Who Everyone Thinks Each Of Taylor Swift’s Songs On ‘Life Of A Showgirl’ Are About, According To Fans
From quirky love songs to alleged diss tracks, here's who fans think inspired 'Life of a Showgirl.'
Brian Friedman | Shutterstock A new Taylor Swift album is nothing short of an event, and one of the biggest questions that comes with the release of 'Life of a Showgirl' is who these new songs are about. Swift is known for writing autobiographical lyrics that make fans feel like they are a part of her life, and Swifties were looking forward to getting a new glimpse into the life of a true showgirl. Now that the album has been released, let the speculation begin! Or, as Swift would say, “Baby, let the games begin!”
This album is a bit easier to decode than some of Swift’s previous releases, mostly due to the fact that she has been so public about her relationship with Kelce. If she’s singing a love song, there’s an almost 100% chance that it’s about her beloved fiancé. Swift also picks up on the familiar themes of struggling with fame and finding out who she is on “The Life of a Showgirl.” And, of course, what would the album be without nods to a few breakups?
Who the songs on Taylor Swift’s album ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ are about, according to fan speculation:
1. ‘The Fate of Ophelia’
Allegedly about: Travis Kelce and Joe Alwyn and/or Matty Healy
On the lead track, Swift references the story of Ophelia, who was a character in the Shakespeare play ‘Hamlet.’ Ophelia was in love with Hamlet, her father’s enemy, according to People Magazine. Her family warned her against continuing her relationship with Hamlet, but she defied them. Eventually, Hamlet murdered her father, which led her to succumb to madness. In an interview with Heart Breakfast, Swift herself said Ophelia was sadly “driven mad by love,” per People.
On the surface, this song seems to be a love song about the joy of finding Kelce. But, upon closer inspection, fans noticed the lyrics actually refer to being saved from “melancholy” after a breakup. “You dug me out of my grave and / Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia,” she sings.
Before Kelce, Swift dated British actor Joe Alwyn for six years. Many thought the relationship would last, but it wasn’t meant to be. And, as TMZ pointed out, Alwyn recently starred in a film version of ‘Hamlet.’ There are no coincidences with Swift.
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Then again, the “grave” she sings of could be the one that The 1975 frontman Matty Healy put her in. Swift had a brief fling with Healy during the Eras Tour after breaking up with Alwyn, and it affected her deeply if the lyrics from her last album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” are any indication. Regardless, she’s now found happiness with Kelce, whose “team” she “[pledged] allegiance to.”
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2. ‘Elizabeth Taylor’
Allegedly about: Elizabeth Taylor and the general concept of fame
This is not Swift’s first lyrical nod to the iconic actress who shares a name with her. On 2017’s “...Ready For It?” Swift sang, “You could be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor / Every love I’ve known in comparison is a failure.” Swift, who has also referenced past starlets like Clara Bow in her music, and even wrote an entire song about an unknown female star with “The Lucky One,” seems to relate to these women’s difficult, tangled stories.
TikTok user @jenna_sais.quoi explained how Swift might connect with Taylor in a video. “There’s very few people in the world who can understand the level of fame and success and scrutiny that Taylor Swift experiences, and so it totally makes sense that she would be sort of asking the spirit of Elizabeth Taylor, in the song, for guidance,” she explained.
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She noted that Swift also references places and things meaningful to Taylor, like violet eyes, white diamonds, Cartier, Portofino and the Plaza Athénée.
Swift also uses the song as an outlet for addressing the high level of fame she has achieved. With lyrics like, “Oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me,” and, “You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby,” Swift points out that fame is a fickle friend and something she’s come to have a love-hate relationship with — probably just like Taylor did herself.
3. ‘Opalite’
Allegedly about: Travis Kelce
Swift showed plenty of love to her new fiancé on “The Life of a Showgirl,” and track three was no exception. “Never met no one like you before / You had to make your own sunshine,” she sings.
In a conversation with Capitol, Swift revealed that “Opalite” is Kelce’s favorite song on the album, and his birthstone is actually an opal. She added, “And I thought it was kind of a cool metaphor, that, like, it’s a man-made opal, and happiness can also be man-made too.”
4. ‘Father Figure’
Allegedly about: Scott Borchetta
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Scott Borchetta was once credited with discovering Swift and giving her her first record deal that catapulted her to stardom. Now, after selling her catalog of work to Swift’s nemesis Scooter Braun, he’s a villain in Swifties’ books.
In 'Father Figure,' Swift describes a relationship that started out promising: “When I found you, you were young, wayward, lost in the cold / Pulled up to you in the Jag, turned your rags into gold / The winding road leads to the chateau / ‘You remind me of a younger me’ / I saw potential.”
