‘The Life of a Showgirl’ review: Taylor Swift’s latest is lyrically her weakest

I’m trying to be neutral, but full disclosure– I’ve been a Taylor Swift fan. During the pandemic, I played Folklore and Evermore over and over again to get me through the quarantine. The Taylor Swift soda cup I got at the Eras Tour movie sits on my desk as a pen-stand. Posters of “Enchanted” and “Dress” are yellowing on my teenage bedroom walls.

So when I say that The Life of a Showgirl is just not a good album, I say that as someone who knows what it’s like to lose and find yourself in a Taylor Swift song.

When the album begins, I think we’re off to a good start. The opening song is catchy, with the little breaks between “The” – “Fate” – “Of” – “Ophelia.” The concept behind “Elizabeth Taylor” is interesting. Taylor Swift is asking another celebrity who struggled romantically whether she should trust this love.

The idea of Taylor Swift’s brother reminiscing about her exes is “eating out of the trash” is straight up funny. But I feel like I must be reading wrong if I begin paying closer attention to any of the other lyrics. How is this not a first draft? Swift has written wonderful lyrics infused with compelling storytelling and relatable metaphors. However, something being written by Swift does not make it well written, especially not:

• “So we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire” in “Eldest Daughter” (“we looked fire” what are you doing in a Track 5 song!! You stopped being a thing on Instagram five years ago)
• “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger” in “Father Figure” (setting aside the body-shaming-esque mention of big dicks, this feels on-the-nose– which the song might have had a chance of pulling off if it took itself less seriously)
• “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?” in “CANCELLED!” (some lines read better as tweets)
• “Her name was Kitty/ Made her money being pretty and witty/ They gave her the keys to this city/ Then they said she didn’t do it legitly, oh” in “The Life of a Showgirl” (This one is just throwing rhyming words against the wall and seeing what sticks. The answer is: nothing)

The only thing more jarring than these lyrics is the use of “bitch” in “Honey”. “When anyone called me “sweetheart”/ It was passive-aggressive at the bar/ And the bitch was telling me to back off/ ‘Cause her man had looked at me wrong”. I’m sorry, when did it become okay to call women bitches again? Swift sings about how she has been called “honey” and “sweetheart” only in patronizing ways until now, when these words have been redefined through love. That’s almost sweet until you remember “Actually Romantic” just three songs before. In that song, she was patronizingly calling another woman “precious” and “adorable” and “baby.”

The one redeeming thing about this album is that it is catchy. Sonically, it is more interesting than The Tortured Poets Department. But many songs of this album sound far too similar to some others. “The Life of a Showgirl” sounds like “Cool” by Jonas Brothers.  “Actually Romantic” sounds like “Where Is My Mind” by Pixies. Or maybe, it’s just Deja Vu.

It is unfortunate that The Life of a Showgirl, by virtue of being a Taylor Swift album, is an album people are going to pay attention to and listen to. Worst of all, they will think of it as being lyrically adequate. The rise of AI is devaluing writing. The last thing we needed is for people to believe that this album is a representation of what it is to do it well.

So I’m going to keep this record aside, plug in some good old 1989, and remember what it’s like for a Taylor Swift song to be both fun and good.

The Life of a Showgirl is available now. Album cover image courtesy of Republic Records. 

Neha Nandakumar

Neha is pop culture enthusiast, philosophy student, and fiction writer based in Vancouver. These days, she’s either listening to Conan Gray or Linkin Park.