Although her almost 2 year long, all time highest grossing, well beloved Eras Tour has ended, there is still a lot going on around Taylor Swift at the moment. As the saying goes, the show must go on, and it would be the perfect headline to describe what happened around her in the previous weeks.
Last August was the time to shine for all the so-called “Swifties” around the world, and it is not just because the song with the same title had its season. Beside the fact that we witnessed the engagement of the decade (Juliet finally got to live the love story she wrote about), there is also more. Swift's fans are well-known for their cheerful bonds, the friendship bracelets and outfits, and also the fact that they can act like FBI when it comes to easter eggs. This might be the reason why their predictions actually came true, or maybe it was just simply half of the world manifesting the same thing: the new album, TS12. Since Swift announced it and started to drop little details, the internet kept exploding multiple times a day. Many famous people and even brands tried to catch this wave of media attention by posting related contents on social platforms. Suddenly everything was sparkling in teal-orange glitter, which alone could also be a topic for another article.
However, this one is going to be more about the cultural references Swift used while creating this new album, The life of a showgirl. As many know, she likes weaving some intertextual references into her lyrics, album covers and appearances as well, that's just a thing about her art. Whether you are a Swiftie or not, both lovers and haters can agree on one thing: this practice has an important role in bringing little crumbs of culture closer to the worldwide audience, especially considering the fact, that these are usually about niche or non-mainstream things, sometimes even about almost-forgotten artists or stars. By doing so, she can raise nostalgia in the older generations, while letting the youngest ones know about certain things, they probably wouldn't have googled on their own. With Swift's popularity and influence on basically everything, these references can have a huge impact on how we see and consume culture. So let's take a look at what the folk of the internet have been talking about since the release of the album.
The album title (“The Life of a Showgirl”)
Swift said this album is about the Eras Tour, but instead showing how it was on stage, she gives us another perspective by focusing on what happened behind the curtains. (This behind the scenes sneak peak can also refer to her private life, because many songs are about her relationship with Travis Kelce). So why exactly the title, showgirl? She could have just referred to herself as a popstar, or an icon, but no, she chose the word showgirl, which is enough to wake our curiosity and fantasy.
When we hear that word, we mentally travel back into the good old days of Hollywood, the world of boas, pearls, ladies dressed in extravagant costumes, performing spectacular choreographies. Even the picture of Moulin Rouge or Marylin Monroe might pop into our mind. And if we think that we don't know anything about them, we still decode the message correctly, because according to the definition, a showgirl is indeed a female performer, usually in a revealing costume, often appearing while singing and dancing in revues. In the modern sense, showgirls date back to the late 1800s, performing in famous Parisian music halls and cabarets such as Moulin Rouge, Le Dido, or the Foiles Bergère. They were later introduced to the public of the USA by the Broadway revue called Ziegfeld Follies, and so the magical world of lipstick and lace was born. This phenomenon lived a life like a shooting star: it shined at first, and faded with the passing time. Then waited decades to get dusted by Swift, and finally became ready to shine again.
The songs
Let's start with the first track and single of the album, The Fate of Ophelia. When Swift announced the titles of the 12 new songs, it didn't take much time for the Swifties to figure out the meaning behind this one. Ophelia isn't on the list of the most popular girl names (thanks to Swift, it might be in the future), however, anyone who is a bit conversant with literature knows probably at least one famous woman with this name, and she must be a character from Shakespeare's drama, Hamlet.
Since “repetitionis est mater studiorum” (revision is the mother of knowledge), Ophelia was the eldest daughter of a wealthy Danish nobleman, Polonius, a sister of Laertes, and also the love interest and potential wife of Prince Hamlet. In the story, she became mad from the pain she had to deal with (getting her father killed by Hamlet, thinking that he had gone crazy). She visited a brook to gather flowers around it, but she ended up falling into it from a willow tree. Her dress was made out of heavy fabric, so she drowned.
This story comes up multiple times in the lyric of this song ("drowned in melancholy", "lived in fantasies", "eldest daughter of a nobleman", "the venom stole her sanity", "you dug me out of my grave", "no more drowning and decieved"), and it appears visually too. On the first album cover, Swift lays in a bath tub, dressed in pearls like a true showgirl, being almost drowned in the teal water. This pose refers to Ophelia's fate (the drowning), and also to the 1852 painting by John Everett Millais. The music video goes even further: in the opening scenes, there is a grandiose inner space (similar to the ones in Blank Space and Delicate), and we can see a painting on the wall. This is a remake of the famous painting from Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser called "The Death of Ophelia" (1900).
As the song goes on, we don’t leave the world of paintings behind. There is a scene where we see a ship on the water, referring to William Etty's 1837 painting, "The Sirens and Ulysses". It isn't a coincidence either, because according to the mythology, sirens are beautiful women, whose singing is known for driving sailors crazy. A topic matching well with the song.
Swift appeared in this scene with red hair, dressed and posing similarly like Arthur Hughes’s painting, "Ophelia” (circa 1865).
