On October 3rd of 2025, Taylor Swift released her 12th album, The Life Of A Showgirl. After 5 years of melancholy, she released an upbeat happy album.
The first track on the album is “The Fate Of Ophelia”. This song is very different from the other music Swift has put out. I think that it is very catchy and I enjoy it, however I wouldn’t say it is my favorite. In my opinion, my favorite part of the song is the bridge. Especially at the end, “No longer drowning and deceived/All because you came for me”. Something about the “all because you came for me” was very good. Overall I give “The Fate Of Ophelia” a 7/10.
Track Two on the album is “Elizabeth Taylor”. It’s honestly very good and it got stuck in my head. However, Swift put out acoustic versions of a few of the songs, and the acoustic version is, in my view, better. It’s got a really good beat, and the lyrics are good, my favorite being, “I’d cry my eye violet/ Elizabeth Taylor/Tell me for real? Do you think it’s forever” from the chorus. In all this song also gets a 7/10.
Next up is “Opalite”, my favorite song on this album. It’s a very upbeat song, and it’s kind of about when things go wrong you can make your own happiness and make your sky “opalite”. It is very cute and fun, and I just love it. My favorite lyrics are “This is just/ a storm inside a tea cup/ but shelter her with me, my love/ thunder like a drum/ this life will beat you up” . I just really love the concept of “making your own sunshine” and not sitting in misery. Overall this song gets a 10/10.
The 4th song on this album is “Father Figure”. I see this song as the grown up version of “The Man” from Lover. Instead of being “If I was the man” it’s more “I am the man”. I love this song. To me, it’s about how Swift had her albums stolen from her, and she just recently bought them back. However, in the chorus there are some rather appalling lyrics. Although my favorite lyrics are, “Mistake my kindness for weakness/ and find your card cancelled/ I was your father figure/ you pulled the wrong trigger/ this empire belongs to me/ leave it with me/ I protect the family”. In all I give this song a 7/10.
The Track Five song, which is known for being the most meaningful songs on Swift’s album, is “Eldest Daughter”. It is my second favorite song, and I just relate to it so much, because I take the role as the oldest daughter and child in my family. It has a mixture of feeling protective over your family and realizing you grew up so fast and trying to remember the little childhood you had. My favorite lyrics is honestly the whole bridge, but it’s my favorite bridge ever, “We lie back/ a beautiful, beautiful time-lapse/ ferris wheels, kisses, and lilacs/ and things i said were dumb”. I give this song a 10/10.
The next song on the album is “Ruin the Friendship”. It’s a very cute song, but it never fails to make me cry. It’s one of the songs that the acoustic version is better, but heart breaking. This song is very hard to pick a particular lyric that I think is my favorite. But I love the song and give it a 10/10.
The seventh song on the album is “Actually Romantic”. It’s so petty and fun and I love it. I believe the song is about Charlie xcx. My favorite lyrics are “ You think im tacky baby/ stop talking dirty to me/ it sounded nasty but it/ feels like you’re flirting with me”. Once again this song has a rather inappropriate lyric, but despite that I just love it. I give it an 8/10.
Next up is “Wi$h Li$t”. Not one of my favorite songs, it’s still pretty good, it pretty much talks about marriage and having kids and all that. My favorite lyrics are “I made wishes on all of the stars/please god, give me a best friend/ who I think is”. I don’t have much to say on this song, other than that it’s good. I give it a 6/10.
The next track on the album is “Wood”, once again, one of my favorite songs. It starts off kind of talking about superstitions, and how Swift has found the right person and she doesn’t have to worry about losing him. But afterwards it goes the other way, to put it lightly. When I was listening to it, my jaw was on the floor. Although I do have a favorite lyric, “girls, I don’t need to catch a bouquet/to know a hard rock is on the way”. Overall I give this song a 6/10.
Track 10 is “CANCELLED!” Which is definitely one of my favorite songs. It reminds me of Reputation like if someone told me it was a Reputation (Taylor’s version) vault track I would have believed them. I’m not completely sure what it’s about, I think it’s about Sabrina Carpenter, because Swift and Carpenter are good friends. I would definitely say, once again, the bridge, “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”. I give this song a 9.5/10.
The second to the last track is “Honey” . It’s pretty good. It reminds me of the song “Slut!” From 1989. Especially the lyric “summer time spritz, pink skies”. It’s not one of my favorite songs but I do enjoy it a lot. And it gets stuck in my head. I would give it a 7/10.
The final song and title track is “The Life Of A Showgirl”. This is my least favorite song on the album. To me it is very similar to “The Last Great Dynasty”, which is my least favorite Taylor Swift song. Although it is very cool and I loved the story telling aspect of it. I don’t have a favorite lyric, I’d give it a 5/10.
In total, I love this album very much. I love having a happy pop album after having Folklore, Evermore, Midnights, and The Tortured Poets Department all back to back. My top songs are for sure “Opalite”, “Eldest Daughter”, and “Ruin the Friendship”. I give this album a 7/10, and would recommend some of the better songs.
