The Decline Of Lyricism & Artistry In ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Pitt chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

Unlike many people of my age, I did not grow up listening to Taylor Swift. I heard her songs on the radio, but they don’t evoke the same nostalgic weight for me as they do for others. I think this makes me less biased when evaluating the quality across her discography; however, maybe you should skip this article if you are still a hardcore Swiftie and don’t want to hear my honest criticisms (or, as some would say, hot takes that are cold as ice). 

Swift’s music has always primarily appealed to young girls and women, and I think it almost helped that she was older than much of her fanbase, who looked up to her like an older, wiser sister. But now? In her past two albums, she has used slang and buzzwords as a tactic to attract her audience and manufacture a sense of relatability, which ended up coming across as inauthentic—especially when we know that this 35-year-old woman isn’t going around calling herself a ‘savage’ (at least we really, really hope). 

If the message of The Life of a Showgirl is that fame makes you lose touch with reality, Swift has definitely succeeded. Instead of creating an album that resonates with fans and their experiences, her latest work comes across as very defensive. Swift victimizing herself is nothing new, but after The Eras Tour, she has achieved a dangerous level of influence over her young, impressionable fans. She knows that at least a portion of her massive audience will blindly support anything she does, and the implications are very concerning, especially the consequences of unconditional support for Swift’s music. 

Since achieving this new level of fame, it seems like Swift feels everything she writes is good enough—or profitable enough—to be released, but some of these songs should’ve stayed in the vault. I haven’t entirely given the music a chance, besides snippets I’ve heard on TikTok. Still, everything sounded very mass-produced to me, as if the lyrics and melody were written independently of each other. As Emma Schramm from HC Pitt mentioned, Swift is no stranger to this genre of pop music. 1989 wasn’t about heartbreak, and each song still felt intentional, so I refuse to believe that her happy relationship is responsible for this decline in her music. 

My honest opinion is that the album reflects a lack of effort. Part of why Folklore and Evermore were so good was that Swift explored storytelling and developing fictional characters, driven by her boredom during quarantine. But now, life is back to normal, Swift is in her WAG era, and she just doesn’t have the time she used to. It really makes me wonder what the rush is, and I think it’s simply that she values quantity over quality. Her albums will break records regardless, so she wants to ride this wave of fame while it lasts, because she knows firsthand how quickly you can fall from the public’s good graces. After this high-level overview of my opinions on The Life of a Showgirl, it’s time to break down some individual lyrics and overall themes that are present across the album.

Political undertones

I’m not going to engage in the debate over whether it’s the responsibility of a public figure to speak about politics, because that’s not the point (I will, however, argue that she has a responsibility not to promote harmful rhetoric). The issue lies in Swift’s decision to leverage activism to support her career only when it was convenient for her. When she was rebuilding her reputation, she used her ‘Miss Americana’ branding to present herself as politically outspoken, but there has been a consistent pattern of Swift only addressing issues that personally affect her. She is very quick to point out how the patriarchy harms her as an artist, but fails to mention how it benefits her as a wealthy, conventionally attractive white woman. 

It is exactly this privilege that allows her to get away with such a drastic shift in branding—from political advocacy to writing a song about how she loves befriending problematic individuals. If Swift were a woman of color, speaking on political issues would be an expectation, especially given a platform of her size. It seems like her current public stance of political indifference stems from the fear of losing even a fraction of her fandom (consider the backlash she received from her conservative fans after endorsing Kamala Harris). I don’t think donating privately is enough to make up for missing the opportunity to use her influence to ignite positive political change, beyond matters that solely impact Americans.

CANCELLED!

But I think it’s obvious that there’s another issue at play here. In ‘CANCELLED!’, Swift sings, “Good thing I like my friends cancelled / I like ’em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal”. And said scandal is…voting for Trump? Swift has had public friendships with controversial figures, such as Blake Lively, in the past, but it is speculated that this song is about her new MAGA bestie, Brittany Mahomes. I won’t go as far as to say that Swift has crossed the line into conservatism, but the company she keeps and her complete 180-degree turn from political advocacy have certainly appealed to conservatives, reflecting a strong desire to please even those who contradict her moral values.

