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Were I to compose a tune regarding Travis Kelce, a person I’ve yet to encounter, I would make note of his football career and his podcasting ventures. I would highlight his impending marriage to Taylor Swift and their seemingly blissful bond. I might even insert a line about Kelce’s jovial demeanor; he emanates positive energy. If I were truly stretching it—which I likely would, considering my unfamiliarity with him—I’d fall back on rudimentary physical attributes. He possesses height, and remarkably sizable hands (ideal for grabbing passes). Moreover, he is rather attractive.
It appears that these aspects alone are what Swift fixates on in “The Life of a Showgirl,” her twelfth studio record, which debuted last Friday. “Swear loyalty to your hands, your squad, your aura,” she vocalizes in “The Fate of Ophelia,” also containing a subtle mention of Kelce employing his “megaphone”—namely, his podcast, “New Heights”—to openly declare his fondness for her, subsequent to his attendance at one of her Eras Tour performances in 2023. In “Wi$h Li$t,” Swift declares she “wished upon every star” for someone like Kelce: “God, please provide a best friend I find appealing.” The subsequent track, “Wood”—reminiscent of Sabrina Carpenter in substance and the Jackson 5 in sound—is fundamentally an extended phallic jest. (Though, not excessively extended: at two minutes and thirty seconds, “Wood” stands as the album’s shortest selection.) “Redwood tree, it ain’t hard to see / His love was the key that unlocked my thighs,” she croons. At one juncture, she implies Kelce has attained “New Heights of manhood.” (“Singing about Travis Kelce’s member over a Jackson 5 beat should result in immediate removal like a feral animal,” one person posted on X.)
Upon initially revealing the creation of a fresh album—during a cameo on Kelce’s podcast, co-hosted with his sibling, last August—Swift conveyed that the compositions stemmed from the “most contagiously cheerful, exuberant, dramatic” chapter of her existence. Professionally, she thrived: she initiated the album’s composition whilst still engaged with the Eras Tour. Nonetheless, she alluded to her connection with Kelce. Swift depicted his public courtship attempts, adding, “This is essentially what I’ve been penning songs about desiring to transpire for me since my teenage years.” Post-podcast recording, Kelce proposed to Swift within his backyard.
I must acknowledge that, upon learning of the engagement, my initial thought concerned its implications for her artistry. I wholeheartedly concede this constitutes a prime illustration of perceiving artists less as authentic individuals than as mere entertainment. This formed the very subject I anticipated Swift to delve into further on “Showgirl,” which she promoted as an intimate glimpse into the strains of being an entertainer. Swift reigns as the most economically triumphant musician presently, and it might appear, optimally reductive, and pessimally misogynistic, to posit that her romantic involvement would exert any influence on the calibre of her output. She dedicated the nascent years of her vocation to combatting a “boy-obsessed” persona, predominantly fueled by the press and her critics, later satirized in “Blank Space,” her track regarding her “lengthy catalogue of ex-lovers.” Yet, these men transcend mere boyfriends; they embody her inspirations. She excels at recounting intimate narratives, rendering them captivating and, crucially, relatable. This feat is frequently accomplished through liberal metaphor utilization: a character possessing internal and external beauty becomes “a mansion with a view” (“Delicate”); a languishing long-distance liaison manifests via “the rust that grew between telephones” (“Maroon”). Certain individuals have speculated that “Wood” satirizes a widely circulated 2021 tweet mocking Swift’s songwriting method, wherein a user jokingly posited that Swifties must recoil when Ariana Grande “vocalizes about intimacy sans composing it like ‘he thrust his extended wood into my redwood forest and permitted his sap to ferment my roots.’ “
Her innate storytelling acumen remains evident, thus the consistent narrative surrounding Kelce amid their deepening relationship stands out. In “So High School,” among her initial compositions concerning him, she declares, “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle.” Slightly more than a year later, when publicizing their engagement on Instagram, she captioned the entry “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” These roles equally permeated their shared podcast appearance. At one point, Swift labeled segments of her music as “esoteric.” “She’s so alluring when uttering these advanced terms,” Kelce remarked. Swift responded with a slightly exasperated look: “You grasp the meaning of esoteric!”
