings and honest reaction to what she’s saying. This is how that journey went. Thanks for indulging!
THE FATE OF OPHELIA
30 seconds into “The Fate of Ophelia” and I feel compelled to say… I reserve the right to change my mind and be wrong, lol. Because I like this a looooot better already with & in the headphones vs. the 1st listen. I can actually hear WTF she’s saying (& I am googling the lyrics).
I DO like this little fun post-chorus or whatever the hell at approx ~1:22 “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes. Don’t care where the hell you’ve been (been), ‘cause now you’re mine” like that is a fun, flirty melody in my ears!! And feels very quintessential & cutesy Speak Now Taylor, a la “Ours” a la “Mine” & I like that! But I wish Spotify had the damn LYRICS! What is this nonsense?! Why not?! You help me help YOU!! (*They did not upon initial release, but I’m seeing now in the morning they do; nevertheless, my point remains! Get up ‘em with the drop!)
I know the people out there are doing quick work, as am I here, to react to this and get their thoughts out there. I started to look at the Gaylor reddit (lmao, outing myself, don’t k me) and then I was like, you know what? NO! I need to do another listen and develop more of my own OPINIONS before I go read the whole internet, like in fact, maybe I just really take my time ingesting this all and post it to my REAL substack, wouldn’t that be cool?? Okay, LOCK IN! (Again, leaving this in here to show the sanctity of the process 🙂 But of course I’ve edited this, or else you’d be reading the word “like” one thousand times, and you still might read it about 100 of those times!)
I also insist that this feels either weirdly insincere, or weirdly childish, or weirdly delusional! Or also, self-centered! Like, Oh, YOU save ME from my fate. From MY FATE! WHERE I WAS PROPHECIZED TO BE ALONE FOREVER! And then you came and SAVED ME! Changed MY prophecyyy. All I’m hearing are the words, “me, myself, and I”. IDK, I get it, I guess, but it feels very … childish/derivative/tells us nothing actual or unique or interesting or intimate about their relationship, just, that ope! You saved me! IDKKKK!!! In the year of our lord, 2025, no Roe v Wade, women are dying from childbirth, children are being separated from their families violently, trans people have lost rights, gays might lose some of their rights as well; shit is going DOWN. And you want to start by saying a man saved you? 😦 You saved yourself, honey, I know you know that! Then why not describe it as the icing on the cake! The sun on your face!!
It feels unserious vs. Lover, who was about NOT her future husband… Where is the depth in the simplicity, the “Been sleeping so long in a twenty year dark night, and now I see daylight” and “My love was as cruel as the cities I lived in” and “Can I go where you go?” and “I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Years Day”, even, “I like fancy things but I’d marry you with paper rings!”, finally, “It’s newwwww, the shape of your body, it’s blueeee, the feeeeeeling I got!”, like we ALL know that shape of that body when it is BLUE, and what that felt like, you know what I mean?? These are all so piercingly honest, full of yearning, and… maturity and wisdom found through loving another. And now I’m, like… you’re being RIDICULOUS or simply… You are lying, lol.
So ANYWAYYYY, I still like it much better on the second listen! (Back to TFOO) But the chorus is kind of not melodic or just not my favorite, and the concept kinda pisses me off. Nonetheless, this will end up in my Top 100 songs on Spotify despite it being October 3rd. I’ve heard their data is only collected through Halloween. Because, of course they need time to organize & develop all their users’ individual experiences & prepare to launch, etc, etc. And god bless ‘em! Thank you so much, Spotify, for doing that for me!! I eat it up every time!! The point remains, despite only a month’s duration to get listened to, I will still have listened to this song enough to put it on my top 100 songs for the year, calling it now! I really thought maybe this year, maybe Taylor Swift WON’T be my top artist. Maybe it will be Jensen Mcrae!! But nonetheless… 🙂 Here we are! Look at Midnights!! It came out Oct 21, 2022, Taylor Swift was my #1 artist, and most (if not all?) songs from the album made it on there, AND Sweet Nothings was my number one SONG! After only 10 days of listening, lololol for the YEAR! All this to levelset my fandom and love. Overall, I feel a sliver of disappointment… I haven’t loved something as deeply as “Cruel Summer” in… well, since “Cruel Summer”. I’ve been starved for the next Cruel Summer, the next ultra-pop certified banger and YEARNER.