Criticizing cancel culture is a popular conservative talking point to attack the ‘woke left’, which completely reframes why celebrities and influencers might be called out. When someone with a platform promotes something harmful to the public, the solution—accountability and education—also needs to be addressed publicly. Social media gives a voice to the people and spreads awareness; reducing this to ‘cancel culture’ and public shaming strips power from marginalized groups and reinforces the victim complex that many celebrities have. Just because you can’t put a face or a name to online criticism does not mean that voicing an opinion equates to cowardice.

Opalite

Sometimes the concern should not be what the intention behind the lyrics was, but who the message is pandering to, and I think ‘Opalite’ is a perfect example. The song describes the process of going through lovers and heartbreak before finding the right person, an obvious ode to Swift’s partner, Travis Kelce. However, there is some problematic imagery used to depict Kelce’s past relationships: “Sleepless in the onyx night / But now the sky is opalite.” To break things down, it is important to note that, based on the information I could find online, Kelce has only publicly dated women of color, specifically Black women. 

It is understandable to feel insecure about potentially not being your partner’s ‘type’, but releasing this song was distasteful on so many levels. First, the metaphor is so overt that I refuse to believe it is just a coincidence (if you aren’t familiar with crystals, onyx is most commonly black, and opalite is iridescent with a white base). To be ignorant or write bad lyrics…pick a struggle! Swift knows how little she has to do to incite a hate campaign against Kelce’s exes, yet she’s inserting herself in his past relationships (i.e., “You were in it for real / She was in her phone”) when their relationship is supposedly so much happier. Money clearly can’t buy confidence, let alone dignity.

The Fate of Ophelia

In the opening track of The Life of a Showgirl, Swift sings about how Kelce saved her from becoming like Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Throughout the play, Ophelia has no autonomy because she is a woman in a patriarchal society, and every decision is made for her by either her father or her lover. Ophelia is ultimately driven to a state of madness, which culminates in her death by drowning, because of her lack of agency. So isn’t it interesting that Swift sings “If you’d never come for me / I might’ve drowned in the melancholy”…

The lyrics “I sat alone in my tower” and “only you possess the key” push the ‘damsel in distress’ who needs a ‘knight in shining armor’ narrative. The message boils down to Swift feeling incomplete without a relationship and needing Kelce to ‘save her’, which completely negates her agency and control over her own happiness. Literacy rates have already been declining, but here we have Dr. Swift misrepresenting a play that is famously taught to high school students. This song teeters dangerously close to tradwife ideology, and it’s concerning what this thematic shift away from feminism represents.

consumerism

Up to this point, I have primarily focused on harmful themes rather than bad lyricism, but that’s because some of the lyrics can speak for themselves:

• “Did you girl-boss too close to the sun?” (CANCELLED!)
• “Every joke’s just trolling and memes” (Eldest Daughter)
• “So we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire” (Eldest Daughter; this entire song actually)
• “Boss up, settle down” (Wi$h Li$t)

Swift using the words ‘savage’ and ‘lit’ at her grown age was not on my 2025 Bingo Card, but here we are. The use of buzzwords and slang, which have lost popularity since my middle school days, reflects a lack of creativity and a desire to appeal to the masses. After Folklore and Evermore, which both contain heavy folk elements, it is disappointing that Swift would stray so far from genuine artistry. But I guess it should’ve been obvious that she prioritizes commercial success after she cried about not receiving a Grammy nomination for Reputation. 

There have been allegations of Swift wanting to ‘reheat Sabrina Carpenter’s nachos’ with her song ‘Wood’, referring to explicit innuendos about Kelce’s “magic wand.” There’s a whole array of metaphors, varying in cleverness, that she uses to describe something that absolutely nobody wants to think about. “His love was the key that opened my thighs” isn’t a creative metaphor and misses the satirical ‘campiness’ that makes Carpenter’s branding successful. “New Heights of manhood” and “a hard rock is on the way” are slightly more clever innuendos, but they are so explicit that it’s just gross. I am fully in support of women expressing their sexualities, but this song is more about what’s in Kelce’s pants than anything else.

