Taylor Swift sings about her romance with NFL star Travis Kelce on her highly anticipated 12th studio album The Life Of A Showgirl.
The album, expected to top charts around the world, dropped at 5am in the Ireland, with many Swifties likely setting early alarms to be among the first to hear it.
The record features 12 tracks including Opalite, which Swift confirmed is Kelce's favourite song on the album. She told Capital Breakfast in the UK that she had written down the word after learning that opalite is a man-made opal.
"And so Travis’s birthstone is an opal, so it’s like that. I’ve always fixated on that, I’ve always loved that stone," she explained. "I thought it was a kind of a cool metaphor that it’s a man-made opal, and happiness can also be man-made too. That’s kind of what the song is about, the juxtaposition of those two."
The track sees the 35-year-old sing that she "had a bad habit of missing lovers past" before a cheery chorus of "now the sky is Opalite" and the line "oh my god, never made no-one like you before" to a Fleetwood Mac-style soft rock backing.
Swift also revealed that Wish List "might be" her own favourite track on the record.
The Life Of A Showgirl is Swift's first release since announcing her engagement to Kelce, and also the first since she revealed in May that she had regained control of her back catalogue.
Eldest Daughter, the fifth song on the track list, which is always the most significant track on Swift’s albums, sees the star sing: "I’m not a bad bitch, and this isn’t savage, but I’m never gonna let you down" to a slow piano backing, before confessing "when I said I don’t believe in marriage that was a lie".
The opening track The Fate Of Ophelia, expected to be the album's first single, introduces a character described as "the eldest daughter of a noble man".
Actually Romantic sees the star take a swipe at an unnamed character, speculated by fans to be a fellow musician, with the lyric: "I heard you call me 'Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave."
Ruin The Friendship recalls school days to a smooth bassline, with the chorus: "It was not an invitation, should’ve kissed you anyway."
The stomping title track, featuring pop singer Sabrina Carpenter, sees the pair trade vocals before joining together for the chorus: "You don’t know the life of a showgirl."
Elizabeth Taylor, most likely named after the Cleopatra actress, continues Swift's tradition of referencing famous figures in her songs. The electronic track includes the lines: "All the right guys promised they’d stay" and "Hollywood hates me, only as hot as your last hit baby."
Her debut album included Tim McGraw, written about the country singer, while her most recent record The Tortured Poets Department featured Clara Bow, named after the silent film actress of the 1920s. She has also penned tracks about socialite Rebekah Harkness (The Last Great American Dynasty), Ethel Kennedy (Starlight), as well as former partners John Mayer, Harry Styles, Joe Jonas, Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor Kennedy.
Speaking about her creative process, Swift said she wrote The Life Of A Showgirl partly to "stimulate my creative mind" while performing her record-breaking Eras Tour.
"I was going from playing shows on this tour to Sweden (to write)," she told Capital Breakfast. "I know it sounds like it was exhausting, but it's a different type of feeling you get when you’re on stage for a three-and-a-half-hour show, it’s physically exhausting. I needed to stimulate my creative mind and make something that would fuel the fatigue I was feeling at that point in the tour."
At the start of the interview, Swift also said she missed the "beautiful faces" of her fans after seeing them regularly during the tour. "I used to get to see your beautiful faces every single three-day period of time when we were doing the Eras Tour. So it’s like, I miss getting to see everybody."
In a post on Instagram, she described the new record as a "self portrait". "I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right," she said.
Swift recorded the album in Europe while on tour, reuniting with producers Max Martin and Shellback, with whom she last worked on Reputation in 2017. Since then she has favoured collaborations with Jack Antonoff and The National's Aaron Dessner.
Swift will be a guest on The Graham Norton Show on Friday evening, alongside Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy and fellow Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson, as well as Tron: Ares stars Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith.
Friday night also sees the launch of The Official Release Party Of A Showgirl in cinemas, featuring the world premiere of the music video for The Fate Of Ophelia, behind-the-scenes footage, lyric videos and "cut-by-cut explanations" of the new songs.
The 89-minute film will be shown in cinemas across Ireland, with many screenings already sold out.
Source: Press Association