Also.. Cruel Summer is a STORYYY, a real-life TRUE STORY (in a figurative sense)! And you can FEEL that emotion and the TRUENESS of that story in the song. Of course, I have the bias of my own lived experience, but I once heard the quote “For art to be universal, it first has to be specific” or something to this effect, and that’s so true! Cruel Summer happened to ME! Cruel Summer happened to my friend! To all my friends! We love it because it’s the TRUTH! The music feels and reflects the emotions of the story, and it feels like a parable from the damn Bible, from the universal well of knowledge, from the collective soul, ie, it RESONATES.
“The Fate of Ophelia” is kind of a choppy (I mean the title itself is so clunky and pretentious, miss girl, lol, SORRY!), it’s somewhat spooky, sad but ultimately good, pop, but not quite a banger, yet still upbeat… All this to say, a confusing vibe. Also.. Full of so many platitudes… “As legend has it, you are quite the pyro. You light the match to watch it blow”, “Don’t care where the hell you’ve been, ‘cause now you’re mine”, and “locked inside my memory and only you possess the key,” like… well, now, what the hell does that last one even mean?
Also, it takes on this weirdly American zeal, “Pledge allegiance to your hands”. Now I’m already contradicting myself, lol. At first I was like, oh, that’s kinda sexy and down bad, and it is. But now I’m also, like… we’re all taking a kneel, girl. Right now?? At a time like this?? Is it bad to think it’s bad of her to be patriotic right now?? Or at least… There’s something about evoking the pledge of allegiance vs… perhaps, America the Beautiful, ie, promoting the true essence of America and the beauty found through diversity, community, and the freedom of self and for all, IDK. It evokes a certain submission and agreement with the current state of affairs to me.
Overall, the song is fun, it’s cute, but it feels weird.. A forced story, very victimhood, woe is me, the song centers her in many ways vs I don’t know, maybe the shared love they have created, I found that off-putting. She’s cute though, she’s cute (the song), she may grow on me!
ELIZABETH TAYLOR
“Elizabeth Taylor,” being the exact first words said in this song… feels just so on the nose. We get it!!!! This song is about Elizabeth Taylor!
The chorus is a banger though, and the thesis of the song, “Elizabeth Taylor, tell me for real, do you think it’s forever?” She, like Elizabeth Taylor, is a global icon, an immortal figure of artistry, beauty, and in some ways, youth. It feels like there’s a double meaning… On the surface, she’s asking a now-passed legend, Do you still last? Even when you’re physically gone from this earth? Does your legacy still live on? So then, are you still alive through your legacy? Each generation has its icons, but time waits for no man. Sooner or later, there will be a new “you”. She loathes this. She struggles to accept that her power may be ever-waning with each passing moment. She’s grasping to keep it firmly in place, constantly having to outdo the same records she herself sets, then beats, sets, and beats, repeat! That’s no easy task!! It’s absolutely remarkable what she’s done so far. I’m just pointing out, it’s a bit of a hedonistic treadmill (which we, the fans, feed into, but so does she!). She also cherishes that her time will pass, because it’s a testament that she once was THERE. The farther you have to fall, the higher up you once were. Her work, her legacy, her fame has allowed her to become this global icon she is, and again, a BILLIONAIRE! “Hollywood hates me, you’re only as hot as your last hit, baby.”… She’s not wrong. This also reminds me of Billy Joel’s song, “The Entertainer”, a lyric that comes to mind is, “It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long. If you wanna have a hit, you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05.” Both reflect the idea that to really “make it” and become an artist of everlasting influence, you have to compromise your authenticity at the cost of yourself.
But then, right as we’re thinking this song is about asking, in essence, her “ancestors” what the truth of fame is, if it was all worth it in the end… We also have the lyrics “I can’t have fun if I can’t have you.” Is this about how she can’t feel fulfilled in her life if she doesn’t have us, the audience? Her fans? The same ones that haunt her and cause her life to be difficult?? OR is this about one specific person? I must explore further, but this song definitely made me stop and think… Who is this really about? What is this really about? Who, as in “the fans”? Or what as in total legacy? Total impact?
Ultimately, I was bored in the verse and won back in the chorus. I’m still confused about what this song might exactly mean. It’s not the most musically compelling to me, but the lyrics will keep me invested until I come up with a story that makes sense in my head. Ultimately, I think we must ask – Is she comparing herself to Elizabeth Taylor, or is she in love with Elizabeth Taylor? And who is “Elizabeth Taylor” even really? A person, an idea, a feeling?