Prior to Kelce, Swift’s inspiration stemmed from Joe Alwyn, a British actor exuding such genuine kindness and modesty that he recurrently lands roles as a sexual aggressor in films. (“Boy Erased,” “Kinds of Kindness,” and, subject to your interpretation of a scene unfolding offscreen, “The Brutalist.”) Alwyn presumptively inspires “Delicate,” “Gorgeous,” and alternative romantic tracks on “reputation”—which, in spite of its revenge-fueled framing, arguably constitutes Swift’s most sentimental release—alongside numerous selections from her subsequent album, “Lover.” (“I’ve cherished you three summers hence, darling, yet I crave them all,” she articulates on the namesake track.) Alwyn and Swift remained romantically involved during the genesis of “folklore” and “evermore,” the indie, lyrical masterpieces unveiled amidst the pandemic, with him even contributing to songwriting duties on specific pieces. (“I just overheard Joe crooning the complete, fully formed chorus of ‘betty’ from a separate room,” Swift elucidated in her documentary-styled concert film, “folklore: the long pond studio sessions.”) Alwyn receives songwriting credit on “Sweet Nothing” as well, a particularly endearing piece within Swift’s catalogue, depicting a partner craving nothing beyond your companionship—amidst a world demanding everything else—on the “Midnights” album.
Swift and Alwyn dissolved their partnership in 2023, with roughly a year separating this event and the release of “The Tortured Poets Department,” an album encompassing three muses: Alwyn, the 1975’s frontman Matty Healy, and Kelce. Healy and Swift’s liaison may have proven contentious and fleeting, yet I shall perpetually value it for engendering “Guilty as Sin?,” potentially the sole genuinely erotic song Swift has crafted. (The track, focusing on the excitement inherent in fantasizing regarding a defunct connection, suggests Swift better depicts the fantasy of intimacy as opposed to the actual occurrence.) Meanwhile, Kelce secured the previously referenced “So High School” (“Brand new, full throttle / Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto”) and “The Alchemy” (“So when I touch down / Call the amateurs and cut ’em from the team / Ditch the clowns, get the crown / Baby, I’m the one to beat”).
Immediately, panic gripped the Swiftie community. “I’m terrified for the future if a complete Travis album transpires, I may not even surpass its midpoint,” one fan stated on Reddit last year, highlighting that both Swift and Kelce shared the age of thirty-four, ostensibly too advanced for such immature compositions. Other supporters maintained optimism, observing that “The Alchemy,” specifically, sounded disjointed, as if Swift had overhauled the piece at the eleventh hour to reorient it around Kelce. (This seemed probable, given their relatively nascent dating status during the album’s finalization.) “I don’t believe we possess sufficient evidence to evaluate him as a muse,” another Swiftie penned. “We must await additional songs prior to judgment, ideally void of ubiquitous football allusions.”
The allusions on “The Life of a Showgirl” arguably render football esoteric. In “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift instructs to “keep it one hundred” (an internal reference connecting Kelce, whose jersey number reflects eighty-seven, and Swift, whose lucky numeral sits at thirteen, culminating in a sum of one hundred). Within “Wi$h Li$t,” Swift juxtaposes herself and Kelce with their materially driven contemporaries, seeking “a contract with Real Madrid” and a “spring break that was fucking lit.” Even selections not concerning Kelce bear the burden of obsessive internet culture references, opulent labels, and 2018-era parlance. “Did you girl-boss too close to the sun?” she inquires within “CANCELLED!,” a track where she confesses an affinity for friends “cloaked in Gucci and in scandal.” “Eldest Daughter” constitutes a particular letdown, given its Track 5 placement, a slot Swift invariably reserves for the most personal pieces on her albums. “I’m not a bad bitch / And this isn’t savage,” Swift vocalizes, roughly seventeen years subsequent to singing “I’m not a princess / This ain’t a fairy tale,” on “White Horse,” occupying the fifth position on “Fearless.” It is not as if Swift has evaded cringe-inducing lyrics on prior albums, however, they still resonated with authenticity. (No one else could have realistically produced “ME!,” from “Lover,” and, additionally, it remained effortless to overlook given the album’s inclusion of “Cruel Summer” and “Death by a Thousand Cuts.”) Despite “Showgirl” exhibiting lyrical highlights—notably “Father Figure”—to numerous listeners, Swift appeared to have forfeited both her subtlety and her sanity. “Is there a carbon monoxide leak at her house cause this can’t be the same woman that wrote folklore and evermore,” one individual commented on X. “Can someone tell me if the English teacher showed up?” another queried on Reddit, sans having heard the album. “She showed up drunk and the school district fired her,” a separate user responded.