However, just like Swift’s relationship with Borchetta soured, so did the story with the unnamed “Father Figure.” “You pulled the wrong trigger / This empire belongs to me,” she sings at the conclusion of the track.
Obviously, Borchetta was someone who was very important to Swift, someone she even saw as a second father, but he “[mistook her] kindness for weakness” and betrayed her. On the episode of “New Heights” that she appeared on, Swift shared just how much the sale of her masters affected her.
“The first time that it was sold, it really ripped my heart out of my chest and I told everybody exactly how that felt for me and what I was going through,” she said, per USA Today. “And I started basically defiantly rerecording my music because I wanted to own it.” Clearly, there’s no hope of reconciliation for her and her former “Father Figure.”
5. ‘Eldest Daughter’
Allegedly about: Travis Kelce and being overly independent
Eldest daughters have gotten some much-needed love in recent years as more and more has come to light about how they have to navigate life in a different way because of their role in their families. Swift herself is an eldest daughter, a sister to a younger brother named Austin.
The meaning of “Eldest Daughter” is a bit more subtle than some of the other tracks on “The Life of a Showgirl,” but one TikToker summed it up nicely. Kennedie Elle Clinton said, “She called out every eldest hyper-independent daughter who ended up meeting the person that lets them be taken care of.”
In the song, Swift confesses that she’s not “a bad [expletive]” and “this isn’t savage,” but it seems that’s alright with Kelce. “I’m never gonna break that vow / I’m never gonna leave you now,” she sings in the chorus.
6. ‘Ruin The Friendship’
Allegedly about: An old crush
Leading up to the release of the album, fans speculated that “Ruin The Friendship” might be about Blake Lively, with whom Swift has seemingly cut ties after being best friends for years. The actual meaning of the song is completely different, though. Instead, it references a time when Swift was younger and almost turned a friendship with a guy into something more, but never acted on those feelings.
The song mentions Swift’s childhood best friend Abigail Anderson, who broke the news to her that the old friend from their younger days had passed away.
“When I left school, I lost track of you / Abigail called me with the bad news / Goodbye, and we’ll never know why,” she sings on the song’s bridge. While this hasn’t been confirmed, one fan, known as @immortalshe13 on TikTok, said the song is about Swift’s “deceased high school sweetheart Jeff Lang.”
7. ‘Actually Romantic’
Allegedly about: Charli XCX
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No one knows the art of the diss track quite like Swift, who infamously took down former rival Katy Perry with her hit “Bad Blood.” Some casual listeners not aware of the lore surrounding Swift and Charli’s relationship might be surprised to hear she wrote a diss track about her after Charli served as one of the opening acts on the Reputation Stadium Tour.
Unfortunately, things aren’t quite so rosy between Swift and Charli these days. Charli released a song called “Sympathy is a Knife” last year that seemed to call out Swift, specifically referring to the time she spent dating Healy, the frontman for The 1975, the band Charli’s husband George Daniels is also a member of. Charli sings, “I don’t wanna share the space / I don’t wanna force a smile / This one girl taps my insecurities / Don’t know if it’s real or if I’m spiraling / One voice tells me that they laugh / George says I’m just paranoid / Says he just don’t see it, he’s so naive.”
Swift was not about to let this go, and responded herself on “Actually Romantic:” “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave / High-fived my ex and then you said you’re glad he ghosted me / Wrote me a song sayin’ it makes you sick to see my face / Some people might be offended / But it’s actually sweet / All the time you’ve spent on me.”
In an Amazon-exclusive version of the album, Swift provides commentary on each song. As for “Actually Romantic,” she described it as “a song about realizing that someone else has kind of had a one-sided, adversarial relationship with you that you didn’t know about. And all of a sudden they start doing too much and they start letting you know that actually, you’ve been living in their head rent-free and you had no idea.”
Fans are basically convinced this is all a nod to Charli, and it feels like Swift all but confirmed it.
8. ‘Wi$h Li$t’
Allegedly about: Travis Kelce
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“Wi$h Li$t” describes all the ways that most people wish they had all of life’s luxuries — “They want that yacht life, under chopper blades.” But for Swift, who actually has all of those things, her wish list is rather different. All she wants is to live happily ever after with Kelce. “I just want you / A couple kids, got the whole block lookin’ like you,” she croons. “Got me dreamin’ ‘bout a driveway with a basketball hoop.”
In the same interview with Capitol, the radio DJ speaking with Swift declared he was going to play “Wi$h Li$t” because it was his favorite song on the album. Swift responded, “That means the world to me because that might be my favorite too.” It seems Kelce has left quite the impression on his fiancée.