OPALITE
Now, THIS is a beautiful bop and definitely a song about Travis! This feels GOOD. This feels right! And tonally, conceptually CORRECT! And nice! And relatable! Lest we forget, this is a newly engaged woman! A woman who’s been in an alleged happy relationship for the past two years! Throughout which she had the most successful global tour in history that made her a billionaire!
But despite this! Travis still found her “in the dark”, and he ~lit up her sky~ i.e., “now the sky is opalite” ie, her life is better with him. It’s like she’s diminishing herself, no? She was already a star, honey, she was THEE star, she was the SUN (Improving GDPs of entire countries by having her tour visit those cities!!)
Does anyone else feel like this was a haphazard or lazy metaphor? This is not, “You painted all my nights, a color I have searched for since”, or “My house of stone, your ivy grows, and now I’m covered in you”, or, “Isn’t it just so pretty to think? All along there was some invisible string tying you to meee”, I rest my case, your honor. But I need to understand more about onyx (black rock) and opalite (a kind of white or translucent rock that can catch seemingly all colors off its refractive shell). It also has the early 1900s barbershop quartet vibe with the building vocals, you know what I’m talking about?? It’s giving traditional… if you know what I mean. Cute, fun, about Travis being“sunshine”, her human exclamation point, but I’m not getting much more beyond that. I like this one! I don’t love it. Yet!
P.S. Speaking of, I’ve seen The Music Man (which a barbershop quartet always reminds me of) movie with Mathew Broderick and Kristin Chenoweth at least a thousand times. It was also the first ever community theater musical I participated in at the ripe age of probably like 11 as a trombone player ❤ I know! How fun & legit is that 🙂 I remember stomping down the aisles of the theater, swinging my trombone up and down, not playing a single note!
FATHER FIGURE
The clearly sexiest song on this album. The chorus gets me gooiiinnngg, I won’t lie!! “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger. This love is pure profit, just step into my office, I dry your tears with my sleeve.” What in the late-stage-capitalism HELL?! She sounds sooooo scary, she’s THREATENING this intended audience, and she’s also evoking the name of the DEVIL!!! Damn! I respect the power, and certainly I don’t wield the same level, but this feels so mean-spirited. She knows her tail strikes heavily and with big spikes, and yet, she still chooses to swing it carelessly around, seemingly unaffected by what damage it may cause.
Oh! So Genius lyrics is saying it’s about Scott Borchetta, the CEO of Big Machine Records, who sold her music away to Scooter Braun… But then why does the beginning of the song say, “You remind me of a younger me”??? We know she loves this idea of falling in line with the long list of women legends. She also likes to feel she has a hand in those coming behind her.
I think (she thinks) if she can exert control over the future of pop music & women in pop, she can lay some claim to the way it continues to evolve, and thus, she continues to have relevancy and importance. She continues to matter. It’s when these new pop girlies STOP caring if Taylor likes them, and STOP claiming to have adored her all their lives, that’s when the true death will come. LOL. Sorry to get dark, but it’s oh so clear to me!
Also, let’s not kid ourselves… This is an absolute crucifixion of Olivia Rodrigo??? RIP, all-american bitch. 😦 I am truly just like.. Do we really need this right now?! Lol! It feels sooooo mean. And like… not a fair fight. A bear against a bunny, respectfully. Of course, one will win! At least Olivia’s song “Vampire” that was rumored to be about Taylor’s betrayal of her (which I thought was valid at the time! I was always like… okay, so… what the fuck is up, Tay? What’s your problem, huh??), sounded more believable, like it could have been about a relationship; this feels weirdly… targeted.
Again, let me be clear. This is my favorite song off the album. I love it!! 🙂 I am also terrified by it. 🙂
ELDEST DAUGHTER
“I’m not a bad bitch, and this isn’t savage.” What the HELLLLLL?! LMAO! No! That’s sooooo dumb, come on, girl! And also, listen… I love piano as much as the next guy, probably actually much MORE, but this is all just soooo boring. And it’s kind of wordy, and it’s not thoughtful or beautifully haunting (like “seven”, “pleaaaase, picture meee, in the treeees, I hit my peak at seven..feeet, in the swing over the creeek”), it’s more just… now, where are we going with all this? It’s in such opposition to the song we JUST listened to, where she’s all, “I’m your DADDY” and “BOW TO YOUR SENSEI!” Is it that you’re god or is it that you’re not? WHICH IS IT?!