Numerous observers implicated Kelce. “He should have been a better muse,” a poster proclaimed on X. Several jokingly attributed to Swift the acquisition of “secondhand CTE.” Kelce bore responsibility not merely for generic romantic ballads, but furthermore for the album’s other flaws, such as the acrimonious pieces devoted to Swift’s purported detractors. (“It’s also travis kelce’s fault that taylor has to make up enemies,” one individual wrote. “He’s really the worst muse in the universe, what the hell is she gonna sing about that.”) Notably, “Actually Romantic,” a disparaging composition ostensibly directed at Charli XCX, overflows with sensual tension. As Walden Green remarked within his Pitchfork critique, “It’s telling that The Life of a Showgirl’s most sensual line—‘Feels like you’re flirting with me…It’s kind of making me wet’—appears here, and not on any of the songs addressed to Kelce.” Meanwhile, the most personal—and potentially the most intriguing—piece on the album likely stands as “Ruin the Friendship,” devoid of Kelce and centering on an old acquaintance Swift regrets not pursuing romantically, prior to his demise. Contrast this with “Honey,” where Swift croons, “You can call me ‘honey’ if you want because I’m the one you want.” (Frankly: this hook proves exceptionally infectious, regardless of the lyrics’ relative lack of inspiration.) The most sentimental utterance occurs upon Swift’s aspiration for Kelce to function as her “forever-night stand,” as opposed to a one-night stand. (Upon initial hearing, I interpreted Swift’s reference as pertaining to furniture. Nightstands, after all, originate from wood.)
The lyrical shortcomings have instigated virulent and sexist anti-Swift sentiment exceeding anything I’ve witnessed in years. Certain individuals have even ventured to speculate that Alwyn ghostwrote Swift’s pieces all along, an especially devastating notion, considering Swift’s protracted struggles not solely to attain acknowledgment as a songwriter, but furthermore to assert ownership over her works. (I have consistently believed Swift overstated Alwyn’s contributions; during her description of his songwriting engagement during the “folklore” concert documentary, Jack Antonoff, a producer on the album, appeared surprised.) Certain Swifties, rather than propagating conspiracy theories or denouncing Kelce, have suggested that Swift’s output merely reflects the state of a content and wholesome relationship. “Even jake gyllenhaal was the most generic average dude and she wrote a TEN MINUTE song with incredible lyrics about him,” one fan noted—yet the song in question, “All Too Well,” centered on a breakup. Even Swift’s compositions regarding extant relationships frequently harbored an undercurrent of anxiety; I have previously documented how “Lover,” despite its title, resonated as rather heartbreaking, given Swift’s repeated invocation of marriage amidst wrestling with the notion of a “lover” who desires nothing beyond precisely that.
Swift’s lengthiest and most fervent relationship has invariably existed between herself and her devoted fanbase. The label most frequently employed is “parasocial”: Swift’s followers perceive familiarity, and cultivate profound, intimate ties. They maintain as much investment in her compositions as in her existence, and, at least until the present, these elements lacked conflict. “Travis isn’t, at this point, a tortured relationship,” one follower wrote last year on Reddit, within a thread concerning the preliminary wave of underwhelming Kelce pieces. “Happiness won’t generate the same level of penmanship.” Nonetheless, the fan articulated a preference for Swift’s contentment: “Id rather the songs be average Taylor songs if it means she’s in a happy stable relationship.” In the aftermath of “Showgirl,” Swifties appear less understanding. “Can’t wait for the divorce album,” one publicized on X.
Should devotees posit that Swift’s happiness constitutes the root issue within “The Life of a Showgirl,” I would encourage revisiting the album. Resentment—directed towards virtually everyone sans Kelce—permeates the compositions. She harbors adversaries in Hollywood, within the music industry, and throughout the internet (“Everybody’s cutthroat in the comments”). Within “Wi$h Li$t,” where Swift distances herself from individuals desiring “three dogs that they call their kids”—a surprising lyric emanating from one who once proudly identified as a “childless cat lady”—she equally envisions commanding “the world to leave us the fuck alone, and they do.” As one longtime follower scribed on X, “For years it felt like she wrote songs that spoke to the core of the female experience at its most vulnerable. it felt like she lived and learned in parallel with her listeners, and that feeling is gone.” Swift stands poised to marry Kelce, yet it remains possible that, within “Showgirl,” she severs ties with us. ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
