When "The Life of a Showgirl" came out, fans on social media rushed to rank their favorite songs; I resisted this because I insisted that as a "no skips" album, all the songs were my favorite. I could no more rank them than I could rank my favorite pets or kids.
I can totally rank my favorite current pets: 1) Oscar (dog), 2) Loki (cat), 3) Bernie (cat), 4) Archie (dog), 5) Bailey (dog), 6) Penny (cat).
No, I'm not ranking the kids.
But I am going to rank the songs on Showgirl with the caveat that I maintain that each song is worth listening to. These are indications of personal preference and not any sort of qualitative value judgment, which is why I'm not numbering them. If they deviate from yours, it's a subjective assessment only, and I invite you to share your own list if you wish.
Ruin the Friendship CANCELLED! The Fate of Ophelia Opalite Wood Elizabeth Taylor Actually Romantic Eldest Daughter Father Figure Wi$h Li$t Honey The Life of a Showgirl
A friend I mentioned in the opening post of this series, Steve Lewis, has been ranking his Top 100 favorite songs since he was a teen, and he updates them every few years. If you go back to May 2019 on this blog, you'll see my one-and-only Top 100 post. I've been thinking it's time to update my list, but I have a problem.
I'm going to have too many Taylor Swift songs. If it's a Top 100, at least 25 songs, if not more, are going to be Taylor's. Let's take a look in reverse chronology, and I'm only listing my essential favorites:
The Tortured Poets Department Down Bad, But Daddy I Love Him, Guilty as Sin?, The Black Dog, Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, So High School, thanK you aIMee (7)
Midnights Anti-Hero, You're on Your Own, Kid, Vigilante Shit, Bejeweled, Karma, Hits Different (6)
evermore 'tis the damn season, no body, no crime (2)
folklore the 1, cardigan, the last great american dynasty, august, betty (5)
Lover Cruel Summer, Lover, The Man, You Need to Calm Down, ME! (5)
Reputation ...Ready For It?, Don't Blame Me, Delicate, Look What You Made Me Do (4)
1989 Blank Space, Style, Shake It Off, New Romantics (4)
Red 22, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (2)
Speak Now Mine, Back to December, Long Live (3)
Fearless Fearless, Fifteen, Love Story, White Horse, You Belong With Me, Forever & Always (6)
Nothing on Debut...sorry. But even if you cut "Showgirl" down to my top six songs, that leaves me with—OMG is that right?—50 songs. Fifty songs? So half of my top 100 will be Taylor songs? But I have way more than 50 non-Taylor songs that I want in my top 100?
3. Key Lyric: "I'm married to the hustle / And now I know the life of a showgirl, babe ... Wouldn't have it any other way"
4. Favorite Lyric: "And all the headshots on the walls of the dance hall are of the bitches who wish I'd hurry up and die / But I'm immortal now, baby dolls / I couldn't if I tried"
5. Taylor's Callback: "Look What You Made Me Do"
6. TL/DR: "Sequins are forever"
7. Previous Track 12s: I'm Only Me When I'm With You, The Best Day, Haunted, Sad Beautiful Tragic, I Know Places, Dress, Soon You'll Get Better, mad woman, long story short, Sweet Nothing, loml
The title track of the album is the perfect ending to a nearly flawless album, and she illustrates the lyrical narrative of a jaded performer telling a starstruck ingenue "you don't want this life" by dueting with her own protege, Sabrina Carpenter.
I'll admit I didn't connect with the music on this song the first time I heard it. It's out of place in terms of the Martin/Shellback rhythmic foundation of most of the rest of the songs here, and it's something new and unusual for Taylor, as well, as it's straight out of the score of a Broadway musical.
The best part musically is the bridge, which as usual, is also the best part of Taylor's lyrics, in which she and Sabrina tell the story of all the sacrifices they made to make it in the business. Sabrina sings the most telling of the lyric, singing "Do you wanna take a skate on the ice inside my veins? They ripped me off like false lashes and then threw me away."