Also, okay! We get it, she was the eldest daughter! Lorde also famously has her song “Favorite Daughter”; it’s a great year to be a daughter! For the record, I am the eldest daughter… And yes, of courseeeee, I feel our lives are harder in some ways (lmao), & I too, love to revel in that bit of sympathy and attention, yet… I find this whole ass song dedicated to it (plus the mention in TFOO)?? Just obnoxious and “pick me”. “I have been afflicted with a terminal uniqueness” makes me feel INSANE! STOP! YOU BETTER STOP! STOP THAT! Going into it, I was lit about it.. Obviously, this will be my anthem! But now, it sounds like a wet rag, slowly being dragged across the floor… It’s like, girl, GET UP! Please!!! I don’t knowwwwww, it feels forcibly dark or woe is MEEEE. We need EMPOWERMENT or at least LOVE. We are so IN LOVE or we had THESE SEXYY MOMENTS whilst also BEING IN LOVE, HAPPY, HOPE, JOY, etc. We all have shit, girl, and it SUCKS, but not NOW! To me, this feels very uninspired. It feels like an intellectual interpretation of a song. It doesn’t feel like a song born of lived experience, if this makes sense.
Also, why is THIS still a diss track?? I feel like “so many traitors” could again be in reference to O.R.!!! Who famously has a song titled “traitor”! I know people will say this is a stretch, but please, “What if I told you none of it was accidental?”
RUIN THE FRIENDSHIP
“As the 50 Cent song played,” Lmaooooooo, this feels FORCED, but also I love it. It’s hilarious!! It reminds me of being in a dark, dingy, disgusting frat basement that smells like flavored vodka and regret. 50 Cent & Charlie Puth, you two lucky bastards! Getting immortalized via Taylor Swift lyrics!!
At first, I was like ENOUGH. OF. THE CHEATING. REFERENCES! In one respect, I get it and slightly “allow” it, in the sense I can tolerate some songs with these themes if she’s “working something out” and trying to atone for her sins. Now it feels like this is her 4th, 5th, 6th song about infidelity.. It feels like glorifying it?
OPE! Shit. I did not at all know it took this turn after the first listen!!! … This is really sad. :”( Welp! There’s my depth that I wanted! LOL!
Bravo. I’m a bit speechless at this song. I really respect it and it’s musically appealing enough, but even if it’s not a personal favorite, I’m glad to have this on the album. This feels like a brief moment of truth and … lack of put-on character from Taylor. I will probably not be listening simply because of the sad themes. I can’t be getting into all this, all the time, BUT I think it’s an important moment of grounding in the album. The old Taylor we feel more familiar with, the one we know, if you will (even though the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Cuz she’s ded 
). The storyteller who creates worlds for us to venture into. This feels like a REAL and true experience to her vs. the forced nature of “The Fate of Opehlia”, does that make sense?
ACTUALLY ROMANTIC
WTF is THIS?! This is a diss track about Charli??!! Lmaooo, we did not understand ANYTHING ON FIRST LISTENNNNN!! But wow, I absolutely hate this! Who asked for this? Who wants this? Who’s gonna be like, okay, yeah! Fuck Charli! When she single-handedly MADE Summer 2024?? SHE created a whole new way to move through the world! She made authenticity cool! She MOVED the needle!
And Tay… don’t awaken the beast. You may have power and resources, but Charli has GUT, true GRIT. I feel like Charli would absolutely school her ass in a diss song…
This was… kinda fun at best, cruel at worst, and unnecessary probably all around! Again, maybe, keep it to yourself! Why are we putting out the energy of hating someone to the whole world?! There’s a time and place for all things, and this just seems like the absolute wrong time and in poor taste. This also isn’t the Kanye/Kim yeaaaars-long beef; in fact, most people don’t know about this. I don’t think I knew about any beef between them until the last couple of months, and I’m a colossal fan of both, lol.
This song is just mean! And not really that clever or thoughtful. Not a nuanced reflection of her relationships to other women popstars and the struggles within, as Charli’s “Sympathy is a Knife” was, and even how “Girl, so confusing” went from Charli & Lorde hating each other, to ultimately understanding they hated that they were in competition with each other. They realized they’re both different and both important!! But then again… this is probably all Taylor’s ploy to have her name tied to the pop girlies of today, and thus, again, REMAIN RELEVANT! I don’t want her to remain relevant because of the possibly maligned relationships she has with other pop stars; I want her to be relevant because the art speaks for itself! And is beloved in & of itself (which generally, it always has been!!) I want her to be relevant for continuing to reinvent herself in new, thoughtful, and exciting ways!