9. ‘Wood’
Allegedly about: Travis Kelce
“Wood” and “Wi$h Li$t” are probably tied for being the songs on the album that are most obviously about Kelce. In the tune, Swift sings about various superstitions, like knocking on wood, that mean nothing to her anymore because she has all she wants. It even features the lyric “‘New Heights’ of manhood,” a direct nod to Kelce’s podcast and the place she first announced “The Life of a Showgirl.” “Girls, I don’t need to catch the bouquet,” she sings, referencing their recent engagement.
10. ‘CANCELLED!’
Allegedly about: Brittany Mahomes or Blake Lively
Swift is no stranger to the concept of being cancelled. It wasn’t that long ago that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian did everything they could to cancel Swift herself. And, in some people’s minds, it worked. It all led to the creation of “reputation,” Swift’s album in which she declared, “My reputation’s never been worse.” But now, Swift and other friends who get cancelled can simply be birds of a feather, as this song suggests.
This brings to mind two of Swift’s friends who the song could be about. “Good thing I like my friends cancelled / I like ‘em cloaked in Gucci and scandal,” she sings on the track. Some believe this is a reference to Brittany Mahomes, wife of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs teammate who Swift has grown close to.
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Us Weekly reported that the couples attended the U.S. Open together in 2024, all decked out in Gucci. Mahomes has faced her fair share of criticism for supposedly supporting President Trump, something Swift has caught flak for as her friend.
There’s also a chance that the song is about Swift’s longtime bestie Blake Lively. The state of the pair’s relationship is currently uncertain as Lively faces her legal battle against Justin Baldoni, something Swift reportedly did not want to get dragged into. But, as one Reddit user pointed out, “The Life of a Showgirl” was reportedly created during Swift’s Eras Tour, when she and Lively were still close. Another Redditor insisted it is “absolutely about BL!”
11. ‘Honey’
Allegedly about: Travis Kelce, Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy
As E! News pointed out, Kelce called Swift “sweetie” on the episode of “New Heights” she was featured in, something that set the internet’s heart aflutter. In “Honey,” Swift says she previously had problems with being called classic terms of endearment like “honey” and “sweetheart:” “If anyone called me ‘honey’ / It was standin’ in the bathroom, white teeth / They were sayin’ that skirt don’t fit me / And I cried the whole way home / But you touched my face / Redefined all those blues / When you say ‘honey.’”
TikTok user @rebeccapousma suggested that the bridge of “Honey” also includes a subtle diss to both Alwyn and Healy, though. Swift croons, “And when anyone called me ‘lovely’ / They were findin’ ways not to praise me / But you say it like you’re in awe of me / And you stay until the morning.” She took this as a reference to Alwyn, who probably called her “lovely” as it’s a British term of endearment. She argued that he never praised her — he barely talked about her in public, actually. As for Healy, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” an iconic breakup song from “The Tortured Poets Department,” is believed to be about him and features the line, “You said normal girls were boring / But you were gone by the morning.”
12. ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ (feat. Sabrina Carpenter)
Allegedly about: ???
The title track on the album is a bit similar to “Elizabeth Taylor” in the way that it touches on the theme of fame and the pitfalls that come with it. However, there seems to be no specific muse for this song. Instead, Swift created a (presumably) fictional character named Kitty who is a showgirl. The narrator of the song waits outside a stage door to see Kitty because that’s her hero, but Kitty has some tough news for her: “You don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe / And you’re never gonna wanna.”
The song turns on its head, though, when the narrator becomes a famous showgirl herself. The bridge says, “Do you wanna take a skate on the ice inside my veins? / They ripped me off like false lashes / And then threw me away.” The song concludes with Swift and Carpenter speaking, thanking a crowd that has gathered to see them.
The struggle of fame is a common theme in Swift’s music. And, Carpenter, who many have called her heir-apparent as the next pop “it girl,” is getting her first taste of it as her star rises. Carpenter is not only a friend of Swift’s, but also served as one of the opening acts for her Eras Tour. Later on in the course of the tour, after Carpenter’s stint as an opener had ended, she surprised the crowd in New Orleans by showing up to perform with Swift. “She’s as real as they come and I’m so thankful she did that for us,” Swift said of the moment on Instagram.
Swift will undoubtedly receive criticism once again for wearing her heart on her sleeve and being so vulnerable in her music, but that’s just who she is. She’s real with her fans, and she gives them a true glimpse into her life. Swifties love it. While there may be some haters out there, “The Life of a Showgirl” seems to suggest that Swift doesn’t really care about what the naysayers have to say.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