Taylor ends the bridge with her callback to "Look What You Made Me Do" of resurrection, singing that "the bitches who wish I'd hurry up and die" are completely out of luck: "I'm immortal now, baby dolls, I couldn't if I tried."
What a triumphant coda to a magnificent album. Taylor and Sabrina take a cautionary tale of hardship, obstacles, and rejection and through their talent and determination, come out not only as heroes but as women who have surpassed their role model in terms of satisfaction: "Now I know the life of a showgirl, babe / Wouldn't have it any other way."
Taylor breaks through the fourth wall in the outro with actual audio from the end of one of her Eras Tour shows featuring Sabrina on stage with her. In doing so, Taylor emerges from the confines of the stage into the real world, having made her own showgirl dreams come true.
But that's not the only thing she's accomplished. She's also found a life partner who understands, accepts, and celebrates her fame and talent, who encourages her to grow and achieve in her own life, who blooms under the bright lights that always surround her—Travis is a showman himself, and this album is a celebration of Taylor's past and present, not a final encore but a definitive statement that the best is still yet to come.
3. Key Lyric: "You can call me 'Honey" if you want because I'm the one you want"
4. Favorite Lyric: "Buy the paint in the color of your eyes / And graffiti my whole damn life / Honey"
5. Taylor's Callback: none specifically
6. TL/DR: Travis is my Honey!
7. Previous Track 11s: Our Song, Forever & Always, Innocent, Holy Ground, This Love, Dancing with Our Hands Tied, London Boy, invisible string, cowboy like me, Karma, I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
"Honey" is the pretty girl at the dance who sits alone at a table, overlooked, hoping the right person will come along and ask her to dance. It's the most overlooked track on the album while also being a favorite on social media lists, usually in the form of, "Who else loves 'Honey'?"
Unlike most of the rest of the songs on the album, this one needs no deep analysis. There are no literary references to speak of, and no direct callbacks except for a thematic association with the Eras Tour-created lyric addition to "Karma": "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me."
The first time I listened to this album, my initial reaction was, "This is her Travis Kelce album." Multiple listens haven't changed my mind any; in fact, it's deepened that conviction. Sure, not every track relates directly to Travis, but if most of her past albums were about heartbreak and longing, this one is about happiness and fulfillment.
"Honey" juxtaposes both those ideas, the before and the after, the bitches at the bar telling her to back off, the white-teethed girls mocking her skirt, the guys who called her up and night and forgot about her in the morning...
Travis is the after—playing house as her "forever night stand"; calling her "lovely" because he's in awe of her (look at his face at the Eras Tour); his love "redefines all of those blues" of her past, her insecurities and disappointments.
She uses three pet names in particular: honey, sweetheart, and lovely, and contrasts their past usage in a negative and condescending sense with his use of them in love and sincerity. In her past, hearing those words was always associated with someone putting her down. When Travis uses them, they lift her up.
The music is straight out of a classic Mariah Carey love song in every way—instrumentation, rhythm, beat, tone...everything except Taylor trying to sing way too high out of her register. But her vocal tone here is sweet and innocent, much as Carey's was at the beginning of her career.
This song won't blow you away with complex lyrics or innovative musicality. It's as familiar and comfortable as your favorite pair of slippers and sweatpants. But like that girl at the dance, if you take her for a spin, she'll stick in your mind long afterward.
2. Literary References: "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare (Something wicked this way comes); "Underworld" relates to Hades, either the Greek Mythology version or James Woods's masterclass Disney villain performance.
3. Key Lyric: "Can't you see my infamy loves company / Now they've broken you like they've broken me / But a shattered glass is a lot more sharp"
4. Favorite Lyric: "Tone deaf and hot, let's fuckin' OFF HER!"
5. Taylor's Callback: "Look What You Made Me Do" x "The Man" x "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"
6. TL/DR: Fuck the Patriarchy!
7. Previous Track 10s: Mary's Song, The Way I Loved You, Better Than Revenge, The Last Time, How You Get the Girl, King of My Heart, Death By a Thousand Cuts, illicit affairs, ivy, Labyrinth, Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?
If I had to pick my favorite song on Showgirl, "CANCELLED!" would be my top choice right now. I adore this song, mainly because it's Petty Taylor at her best.