But this song has even more in it:
Another interesting line from the lyric is "I might have lingered in purgatory", which can be referring to Dante's “La Divina Comedia” (Divine Commedy). The phrase "full of scorpions" was used by Shakespeare in another drama, Macbeth, in which the title character says "full of scorpions is my mind", referring to the poisonous nature of thoughts, the paranoia and torment driving him crazy (you cannot help but see the parallel here). And the "I sat alone in my tower" screams the story of Rapunzel.
The music video - beneath the painting references mentioned above - guides us through different showgirl-eras, evoking famous women in pop culture with a little time travel. The fact that it is like a kaleidoscopic vision makes the album's retro-atmosphere even stronger. (Don't forget that there are also literally kaleidoscopic pictures in the visualizer videos of the other songs.) In this one, however, we can spot Marylin Monroe (portrayed by Swift in a red dress) and supposedly The Ronettes (played by the black haired version of Swift). The scenes with the blue costumes (shown later in the Opalite lyric video) picture the old classical revues from Hollywood, and the scenery of Busby Berkeley, an American director and choreographer. He liked to incorporate many dancers, and impressive choreography in his art. The feathered red costumes from the end of the music video look like they came straight from Moulin Rouge, the ultimate alma mater of showgirls. Then we end our time travel in the present while seeing Taylor as herself, and it all comes back to the beginning (and to the album cover), where she is in the bathtub in the Ophelia-like position.
Elizabeth Taylor
No surprise that after this grand entrance (do you get the reference?) the second song on the tracklist is about one hell of a showgirl as well. The famous American actress, Elizabeth Taylor (starring in films like Lassie Come Home, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Cleopatra, The Flinstones etc.) was also known for her 8 marriages, her huge jewelry collection, which included some rare pieces, and her noteworthy art collection. Beside these, she gave money for charitable causes as well: she was particularly committed to supporting AIDS research and the treatment of patients. According to the actress herself, her family and the people working at the HIV/AIDS Foundation meant the world to her. She ranks 7th on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest actresses of all time, and in 1999, Queen Elizabeth II even knighted her, giving her the title "Dame".
And just as an interesting sidenote, Swift has actually referred to her earlier. On her Reputation album, in the song ...Ready for it, the line "and he can be my jailer/Burton to this Taylor" is about the 1967 film adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, starring Richard Burton and guess who: her. 5 years later, on the Midnights album, in the music video of Bejewelled, there is another woman next to Swift, also in a sparkling outfit, being literally bejewelled, extremely resembling Elizabeth Taylor. The video has a hint in it to this showgirl era.
Opalite
You can read tons of articles about the meaning behind this song, and the stone opalite, but what references are hiding in it? Well, according to one fan theory, the line "Onyx night" can be about the third volume of the popular book series Fourth Wing (Onyx storm).
The “Oh oh oh oh” part from the refrain evokes the 1963 hit from The Ronettes, called “Be my baby”.
But if you have a discography as big as Swift does, it would be such a bummer not referring to yourself as well. So she did it - multiple times.
She turned "I think your house is haunted" from Seven, (Folklore) to "I thought my house was haunted". "If you live like that, you live with ghosts" from Bad Blood (Reputation) to "I used to live with ghosts". (Which is visually shown in the music video of Anti Hero.) "The sky and it was maroon" from Maroon (Red) to "But now the sky is opalite". "All of my sunshine was gone gone gone" from "I forgot that you existed” (Lover) to "You had to make your own sunshine". "Help, I'm still at the restaurant" from "Right where you left me" (Evermore) to "Finally left the table". And that's Eras Tour in one song for you.
Father Figure
This title interpolates the 1987 song by George Michael, where there is a line; "But sometimes love can be mistaken for a crime", which could possibly be an inspiration for one in Taylor's version: "Mistake my kindness for weakness".
Besides that, the whole lyric is resonating with some kind of a maffia-like energy: an office, drinking "brown liquor", a table made out of mahogany… by simply just hearing these, we can almost picture a scene from The Godfather. Well, that's not a coincidence, because there's a line "you'll be sleeping with the fishes (before you know you're drowning)". This phrase means being dead, or being murdered and having your body disposed of in a body of water. It implies the body was weighted down and sunk, making it irretrievable. But why is it interesting? This phrase gained widespread recognition thanks to the 1972 movie The Godfather. Moreover, Swift mentions the French word "château", which means a large French country house or castle, often giving its name to wine made in its neighbourhood. Or basically "a manor house, palace, or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry". This can rhyme well with an italian variant of a château, Castello degli Schiavi, a famous Sicilian building used as a filming location of The Godfather.
CANCELLED!
Are you curious how to hide 3 cultural references in not more, but one line?
Use "something wicked this way comes", just like Swift did in this song. Originally it is a line from Shakespeare's Macbeth, spoken by a witch. It is also the title of Ray Bradbury's 1962 novel, which later became adapted to an American dark fantasy horror film in 1983., directed by Jack Clayton.
