The second observe on Taylor Swift’s twelfth album, The Lifetime of a Showgirl, is called after iconic actress Elizabeth Taylor.
“I wished to form of, like, glamorize the completely different elements of how [The Eras Tour] felt … to be on the finish of the evening when all this has gone down,” Swift, 35, mentioned throughout her August 13 look on the “New Heights” podcast. “You received’t be capable of get to mattress until 4 within the morning after this, however you needed to leap by way of 50 million hoops within the impediment course that’s your present, and you probably did it. ‘You bought two extra in a row, however you probably did it tonight. That’s all that issues proper now.’”
Swift’s fiancé, Travis Kelce, jumped in to notice that the pop star was really “a showgirl” amid the European leg of Eras in 2024. Followers, in the meantime, famous by way of social media that the basic Hollywood star, who died in 2011, was additionally a showgirl throughout her personal profession.
“Elizabeth Taylor: well-known youngster star within the Nineteen Forties and much more of a celebrity within the Fifties,” one social media consumer wrote by way of X. “Tay rose to fame at 16 and received even greater 10 and 20 years later. [Elizabeth] was married seven occasions. Tay might contact on this with the media’s notion of her and her companions all through her profession.”
The tune, which dropped Friday, October 3, is presumably a reference to Kelce and their love story.
“Hey-ey, what might you presumably get for the woman who has all the pieces and nothing all of sudden? / Babe, I’d commerce the Cartier for somebody to belief (Simply kidding),” she sings in a observe about trying to find a “eternally” kind of affection. “We hit the most effective sales space at Musso and Frank’s / They are saying I’m unhealthy information, I simply say, ‘Thanks’ / And also you take a look at me such as you’re hypnotized / And I feel you realize why.”
In an Apple Music behind-the-scenes featurette launched on Friday, Swift confirmed “Elizabeth Taylor” was the primary Showgirl tune she wrote.
“Normally [Max Martin and Shellback] have copious quantities of notes, this one they had been like, ‘Nicely, that’s the refrain,’” she recalled of sending her preliminary hook and lyrics.
Elizabeth made her first film in 1942, starring in There’s One Born Each Minute. She went on to star in Nationwide Velvet, Life With the Father, Cat on a Scorching Tin Roof, Butterfield 8, Cleopatra and plenty of extra.
Along with her celebrated and award-winning performing profession, Elizabeth was recognized for her quite a few, extremely publicized romances. She was married eight occasions and sometimes commanded consideration wherever she went.
Elizabeth’s son Christopher Wilding even as soon as revealed that Swift’s aura reminded him of his late mom.
“Nicely, I can’t let you know how a lot I like Taylor Swift. I’m now a Swiftie. [Her Instagram post] on the finish of that presidential debate was so f***ing nice,” Wilding, 70, instructed The Guardian in September 2024, referring to Swift’s endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris forward of the final election by calling herself a “Childless Cat Girl” after now Vice President JD Vance’s digs about single girls. “Big props to her. That jogs my memory a bit little bit of the identical spirit my mother had.”
The 14-time Grammy winner has additionally in contrast herself to the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? actress.
“And he may be my jailor / Burton to this Taylor,” she sings in “Prepared for It,” making a pun out of her first title and referencing the Oscar winner’s two-time husband, Richard Burton.
Not solely did Swift’s Repute function a nod to Elizabeth, however the musician name-checked her once more in a December 2023 Instagram video. On the time, Swift’s good friend Keleigh Teller gifted her an opal ring for her thirty fourth birthday. (The Lifetime of a Showgirl additionally incorporates a tune known as “Opalite,” presumably impressed by the man-made model of the gemstone.)
“That is unreal, Keleigh, opal and blue topaz,” Swift marveled within the clip. “This is sort of a current for Elizabeth Taylor, not me.”
Keleigh, who’s married to actor Miles Teller, subsequently known as Swift “my Elizabeth Taylor.”
The Lifetime of a Showgirl is now out there.