I've heard some critics and fans denigrate this song because they think it has something to do with "cancel culture," or they try to decode whether she's singing about Blake Lively or Brittany Mahomes. They're all wrong on both accounts.
If you listen to the lyrics, it's obvious that this song is two things. First, it's "The Man" if it had been a track on "Reputation." She's singing about the patriarchy, and it's clearly stated in the first two verses.
In verse one, she sings, "Did you girl-boss too close to the sun? / Did they catch you having far too much fun?" The sun references the myth of Icarus, who died because he flew too high, and the sun melted the wax off his wings, and he fell into the ocean. In the song, a woman was in charge but exceeded her limits and was having more fun that the men who run the world allotted for her.
In verse two, the lyrics are, "Did you make a joke only a man could? / Were you just too smug for your own good? / Or bring a tiny violin to a knife fight?" These are all condemnations of women's behavior and attitudes on the part of a patriarchal society. The punishment is, of course, cancellation.
The beginning of the second verse is an indictment of the music business, where she says a woman's popularity is celebrated because "everyone prospers." But one mistake spells disaster: "One single drop, you're off the roster / Tone deaf and hot, let's fuckin' OFF HER!"
The second meaning of the song is a further development of "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" The image of the woman/witch she created on TTPD extends here with the line from Macbeth (Something wicked this way comes), spoken by the three witches.
Furthermore, the answer to the question, "Who's afraid?" is "You should be." That's even more true here. Like she said in "Look What You Made Me Do," the old Taylor can't come to the phone...because she's dead. But in "CANCELLED!", the new Taylor has already been to the Underworld and come back as an indestructible force.
So the Kanyes and Kims of the world can do their worst; she's already been cancelled and come back from the dead. Her friends—the ones with the matching scars—have experienced the same thing, and now she, like Hermes, is their guide to emerging back to Earth, scarred but powerful.
The music and the lyrics are straight out of the very best of Disney villain songs, with the very best of these being Ursula's "Poor, Unfortunate Souls" from "The Little Mermaid." Taylor sings with the same confidence, and the music is as theatrical as the lyrics demand.
The most memorable part musically, for me at least, is in verse three, where the music is a repeating series of dark chords in a minor key that build toward the dramatic final chorus. The song has the same structure, dynamics, and drama as the most memorable Disney villain songs (I'll add Scar's "Be Prepared" here as another example, because "The Lion King" is based on "Hamlet" by Shakespeare, and now you see why Swifties get lost in rabbit holes chasing Easter eggs...).
The final chorus brings all these elements together both musically and lyrically, with the full instrumentation of a film score, the underlying backup vocals and call-outs, and the lyrical theme, with the first meaning expressed in the line, "I salute you if you're much too much to handle," directed at the women who don't submit to male expectations.
The second meaning comes out in what I identified as the key verse: "Can't you see my infamy loves company / Now they've broken you like they've broken me / But a shattered glass is a lot more sharp." The men in power think they've broken them, but they've only exposed the sharp edges of their defiance, making them stronger than they were before.
I'm begging the universe for a video for this song with Taylor dressed as an evil queen and her celebrity friends (Selena Gomez and Sabrina Carpenter for starters) being transformed from princesses to villains as the song goes along. She's already done the fairy tale twist with "Bejeweled"; this would be the final jewel in her crown.
2. Literary References: "Dancing in the Dark" by Bruce Springsteen; "Superstitious" by Stevie Wonder; every dick joke ever made by Shakespeare
3. Key Lyric: "Redwood tree, it ain't hard to see, his love was the key that opened my thighs"
4. Favorite Lyric: "Girls, I don't need to catch the bouquet to know a hard rock is on the way"
5. Taylor's Callback: Daisy from "Don't Blame Me" and "You're On Your Own, Kid"; "Wi$h Li$t"
6. TL/DR: Yeah, it's big...
7. Previous Track 9s: Should've Said No, You're Not Sorry, Enchanted, Stay Stay Stay, Wildest Dreams, Getaway Car, Cornelia Street, this is me trying, coney island, Bejeweled, Guilty as Sin?
