From singing “Teardrops on my Guitar” on the swings at my babysitter’s, to dancing to my Speak Now CD with my little sister, to watching the “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” short film and finally being convinced to break up with my high school boyfriend, to listening to “You’re On Your Own, Kid” while moving into my freshman dorm at OSU — Taylor Swift’s music has always been there for me, and with 12 albums of varying genres and themes, she has a little bit of something for everyone.
Despite this, Swift has faced a lot of backlash over the years. Whether someone says that “she only sings about breakups” or “all of her songs sound the same,” I have always been one to defend her. That doesn’t mean, though, that I can’t be critical when I think it’s warranted.
I love Swift’s second most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department (I also wrote a review of that album when it was released), for its masterful lyricism. With lines like, “Who’s gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames / If we know the steps anyway?” (“loml”) and “‘Cause love’s never lost when perspective is earned” (“Peter”), this album is truly poetry. Swift’s lyrics have always been my favorite part of her music, and her “sad” songs tend to be my top tracks, so it makes sense that this album was amazing in my eyes. Although, there are many listeners who couldn’t get into this one for those exact reasons.
I believe that it is completely valid that so many people don’t enjoy The Tortured Poets Department because it “just isn’t for them.” After the release of The Life of a Showgirl, many of the album’s fans are comparing its initial hate to when The Tortured Poets Department came out. They say that in a few weeks, everyone who claimed to dislike it will say that they had loved it all along. But, there is a very stark difference between these two albums. While The Tortured Poets Department is not perfect (I just cannot listen to “So High School”), you cannot deny that it is a quality album. On the other hand, The Life of a Showgirl, while having some strong tracks, is just not.
Usually, I would be hesitant to make such a bold statement, but from what I’ve seen, even some of the most loyal Swifties agree with me. Here is why Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl left me disappointed.
“Eldest Daughter”
Swift is famous for making the fifth track of every album one that will punch you in the gut. Following track five songs like “All Too Well,” “Dear John,” and “tolerate it” is a lot to live up to, but with the title of “Eldest Daughter,” I had very high hopes. Unfortunately, as the eldest daughter in my immediate family and the eldest granddaughter on both my mom’s and dad’s sides of our family, I was incredibly disappointed with this song.
As soon as it started and I heard the first line, “Everybody’s so punk on the internet,” I knew the song was going to let me down. Then, she continued with lines like “Every joke’s just trolling and memes” and “But I’m not a bad b*tch / and this isn’t savage,” and I couldn’t help but cringe.
Before you start yelling “That’s the point!”–I know. I understand that Swift was trying to write about the experience of doing everything to be “cool” and still coming off as not. But this takes me to my biggest quarrel with this album — the writing is bad. Swift has proven time and time again that she is able to portray these complex emotions in her lyrics, and this song — and many of the songs on this album — feel uncharacteristic of her. I believe that she has the ability to write this song better without the word “memes.” You just can’t cry while singing the word “savage.”
I went and saw Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl the day of the album’s release. While I still have the same very strong feelings about this album, I am able to give her a little more grace when it comes to some of my critiques. When I listened to Swift explain her intentions behind the song “Eldest Daughter,” I feel that a big issue with this song is that she tried to combine two different experiences and got a little lost in the end result. She says that she wants to write about the experience of being an eldest daughter, but then talks about trying to be someone you’re not. While I think these two feelings are not mutually exclusive, I don’t believe that this is the canon eldest daughter experience that most of us can relate to. Personally, I found that “Father Figure” (my favorite song on the whole album) captures the experience of being the eldest daughter more accurately.
I will add, though, that I do really like the bridge of this song. But, again, I feel that it is a good representation of the eldest daughter finally finding love–not the experience of being the eldest daughter in general. Overall, I wish this song lived up to my expectations (I find it funny that people are saying it’s getting the true eldest daughter treatment: never being good enough), but after watching the movie, I do appreciate it just a little bit more than I did on my first listen.
“Wi$h Li$t”
This song managed to become my least favorite Taylor Swift song of all time. Bold statement, I’m aware, but I have felt the same about this song since the very first time I heard it: it’s incredibly out of touch.
After failed relationships, longing for love, and being scrutinized by the public for years, as a fan, I am very happy that Swift has finally found her person. Based on what she’s revealed about her relationship with Travis Kelce in interviews, on the Eras Tour, and in the episode of New Heights that she is featured in, it seems like they are very happy together. But, I don’t think this was the right way to make a song about him.
The premise of the track is that out of everything in the world, the only thing she really wants is him. Sure–it’s a cute sentiment that has definitely been used in other songs before. That’s not the issue, in my opinion. This issue lies in the fact that Swift is both a literal billionaire and arguably the most successful woman in music right now.
Throughout the song, Swift lists the material things that “they” want — for example, “yacht life,” “Balenci’ shades,” and a “fat ass” (another example of the bad lyrics on this album). She also includes things like “an Oscar on their bathroom floor,” and “that video taken off the internet.” These lines followed with “And they should have what they want / They deserve what they want / Hope they get what they want / I just want you,” come off undeniably judgmental and sarcastic. This is very weird, considering that while Swift doesn’t have an Oscar, she does have 14 Grammys. While she doesn’t live a “yacht life,” she can afford as many yachts as she wants. It’s easy to judge others for wanting materialistic things when you can buy all of them without batting an eye.