It has also been alleged that ‘Actually Romantic’ is about Charli XCX. Basically, Swift feels threatened by any rising female artist (including those newer to the industry, like Olivia Rodrigo, whose inexperience she could take advantage of) and has to capitalize on their popularity. The opening line, “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave”, is a cheap shot, and the entire song gives the vibe of your mom saying someone is mean to you because they are ‘just jealous.’ In reality, this song makes it clear that Swift is the one who is obsessed and bitter (and it’s actually embarrassing).

Eldest Daughter

“Eldest daughter syndrome” was coined to describe the pressures and responsibilities of the eldest daughter in a family, namely the ‘third parent’ role that is often forced upon firstborn daughters. However, there is no science behind this—there is nothing inherent about being an eldest daughter that causes someone to suffer. The term has particularly resonated with women of color from large families, who are often unable to prioritize their own lives and careers first. It seems that this nuance has escaped Swift, as she thinks that having a brother 2 years younger than her means that she “was the first lamb to the slaughter.”

With market and internet trends at the forefront, Swift labels her upbringing without understanding its significance—stating that every eldest daughter shares the same experience minimizes the struggles of those who actually had to raise their much younger siblings. I’m not denying that Swift has faced adversity in her life, but I think it is a common theme across her music, and has been for many years, for her to pretend that she didn’t grow up incredibly privileged. She wants to have this ‘self-made’, ‘rags-to-riches’ branding, but it’s clear that her career wouldn’t have been possible without daddy’s money and connections. And in that respect, it was actually her, not her brother, around whom her family system centered.

Wi$h Li$t

I was most surprised that I hadn’t heard anything about ‘Wi$h Li$t’, simply because the lyrics are so hypocritical that I kept thinking there’s just no way this isn’t a joke. First of all, we have, “They want those / Bright lights and Balenci’ shades / And a fat ass with a baby face”, because Swift has clearly never had a single plastic surgery procedure in her life. Then she goes on to criticize people who want “an Oscar on their bathroom floor” (again, because this isn’t the same woman who cried about not being nominated for a Grammy) or “a contract with Real Madrid” (different from American football, but the irony is not lost). There’s nothing wrong with wanting these things, but lying about it to appear relatable? Just face it, there aren’t many things for the general public to have in common with a billionaire. 

The message of the song is that everyone wants materialistic things, success, and wealth, while Swift has actually experienced these, and all she really wants is Kelce. Yeah…it’s incredibly tone-deaf. I, too, would love to have an extremely wealthy partner in this economy. Some of the lyrics are just so unhinged because what do you mean by “I just want you”? I think this entire album is evidence enough that her main goal is money and success; if she didn’t promote consumer culture, she wouldn’t have released over 30 vinyl variants to drive sales. And don’t get me started on “We tell the world to leave us the f— alone”, because the commodification of Swift and Kelce’s relationship does not suggest that they want privacy—they want to be exempt from criticism.

final thoughts

From dated slang to poor metaphors, Taylor Swift’s newest album represents one thing: greed. Nothing about the iTunes account post on X for the first time since 2019 with a new The Life of a Showgirl layout tells me that this album wouldn’t have been HALF as successful without money (and that’s saying something, because even Swifties are disappointed by this release). Rolling Stone’s decision to give the album a perfect score demonstrates that even highly influential companies in the music industry can be corrupt, prioritizing profits over artistry.

I’ve gone on and on about Taylor Swift (and I could keep going), but I’ve chosen to highlight some of the bigger issues I’ve had with The Life of a Showgirl. I unfortunately think this album is one big dog whistle for conservatives, and, in Trump’s America, it is easy to see why conservative themes could be profitable. However, for someone who supposedly has everything, was the money really worth losing the credibility of being a great lyricist?