First of all, let's dispense with all the giggly junior high-level sexual references, okay? Yes, she's singing about Travis's junk. Yeah, she's definitely enjoying all the sex. Redwood tree? He's six-foot-five, you do the math.
God forbid a 35-year-old woman enjoys having sex with her fiancé. We've never heard of such a thing! How dare she sing about such things in such an open and vulgar way!
Sit down, Gladys Kravitz!
My generation was raised on Prince singing about Trojans and some of them used in "Little Red Corvette." We listened to Madonna sing "Justify My Love" and George Michael sing "I Want Your Sex." Everybody just calm down!
"Wood" is so much fun to listen to. If you listen to the beginning of the track with headphones, you will hear the song open with the sound effect of someone pressing "play" on a cassette tape player. What follows is directly reminiscent of the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back," with a funky guitar-bass-drum beat that draws you right into the song.
She opens her lyrics with a series of superstitious images—picking petals from a daisy (he loves me not), an unlucky penny, stepping on a crack, a black cat—that leads to the pre-chorus, in which the beat levels out into a groove that literally sounds "Superstitious," the Stevie Wonder classic.
More sound effects here, with two wooden knocks preceding the "knock on wood" line, another superstition, along with crossing fingers for luck, and as the chorus begins, wishing on a falling star, which is itself a callback to "Wi$h Li$t."
More superstitions in the second verse/pre-chorus, including catching a wedding bouquet (heh-heh-heh she said "hard rock" heh-heh-heh) and a magic wand (What? Is that dirty?). In case all of this has gone over anyone's head, she declares "you and me, we make our own luck" and then calls out Travis's "New Heights" podcast with his brother, Jason, where Taylor first announced this album.
Don't think that Travis wasn't just about to burst trying to contain his glee during that announcement. The NFL is a hyper-macho culture, and having your fiancé sing the joys of your "manhood" is gold medal-level hype.
So what's the point? First, as your favorite "English teacher," she's going to point out Shakespeare's dirty little secret that never got pointed out in your high school class but was the best part about taking the class in college: Will filled his plays with dick jokes. They're everywhere in both his comedies and tragedies.
Here's another Shakespeare link I forgot to mention in track two: Elizabeth Taylor played Kate opposite two-time hubby Richard Burton's Petruchio in a film version of "The Taming of the Shrew," which features this classic exchange:
PETRUCHIO: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. KATHARINA: In his tongue. PETRUCHIO: Whose tongue? KATHARINA: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell. PETRUCHIO: What, with my tongue in your tail?
Much has been made of the lyric, "Redwood tree, it ain't hard to see, his love was the key to open my thighs." The sexual imagery is as obvious as Kate and Petruchio, but in order for a double-entendre to work, there has to be a double meaning, and this is the bit I think most critics are overlooking.
Redwood trees are tall, and Taylor's a tall girl, 5'-11" barefoot, and she likes to wear high heels. Many of her past boyfriends were shorter than her, and it's not unusual for some men to feel intimidated by a tall woman. Travis is much taller than Taylor, and quite broad-shouldered as well with his pro football physique.
She feels safe with him. Standing next to him, he's much bigger than she is, and I think she's saying that his love makes her feel safe. Yeah, the "opened my thighs" line is outwardly sexual, but metaphorically, it's opening oneself up in the most intimate way, not only sexual but mentally and emotionally as well.
Anyone who is a fan of 1970s-era funk-infused R&B is going to dig the music here. As usual, the bass line is fantastic, especially the upward run right at the "New Heights" lyric; it's a virtuoso performance.
I love that she's so openly celebrating the joy of sex in this song. It's a perfect track nine counterpart to my favorite song from TTPD, "Guilty As Sin?" in which she layers the same level of double-entendres to sing about the joys of female self-pleasure. It's both a clever and beautiful song that questions the religious-based sexual hang-ups that plague our culture, and her voice is as sensuous as it's ever sounded.