Swift’s explanation of the song in her movie makes it sound like she meant to be sincere in saying “They deserve what they want,” but the actual lyrics of the song say otherwise. While it is not the sole responsibility of public figures to be examples for their fans, no one can deny Swift’s influence. Unfortunately, the messages she puts out into the world do hold weight, whether she wants them to or not.
I have seen many extreme opinions about this song concerning the line “Got the whole block looking like you.” I can’t say that I think all of those takes are necessarily true, but I still think “Wi$h Li$t” frames settling down and having kids the “correct” path to take as opposed to having a successful career or choosing not to get married/settle down. Especially in today’s political climate, this song is a careless, out-of-touch track to release.
“Wood”
I say that I don’t love this song, and I am told that I don’t know how to have fun. If I ignore the lyrics, I enjoy this track’s beat and sound. But the song is just one blatant, bad joke about Travis Kelce’s “redwood tree”– and it’s weird.
Once again, I think the idea behind this song had potential. It starts out as Swift singing about how she doesn’t need to rely on superstitions because she already found the guy for her. In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, she claims that the song started off from an innocent place. But after the first chorus, the cheap jokes start with “Forgive me, it sounds cocky” and the song goes downhill from there. In the worst line of all, Swift writes “His love was the key / that opened my thighs.”
It’s not the fact that the song is about sex that makes it bad — I usually find these songs funny and I think it’s great that women in pop are not hesitating to sing about it like this anymore. The problem is that “Wood” sounds like a poorly written Sabrina Carpenter song. For someone who is famous for writing lyrics that her fans have to use a dictionary for, I did not want to hear the word “(ah!)matized” in a song.
“cancelled!”
I already had low expectations for this track after Swift revealed the title — and I was right. Once again, if I ignore the lyrics, I can listen to this song. But the message in this track is too blatantly problematic to ignore.
First of all, the line that everyone on the internet has been criticizing the most, “Did you girl-boss too close to the sun?” makes me want to turn the song off before making it to the first chorus. Unfortunately, I have listened to the rest and found out that Swift no longer seems to care about the morals of the people she surrounds herself with.
In “CANCELLED!” Swift sings, “Good thing I like my friends cancelled / I like ‘em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal.” I think this message would be fine if she was friends with people who had been “cancelled” for invalid reasons, like in the line “Did you make a joke only a man could?” But, since Swift has been in a relationship with Kelce, she has been hanging out with a lot of people who have opposite moral beliefs as the ones she claims to have, making this song problematic.
For example, she is very close friends with Brittany Mahomes, and Swift was quoted in the highly controversial commencement speech by Harrison Butker. Many fans also speculate that this song may be about Blake Lively, because it is closely following her legal drama with Justin Baldoni on the movie It Ends With Us.
The song gets even worse when she doubles-down on the idea that she likes her friends “cancelled” by singing “But if you can’t be good / Then just be better at it / Everyone’s got bodies in the attic / Or took somebody’s man / We’ll take you by the hand / And soon you’ll learn the art / Of never getting caught.” Not only does she not care if her friends do bad things, she will also defend them? They just have to learn to not get caught? Weird.
nothing special…
I do have very strong negative opinions about many of the songs on The Life of a Showgirl, but I can’t say that I dislike the entire album. I have been listening to the first four tracks: “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Elizabeth Taylor,” “Opalite,” and “Father Figure” and then starting the album over. I do really like these songs, but Swift made it very clear that this album was going to be the best piece of work she’s ever released — and even my favorite songs don’t fulfill this expectation.
The rest of the songs: “Ruin the Friendship,” “Actually Romantic,” “Honey,” and “The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter)” are not awful, but they’re not amazing either.
I think the message in “Ruin the Friendship” is good: take chances because life is short — but the delivery through a story about wishing she kissed her high school classmate that passed away and the line “it was not an invitation / should’ve kissed you anyway” is a little strange to me.
I had never heard of the Taylor Swift and Charlie XCX drama until this song came out, so I don’t feel like I can provide a solid take on that interpretation of “Actually Romantic.” Otherwise, I like the song, but it doesn’t stand out to me much.
I have mixed feelings about “Honey.” I adore the message behind the song: he’s giving positive meaning to words that have always had a negative connotation for her. But, again, the writing isn’t the strongest, and I think that makes it lose its emotional impact. Also — why is she suddenly okay with calling other women b*tches again?
The album’s title track, “The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter),” is just fine, in my opinion. I think it captures the theme of what she wanted the theme of the whole album to be, but that’s about it. Sabrina Carpenter sounds really great on it, though, and I’m glad she got her own verse.
Swift’s response
Now that the album has been out for over a week, there are plenty of different opinions and reviews circulating online. While Swift always gets criticism on her music, this album in particular is getting a lot of it. I just didn’t expect her to react the way she did.
In an interview with Zane Lowe, Swift was asked about how she felt about her fans’ responses to The Life of a Showgirl.
She replied by saying, “The rule of show business is, if it’s the first week of my album release, and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.”
As a writer, I find this take very interesting. It raises some interesting questions: What is the purpose of creating art? Is it worth it to sacrifice the quality of your work if it means making more money? Personally, I don’t think so — and I’m not the one who is already a billionaire.
Despite previously thinking The Life of a Showgirl was going to inhabit my headphones until further notice, it’s safe to say that I will be moving on to Christmas music already. Even “Let It Snow” has better lyrics.