WISH LIST (refusing to write with $ signs because I’m ill at that)
I LOVEEEEEEE this one, omgggggg!!! Whatever that 7th chord is into the 1st resolve (I think?) or some other kind of SUSPENSIONNNN INTO RESOLVEEEE???? And then the fun beat! It reminds me of something, but I’m struggling to place it – Perhaps a dash of “Glitch”? A dash of “I Think He Knows”? It’s soooooo fun and groovy!! You cannot NOT moooooveeeee! This is sooooooo cute, actually!
Okay, fun! Maybe I’m back in. I’m back INNNN, I’M BACK TO BELIEVING. I’M A BELIEVER, BABY, IDK. WOWeeewoww. Did one song convince me out of gaylor and performance art-lor theories? This is all so confusingggggg.
It’s really sexy & sweet, but the concept is kind of just a platitude, again. In general… I don’t feel like I’m getting a real behind-the-scenes view and truth of her relationship with Travis; this could be about anyone! IDK! You make me want to live in a suburban neighborhood with 3 boy children who all look exactly like you???? White picket fence, mini van with the mini TV, and a cockpoo?? My friend said Tay wants to be a soccer mom so bad! I support women’s rights and I support women’s wrongs!
In many ways, it’s still a sweet declaration of love that you just want to do normal, typical American-dream-type-shit with the person you love. I’m just a hater, I suppose! I hate it because I love her so deeply, you know? I feel she’s capable of more? This is the 180 of “Sweet Nothing” about wanting nothing extravagant from your partner except to be with them, with no clauses or contingencies. It felt like “Sweet Nothing” was more eloquently said & truthfully expressed.
WOOD
And we are still HERE! We are still at the restaurant of Wish List (vibe-wise)! It’s also sooooo groovy! The backup singers coming in to amplify it all!! I did say on first listen it was giving Lake Street Dive, which is a compliment of the highest regard, true ARTISTRY and musicality!! Not to be pretentious, but I need music to sound niceee and fun and interesting to my ears, not strictly rhythmic & one note that never goes anywhere (how I feel about maybe some other songs on this album).
Oh! And it’s about 🙂 A dick!!! WOWWWWW. This is a Sabrina song, dead ass. But she doesn’t possess the same ability as Sabrina to make things both very sexual, and yet still coy and cheeky, “I don’t need to catch a bouquet to know a hard rock is on the way” LOL, HELLO?! I almost choked. That’s so EXPLICIT! That’s so graphic! That’s so WEIRD! To be like, ‘my husband has a massive HOG!!!!’ Lmaoooo, am I wrong??
I feel like it’s one thing to say, “If I had a dick you’d probably lick it like a lollipop” or “I drowned in the pussy so I swam to the butt”, the poetic allusions to oral sex and beyond of the 2000s/2010s (Most successfully done in rap and hip-hop, historically? Maybe that makes me a grandma to think, but can we keep a little mystery, a little abstraction intact in pop??) Also, my friend thought this may be an allusion to Emma Stone in “Easy A,” saying “knock, knock, knock on wood!”
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the “Redwood” mention…oh NOOO, I’m gonna sound insane, BUT “redwood” is a GAYLOR THING!!!! They’re (I’m) gonna have a damn FIELD DAY, DAMN!
Karlie Kloss & Taylor Swift famously went on a trip to Big Sur a la 2014ish (I think?), including to the Redwoods, and posted many Instagram pictures as proof. Two girlfriends can go on a trip, sure, but some believe the pictures were suspiciously close & intimate. I support however you want to show affection to your friends, but idk, idk, something feels to be lurking below the surface, me thinks! I really need to gather all my data points and make sure I have my facts straight when I go toe to toe with “Hetlors,” ie, completely normal and sane people who think Taylor Swift is straight, which she hasn’t necessarily told us otherwise.
In Gaylor’s defense, they come from a position of defying heteronormativy, claiming Taylor has never said she’s “exclusively straight”. She’s never explicitly denied she was queer or directly said she was only straight. We all presume a baseline that a person is straight because we live in a heternormative society. So it’s not that Gaylors are trying to out Taylor, or force her to “come out” or really anything at all! It is simply a reaction to interpreting her art and lyrical analysis. Anyway, I know I could be a bit delusional, and like aforementioned, I always reserve the right to be wrong. I also think two things can be true at once – She had a romantic relationship with Karlie, and she now has a romantic relationship with Travis, you see?