The song also has another literary reference in it: the line "Did you girl-boss too close to the sun?". That evokes Greek mythologies, more specifically Ovid's Metamorphosis. In the story of Daedalus and Icarus, they tried to escape King Minos's prison by flying. The quick-witted inventor, Daedalus created wings out of wood, and feathers, glueing them together with wax. However, his son, Icarus went against his warning, and flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax, eventually making him fall down into the sea and die (pay attention: his fate was drowning). This phrase has become a commonly used idiom to warn against overreaching, becoming too ambitious and arrogant.
Eldest daughter
This title alone can refer once more to Ophelia, but the lyric also mentions "smooth operators", which reminds us of the hit sung by the band Sade. Another line, "first lamb to the slaughter" evokes the sacrifices (from Greek mythology or even from some biblical stories), and there is a 1953 short story written by Roald Dahl, called "Lamb to the slaughter".
Wood
Cringe silence. Let’s just not talk about this one. We all know what it refers to, and considering the fact that Travis Kelce's popularity rose exponentially this year, it can be seen as a cultural reference.
But just to be serious, if we try to stick strictly to the lyrics, it's about luck, and many superstitions which can have variations among different cultures. He loves me, he loves me not games played by picking the petals off of daisies ("Daisy's bare naked"), similar games with pennies ("pennys not working"), stepping on a rack, the thing with black cats, having your fingers crossed, "wishing on a falling star", or catching the wedding bouquet. But certainly the idiom knocking on wood has the biggest role in this song, so let's talk about this. We usually knock on wood after we make a prediction we want to come true, or after we say something we don't want to spoil to avoid bad luck. The knocking has its roots in pagan habits, e.g. the Celts believed that by doing so, they call on spirits and fairies of the trees. It has many forms in different cultures around the world, certainly worthy of some googling if you have 10 minutes to spare.
And lastly, if we pay attention to the melodies, we can hear that they sound similar to “I want you back” from the Jackson 5.
The Life of a Showgirl
This song has melodies that sound similar to “Cool” by Jonas Brothers, and is about Kitty, who was a showgirl. But who was she in real life? Kitty is actually a nickname for Marjorie Finlay, an American opera singer and television personality, who also happened to be Swift's maternal grandmother. Swift dedicated 2 songs to her earlier, Marjorie from Evermore and Timeless to Speak Now (vault track). The name of her comes up in The Fate of Ophelia video as well, written on a clapperboard. Swift also likes to put pictures of her in music videos (e.g. Anti Hero), and if you are a good observer, you can spot one pinned to a mirror in The Fate of Ophelia too.
The line "sweeter than a peach" (which is also a common English idiom) might refer back to the famous scene from The Summer I Turned Pretty series, in which Swift's songs were used multiple times.
Since this song has no official music video, the lyric has to play the role of our tour guide in the world of showgirls, by using the words "lace", "lipstick", "bouquet", "garters", "fishnet tights, "stage door", "autograph", "pearls", "false lashes", "sequins" etc.
And the cherry on top of all
This song is featuring another showgirl, but for this time instead of the golden days of Hollywood, Swift chose one from our era: the singer Sabrina Carpenter. She was first an opening act, later a surprise guest at the Eras Tour, which again makes perfect sense, and puts everything into its place in the frame.
This article tried to cover some of the interesting cultural references from this album, certainly without being able to list all of them. However, we hopefully can still see that these topics come up in everyday conversations both online and offline, showing that even hundred-year-old art can be put into a certain light, where it shines again. But if someone as popular as Swift is the one having that special reflector in her hand, we can even talk not just about making something famous again, or introducing it to a wider audience , but also about appropriation. Maybe there are going to be people - especially from younger generations -, to whom these references are going to mean topics from Swift’s songs in the first place, and only secondly the things they are or were on their own.
Anyway, listening to and dancing to this album is fun. But searching for hidden meanings and possible references can give the so called “aha”-experience, which brings the topics and the songs even closer to us. That's also the mechanism, how easter eggs work: they make us think we know something almost like a secret, something that not everyone has enough knowledge to decode. It strikes our ego, and there is nothing to feel ashamed about in that case. Instead, we can be proud of understanding them, because it means that we have a wide knowledge that we try to expand a little more each day.
And just one more thing: many have criticized this album, commonly with the argument that it is missing the version of Swift, who was the magician of lyrics. Is it really true, though? Well it’s clearly not a sad album like the ones with lyrics that cut us open, letting us drown in tears and blood on our bedroom floor. It's rather upbeat, but this doesn’t mean that the lyrics are less special. They are, just in a different way. As we could see, they carry many references, which gives the impression that Swift tried to focus on deeper meanings, often on multiple levels. Which again resonates well with the whole idea of this album: letting us see what was hidden from the public eye. The real world of showgirls, the one behind the curtains.
Photo source: Reddit