There was a question then whether the object of her desire in "Guilty As Sin?" was Travis, but lyrically, it didn't even really have to be about anyone in particular, just a woman with a vivid imagination. There's no question at all about "Wood," however.
Any man who recorded a song like this, such as Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, or The Weeknd (who all have, incidentally) wouldn't have raised so much as an eyebrow. But God forbid any woman sings about how much she enjoys the physical pleasures of sex! This may have been the point of including this song: she's tacitly making the point that she gets criticized for doing something for which a man would be celebrated.
Plus, and I can't emphasize this point enough, this song is my JAM!
3. Key Lyric: "Please, God, bring me a best friend who I think is hot"
4. Favorite Lyric: "We tell the world to leave us the fuck alone, and they do...Wow!"
5. Taylor's Callback: Thematically, "The Alchemy" and "So High School" along with a line from "Elizabeth Taylor"
6. TL/DR: I'm gonna have Travis's babies!
7. Previous Track 8s: Stay Beautiful, Tell Me Why, Never Grow Up, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, I Know Places, Gorgeous, Paper Rings, this is me trying, tolerate it, Sweet Nothing, loml
I have less to say about this song than probably any other track on the album because of its simplicity. She's in love and dreaming about her future life with Travis Kelce, and that chorus contrasts with a list of wishes that she indexes in the verses.
The other wishes are the standard fare of fame, fortune, and success, all things that she has achieved one hundred-fold. All she wants now is a couple of kids and a basketball hoop in the driveway.
How very dare she!
The criticism that the trolls and bots dropped on social media about this track was just absurd. She was accused of promoting the "trad-wife" lifestyle (which is bullshit in the first place; it's performative nonsense from rich, privileged conservatives) and even white supremacist eugenics in the line "got the whole block looking like you."
As a father of seven kids (plus nine grandkids and counting), I can assure you that one of the biggest topics of conversation before and after the birth of a new baby is, "Who do you think he/she is going to look like?" Putting a nefarious meaning where it doesn't belong is nothing more than internet-based fuckery.
As far as the trad-wife stereotype, it's like none of you have ever listened to "But Daddy I Love Him," where she tells all the wine moms, "Fuck 'em, it's over." That was her strongest indictment against traditional religious hypocrisy and control. She's not going to turn around and champion it here.
What she's doing is answering her own question from "Elizabeth Taylor": "What do you get for the girl who has everything and nothing all at once?" All the trappings of fame are the nothing that she happily grants to all the others ("They deserve what they want / I hope they get what they want") in favor of a life of love, family, and happiness.
Anyone who thinks this idea is new or some kind of betrayal of her girl-power fuck-the-patriarchy feminism has someone missed every single love song she's ever written. Regardless of our political views, most of us want a romantic, intimate partner to share our lives with. Why would Taylor, who has written so many songs about her desire for love, not sing about the one who didn't get away?
She's also openly expressing her own wish for some measure of privacy ("We tell the world to leave us the fuck alone, and they do...wow!"), something that really is a wish that isn't going to come true. Just in the past week, she's been out with Travis twice in NYC, and the paparazzi is as thick as flies on a picnic potato salad wherever they go. Sometimes you have to trade one wish for another, and everything comes at a price.
Taylor's always been open that her fame and lack of privacy was something that she signed up for, the result of her own desire for success in the music industry. That's not going to diminish when she's engaged to one of the best-known players in the NFL, either. Not all her wishes can or will come true.
The music here is a stripped-down trip-hop kind of beat, and her falsetto singing on the chorus gave me Prince vibes from the first listen. If I were to rank my favorite songs on the album, this would probably be in my bottom three, but like I said from the outset, there are no skips on this album, and this track has already been named by many (including future sister-in-law Kylie Kelce) as their favorite.
Perhaps the best contrast comes from the track eight listings. Number eight on Tortured Poets Department was "loml," which may be the most depressing song that Taylor has ever recorded. Compare that to "Wi$h Li$t," where she is quite giddy about marriage and motherhood. Who wouldn't want that kind of happiness for someone who has finally found it?