HONEY
The saxophoneeee break!! Oh, honey!!! Very fun and sexyyy! Feels very 1989/Lover crushing & I’m here for it!!! But also, “you can call me honey if you want because I’m the one you want” is ludicrous and a dumb-ass lyric. Nonetheless, it sounds nice, smooth, and lovely in my ears! Until “The bitch was telling me to back off”, OH! Again… feeling a lot of aggression & anger, what could you possibly be so upset about, Ms. Swift? Despite my shit talking, this is one of my top 4 favorites, lol. I just still must state that the concept is very … least common denominator.., ‘I used to hate when people called me honey because it was patronizing, but now I like it when you do it because you’re not doing it in a patronizing way’… Well, yeah, of course, I think everyone would agree with you there! It’s giving common sense.
THE LIFE OF A SHOWGIRL
This song starts with the clapping of a crowd, and immediately, I’m like, okayyy, so clearly this is a commentary and reflection of Eras, and in general, a total look back on her career thus far. Is this her final finale??? She ends how she began, with the crowd, with the fans who believed in her.
“She didn’t do it legitally” is again catching me off guard with the millennial cringe, which is hypocritical as a bona fide millennial myself, but this awkwardness in her lyrics has never stuck out to me so glaringly. Maybe we had a dash of it in“22”; “It feels like a perfect night, to dress up like hipsters, and make fun of our exes”… who says or does that?? Or in Midnights, “Sometimes I think that everybody is a sexy baby, and I’m a monster on a hill”, I get the purpooseeee of the sexy baby line, but I’ll simply never be able to stand behind that with my whole chest, couldn’t we have made a different choice? I guess maybe it just feels unnatural, I come back to “I don’t believe you”.
I know that’s a part of her whole gig: she’s awkward, she’s just a normal girl, she loves to bake bread and roll around in scarves and fiddler hats with her cats! But she is also a Father Figure? She is The Man? She will K you if you wrong her??? She is a SHOW GIRL! She is perfect and bedazzling and bejeweled and ever performing perfection, power, and influence!! People contain multitudes, but it feels too conflicting at this point. Or it just feels like this is not the same person who wrote folklore, or wrote “Lover” or “Wildest Dreams” or “happiness”??? It’s jarring to be served this image of Taylor as “just a girl!” without the true depth and “poetry” and storytelling that usually comes with it? And we’re also meant to believe she is this powerful savant (which she is)? While only being an awkward girl? Well, which is it? This all feels like she’s trying to be something she’s naturally not. It feels off.
The first chorus + verse is when Taylor is first starting out in the industry. People who’d made it would give her advice or warn her that she wouldn’t or didn’t actually want to be famous. Sabrina’s verse is at a similar stage in life with the desperation to make it and get out of a bad situation (although surely this cannot be factually accurate to Sabrina’s life??? “Her father whored around”… Okay, wait, how quickly I forget “emails I can’t send”!!! WOW! Because Sabrina is so busy making a caricature of herself!! TBH, I STILL SUPPORT AND LIKE SOME OF HER SONGS!)
Enter the Broadway-style musical intermission that reminds me of “I Want It All” or “A Night to Remember” of High School Musical 3. Many moments on this album are giving theater kid, which are both cringe and deeply relatable, lol. The bridge is making light of all the shit you go through in show business just to “make it”, feeling so transactional and disposable as a human because how you FEEL as a human comes second to how you PERFORM as a money-making MACHINE! They both grapple with the ever-uncertain status of relevancy and fame and importance in the eyes of society, of history, and of the audience.
But Taylor now can confidently say, despite her fears, her failures, she feels secure enough knowing she made enough of a difference, “The bitches… who wish I’d hurry up and die, but I’m immortal now, baby dolls, I couldn’t if I tried”, WHOA! AGAIN. SO. AGGRESSIVE. Who hurt you! Well, a lot of people, lol. But the vitriol in this album is no joke. I really don’t understand what it’s fueled by in her current state of happiness! Beyond just years of wear and tear and a lifetime of fame. It all feels soooo powerful, and also I am scared! She goes, I’ll never NOT be famous, you HOES, I WILL be remembered!!! I’m the showgirl!! I wouldn’t want it any other way!!
Ultimately, we have acceptance! She leaves us with a clip of what sounds like her on the Eras tour, or at least on a stage, and she tells us thank you & goodnight.
