With the release of Taylor Swift’s record-setting twelfth studio album, The Life of A Showgirl, Swift revealed twelve brand new songs, including lead single “The Fate of Ophelia”. Swift has been known to explore many genres of music throughout her career, and it shows on the new record. From the bouncy, Jackson 5-sounding production of “Wood” to the balladic “Eldest Daughter,” The Life of A Showgirl showcases her versatility across many genres.
“The new album is diverse and dynamic. It really showcases the flexibility of the artist,” says Juliana Hall, a Morris Knolls student. However, one thing that has not changed is Swift’s writing ability. The poetic way that she describes everything makes her writing greater than the sum of its parts and ultimately is what keeps fans wanting more.
There are a variety of standout songs on the album, the first of which is the lead single and most successful, “The Fate of Ophelia.” Swift has referenced Shakespeare before in her award-winning song, “Love Story”, where she twists the plot of “Romeo and Juliet”. In “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift refers to the character Ophelia from “Hamlet”. In the original plot, Ophelia drowns. But similar to “Love Story,” Swift changes the plot and saves Ophelia. In the chorus, she sings, “You dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.” Additionally, Swift may have chosen to write about Ophelia rather than other characters because of their many similarities. One of which is that Ophelia was considered legal property of her father, like how Swift was unable to own her music until recently.
Another noteworthy song included on The Life of A Showgirl is called “Opalite.” This song uses opalite, a man-made version of opal, as a metaphor of how she can create her own happiness, even during hard times. “When we go through something that doesn’t work out, we oftentimes look at it as a major setback,” Swift explained during an interview. “But I’ve found that so many of those instances in my life can catapult you forward in growth, in wisdom, in perspective.”
The title track, “The Life of A Showgirl” (featuring Sabrina Carpenter), encapsulates the entire theme of this album with many references to real-life showgirls and a feature from “the pop princess of our dreams”, Sabrina Carpenter. The song begins from the perspective of a fan who is warned that fame is more than it appears to be. In the last chorus, Carpenter describes it as, “pain hidden by the lipstick and lace.” By the end of the song, the fan is now a showgirl herself and understands the struggles of fame. Swift also showcases her writing abilities on this song with lines like, “do you want to take a skate on the ice inside my veins?” and many literary techniques.