2. Literary References: Literally every insult Shakespeare ever wrote into his plays
3. Key Lyric: "And I know you think it comes off vicious / But it's precious, adorable / Like a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse / That's how much it hurts"
5. Taylor's Callback: "Reputation." All of it. Also, "thanK you, aIMee"
6. TL/DR: I love living rent-free in your head
7. Previous Track 7s: Tied Together with a Smile, Breathe, The Story of Us, I Almost Do, I Wish You Would, So It Goes..., Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, seven, happiness, Question...?, Fresh Out the Slammer
Honestly, I just love petty Taylor; she writes the best songs. And I think her petty songs are probably when we get the closest to knowing anything at all about the real Taylor Allison Swift.
Before we go any farther, however, please remember that in poetry, the lines don't always have a singular, literal meaning, and we should never confuse the poetic speaker (in these cases, the singer) with the poet (or the songwriter).
Having said that, is this song directed specifically at Charlie XCX? Maybe, but that's actually not important. All of Taylor's petty/revenge songs are targeted at one person: Kanye MFing West, and by extension, his duplicitous ex-wife Kim Kardashian.
Hang in there with me; this is a curvy road, but I have a map.
Taylor revealed something insightful during her most recent interview with Seth Meyers, in which she said that baking sourdough bread is something that keeps her mind distracted from writing songs. I suspect her time with Travis is much the same; not that it's not genuine, but it's something else to do with her life other than writing songs and hanging out with her cats.
Because let's get something very specific out of the way regarding Taylor Swift: she's an absolute genius at songwriting, and as so, she is very much a freaky outlier to the rest of the human race. She was born to write songs, and because of that, her singular focus in her life was to become famous singer and songwriter. It's been the only thing she's ever wanted since she was a little kid.
Her parents moved the whole family to Nashville to help her chase her dream. She got signed to a record label when she was still in high school. She won her first Album of the Year Grammy for her second album at age 21. And who came the closest to destroying her dream? Kanye West? Who forced her to go in exile in England based on a series of lies and deceptions? Kanye and Kim.
Anyone who doubts this may not have experienced what it was like to be bullied as a child. Taylor did. Artists always are. Today's rock stars were nerds, freaks, and outcasts in high school; why do you think they spent all that time in their room learning how to play a guitar? To try to be seen as cool, which they definitely were not.
Taylor was not popular in high school; that much comes through in so many of her songs. Her romantic insecurities are deeply rooted in the heartbreak of past failed relationships. But that pales in comparison to the two people who tried to, in her mind, end her life by ending her ability to make a living as a writer and performer. Every revenge song starts with Kanye and Kim.
That's why "Actually Romantic" is the best revenge song of them all, because it illustrates the concept of someone "living rent-free in your head" and turns it into a biting, condescending retort: "And I know you think it comes off vicious / But it's precious, adorable / Like a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse / That's how much it hurts."
Ouch.
Now, she certainly can be saying the same thing to Charlie XCX, but she's also saying it to the legions of haters on the Internet who literally live for the chance to cut her down. She's saying that it not only fuels her creativity but that it makes her sexually excited. Given the number of incels who hate her and spend all their time online making it known, that must really hit below the belt.
(See what I did there?)
She does all of this with a phony-sweet voice over distorted indie-rock guitars, the most guitar-driven track on the album. As usual, the bridge is the best part of the song, both lyrically and musically, with the "Stop talking dirty to me!" shouted out like the chorus of a rock anthem.
As to the literary allusions, books have, quite literally, been written about Shakespeare's play-based insults. Here's an appropriately nasty one for this song: "This woman's an easy glove, my lord, she goes off and on at pleasure." (All's Well That End's Well)
This is a nasty song, both sexually and civilly, and it's the kind of clapback that only someone who has been bullied would really understand. It's often been said that living well is the best revenge, but in reality, living well and telling the former bullies how wonderfully it's all going is actually the best revenge.
"thanK you, aIMee" on Tortured Poets was the light side of the story, with Taylor recognizing how her drive to come back from exile is what drove her to new heights of creativity and success. "Actually Romantic" is the petty dark side that reminds us that while Taylor may someday forgive, she's never going to forget.