I can’t help but feel, in some ways, that this is her final goodbye. It’s a goodbye to another era of Taylor, at least. It mirrors the very last modern album Billy Joel put out, “The River of Dreams” in 1993, with the final song titled “Famous Last Words”. In it, Billy sings, “These are the last words I have to say, that’s why it took so long to write”. After “The River of Dreams” album, Billy worked to produce classical piano music for many years, putting out the classical piano album “Fantasies & Delusions” with the British-Korean pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo in 2001. In the recent HBO documentary, he cited the motivation for his move to get back to what he truly loved, and that love was classical piano music he’d grown up on. Maybe it felt like in some ways the “showguy”, Billy, with his bad boy vibes, partying, & rock and roll, was really not the destination, but rather a way to cope. Billy wouldn’t release any more music with singing/lyrics until 2024, “Turn the Lights Back On”, which felt like a direct request for us to let him return to writing modern music. I can’t help but feel these parallels and wonder what this indicates will come next for Taylor and for her highly anticipated 13th album.
IN TOTAL REFLECTION
Upon second listen, I do like it much more, but I still have some criticism. I think it’s about… 1) Travis Kelce saving her, calling her honey, and making her want to buy a house in the suburbs and be a soccer mom but she can’t because she is a 2) Showgirl, and that feels both empowering & self destructive because it’s everything that has made her & makes her HER, but it also feels like a big farce, like she’s hiding in plain sight, which leads me to finally 3) This album is an open acknowledgement of the passage of time & Taylor’s struggle, as is every human’s struggle, to understand and accept both what has happened and what will come. What influence and impact have we really made? What power have we truly accumulated, not to mention the wealth, and even more so, the legacy? Ultimately, I think she’s grappling with death – Both her own physical passing, but also the passing of her relevance, her importance, and her influence.
First, we start with references to “The Fate of Ophelia” from Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet,” ie, the 1600s, we’re immediately in a fairy tale/ prehistoric time setting (LOL, okay, neither of those are the right words, but the point is… this is a long, long time ago). Then we add about 340 years to land in the 1940s with Ms. Elizabeth Taylor, the famous, beautiful, ethereal actress, who is an additional comparison Taylor has made between herself and other famous women before her. Clara Bow and Stevie Nicks are both referenced in the song “Clara Bow” off of TTPD. She holds herself within the broader scheme of the women who have shaped art & society & culture (at least the white women), both before and after her. She WANTS us to remember her legacy. She wants us to remember her power. She wants us to remember HER.
Power is further explored in “Father Figure”, in “Wish List”, “Eldest Daughter”, “CANCELLED!”, and even in “Honey”, who has it? & who wields it? Does Taylor have the power since she is creating the art, creating the messaging? Do we have it because we feed the beast with our resources and our affection, or lack thereof? Again & again, she comes back to these themes of I am the one in CHARGE, I can be BAD, I can be MEAN (I feel like she confuses strength with power), all throughout her discography. We can actually find these feelings all the way back in arguably her debut with “Picture to Burn,” citing a past lover who’s wronged her is now just a “picture to burn” to her! This is continued to “The Man” off Lover, Tay’s first day at the school of feminism, to “Look What You Made Me Do” off Reputation, to “Vigilante Shit” off of Midnights, to “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me” off of TTPD. Taylor has always been concerned with exerting her power over those who have wronged her, those who have tried to write her narrative for her, tried to profit off their proximity to her and likeness, and this is her telling us, she does not like that!
I commend a woman who knows her worth, I do! I wonder if there were more elegant ways to say all of this stuff. More curious, compassionate, or nonjudgmental ways to explore these things. And ultimately, I am still, still.. Left wondering, what is she so mad about? Now that she has everything she ever wanted? Her music, her man, her money, what gives?!
I am left feeling some disappointment, yet I’m clothed in gratitude and appreciation. Like I’ve said, I must critique because we are honest with the people we love, or we should be! And I don’t! Mean! To! Be! A! Hater! There are bangers here!! There is fun!! Some are sexy!! One is even about Travis’ dick!! Which admittedly feels really forced and like, look, guys, I am sexy too! I have sex, look!!! I just, maybe, expected a little bit more or something different.
This unfortunately feels like the most derivative & unimaginative Ms. Swift has been, which is okay! It’s okay to just be light and have fun and love! But… there’s so much meanness in this album? So it’s not even really that?
I find myself missing the days of metaphor, or simple details that made her stories feel alive, feel real, a la “All Too Well”, “Cruel Summer”, “betty”, etc. There feels like a distinct lack of storytelling in most songs, and more so… a collection of thoughts.
The exception may actually be “Ruin the Friendship”, not one of my favorites, walking away, yet this song feels very real and specific, and therefore, true. She introduces us to a character, takes us through an arc, sets a SCENE! With the songs about Travis, they mostly feel like vague metaphors, “you light up my sky”, “you light my match”, or maybe just metaphors we’ve already heard her make. It doesn’t feel like there’s any new news here. It feels like she’s never been so literal with her references in songs, forcing us to make the connection back to Travis: “your team”, “We went to new heights”. Before, there was an air of mystery, even a purposeful amalgamation and mixing of muses to retain some mystery. This feels purposely specific, without being… effortlessly, naturally the truth… Does this make sense???
It feels like she thought, “Okay, what kind of things / different concepts for songs can I write about Travis?” One about him saving me, one about wanting to have his babies and a house, one of us having sex and him having a big dick, and one about my feminism (ME!)… IDK! Where is LOVER! Where is New Year’s Day?! Where is Call It What You Want, even!?! I am just feeling something forced. I am so SORRY. I really, REALLY don’t know why I’m a hater. Why would I even want gaylor to be true, RIGHT? Why wouldn’t I just want her to be happy??? And I DOOOOO. And it’s not that I want her to be gay, I don’t care what anyone’s sexuality is!! I think ultimately, I am hoping there is more than what we see on the surface. Which right now feels like *whisper* (she phoned it in). That makes it more interesting! That makes her smarter!
I still love this album. I really DOOOOOO. I’m going to listen to it so much; these are just my true and honest thoughts from someone who has loved Girl Down since I heard “Teardrops on my Guitar” on Radio Disney in my parents’ Honda Odyssey. It was RARE, I was THERE, I remember it all tooo welllll!!!
I also really don’t like the Charli diss track. Lol. HOW DARE YOU!! This is the antithesis of “Girl, so confusing”, or perhaps, it’s the WHOLE POINT!!!! 1 step forward, 2 steps back (or 3, as Olivia said 😉 ). Girl, get in (as in women band together during these challenging (rights-being-taken-away) times), or get the fuck out of the way!!!
In conclusion, I will be listening to “Father Figure”, “Wish List”, “Honey”, “Wood”, and probably the rest of the album if I’m being real, but this may be the most disappointed I’ve felt about a Taylor release.
I also must note… The whole putting Sabrina on her album when she NEVER has features, barely, and DEFINITELY not WOMEN FEATURES! Phoebe Bridgers on “Nothing New” from the Red TV vault was the first woman featured in her CAREER who actually had their own verse and wasn’t just in weird backup vocals (EX: “no body, no crime” from evermore ft. HAIM). That is a first in a 15-year-long career?? It’s a HUGE deal that she had Sabrina on her album.
You also have to remember she was featured on Gracie Abrams’ album, which was WILD!!! Taylor also doesn’t really do features, so this, too, was a big deal! I also LOVE that song (“us”), which happened to me as well. Nevertheless, that was on GRACIE’S album; that was an away game. She brought Sabrina to HER for a HOME GAME! WHAT! How did Sabrina earn this right before any Tay daughters? Because she is the most FAMOUS and beloved of them all! Once Olivia started slipping, ie. Sour was not as successful as Guts or as people wanted, Taylor said…”Olivia, who???” What did Olivia actually do to you, Taylor?? I guess her album sounded a little TOO much like Taylor’s vibe (which is ironic because my best friend and I famously made a “TAYO” (Tay + Olivia) playlist with a matching Olivia & Taylor song lololol shit man). In response to the similar sound, Taylor made Olivia give her songwriting credit on her album, i.e., get her moneyyyy? Is it that serious? Do you really need that? I get protecting your art, but did she really copy you?? The only song with a TRUE case for this, I think, is “1 step forward, 3 steps back”. But STILL! You built a relationship with this girl who IDOLIZED you, you let her believe you loved her back, and then you stabbed her in the back when she did exactly what she already said she’d do, which was be inspired by you! It feels mean!
Anyway, anyway, anyway, that’s a wrap. If you made it this far, god bless you. I do thank thee, Lord Taylor, for giving me, & us, much to think about, discuss, debate, feel, and experience. I love her for that! Taylor’s drop will always be a holiday! I will always be up in the wee hours of the night typing away to myself, asking what does it all really meaaaan? These criticisms are only BECAUSE I love her so much. Net net, we’re up. And at the end of the day, I’m sweeter than a peach, but it’s true that I don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe!
THANKS FOR READING ❤
The Reality Web 