Who Are Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Songs About?

Taylor Swift‘s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, seems to include references to several people from her life.

Nearly two months after first revealing the album on her fiancé Travis Kelce and his brother Jason Kelce‘s podcast, New Heights, Swift’s 12th studio album officially arrived on Oct. 3. During her appearance on New Heights, Swift explained that The Life of a Showgirl was written during her Eras Tour, and that the theme of the album is “everything that was going on behind the curtain.”

“My main goals were melodies that were so infectious that you’re almost angry at it and lyrics that are just as vivid but crisp and focused and completely intentional,” she said of the album, which was written in collaboration with Shellback and Max Martin.

She went on to explain that album “isn’t really about what happened to me on stage,” but rather, “what I was going through off stage.”

So, who are Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl songs about? Here’s everything to know about the inspiration (both speculated and confirmed) behind each track.

Track 1: “The Fate of Ophelia”

The album opens with Track 1, “The Fate of Ophelia,” a love song that nods to her romance with Kelce.

Ophelia is a reference to the Shakespearean character who was driven mad by love and eventually died by drowning. During her appearance on the U.K. radio show Heart Breakfast on the day of the album’s release, “The hook is someone comes into your life and rescues you from the fate of being driven mad by love.”

As fans might’ve guessed, that “someone” is Kelce, as she confirmed on the radio show when she confirmed that the lyric, “Keep it 100,” is a play on numerology, given it is her and Kelce’s favorite numbers, 13 and 87, combined.

“No longer drowning and deceived / All because you came for me,” she sings in the bridge, before ending the track singing, “You saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.”

Track 2: “Elizabeth Taylor”

Track 2, “Elizabeth Taylor,” directly references the late Hollywood legend whose career was sometimes overshadowed by her high-profile personal life, including her tragic love story with Richard Burton. The track seems to hear Swift plead with the actress for confirmation that she’s found the one.

“Elizabeth Taylor / Do you think it’s forever?” Swift sings. “Tell me for real / Do you think it’s forever?”

Elsewhere in the song, she seems to nod to the actress in several other Easter eggs. She sings, “That view of Portofino was on my mind,” seemingly referencing the Italian village where Burton proposed to Taylor in 1964.

Swift also sings about her calling at the Plaza Athénée, a nod to the Parisian hotel where Burton and Taylor once stayed, per Vanity Fair.

Track 3: “Opalite”

Track 3, “Opalite,” seems to be another nod to her romance with Kelce, beginning with its title, which references the football player’s October birthstone.

As for the lyrics, Swift sings about previously being “sleepless in the onyx night,” and having never met anyone “like you.”

In the Track by Track version of the album on Amazon Music, Swift said the song is about “choosing happiness, and getting through rough times, adversity, and really choosing your own joy and your own sort of path to joy.”

She added, “It didn’t just happen accidentally to you.”

Track 4: “Father Figure”

Swift’s Track 4, “Father Figure,” pays homage to the late George Michael‘s iconic song of the same name, though puts an entirely different spin on it.

“I was your father figure / You pulled the wrong trigger / This empire belongs to me,” she sings.

During an Oct. 3 appearance on BBC1, Swift shared that the track uses “the idea of a father figure” to “talk about power, power structures and the flipping of the power dynamics.”

Swift also shared in the Track by Track version that the lyrics of “Father Figure” are the stuff she’s “always wanted to say.”

While Swift hasn’t confirmed who the subject of the song is, internet sleuths are speculating it was written from the perspective of her former mentor, Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta, who sold the label to Scooter Braun in 2019 in a career-defining move that gave him control of Swift’s first six albums.

In May 2025, Swift announced she had bought back her music catalog six years after the saga began.

Track 5: “Eldest Daughter”

On the highly anticipated Track 5, Swift, who confirmed on the Track by Track version that it’s a “love song,” sings about accepting the love she thought she would never find.

“Everyone has things that matter to them, and people that matter to them,” she said. “This song really kind of gets to the heart of, when someone gets close enough to you to earn your trust, that’s when you can admit to them that you actually really do care about some things.”

The song seems to be Swift, an elder daughter, nodding to her love story with Kelce, a younger child.

“When I said I don’t believe in marriage that was a lie / Every eldest daughter was the first lamb to the slaughter,” she sings. “Every youngest child felt they were raised up in the wild / But now you’re home.”

Track 6: “Ruin the Friendship”

When the track list was announced, many fans were quick to assume that “Ruin the Friendship” might be about her taking a step back from her longtime friend, Blake Lively, after Swift got wrapped up in the actress’ ongoing lawsuit with her It Ends With Us costar Justin Baldoni.

However, it’s actually an emotional ballad in which Swift explores the subjects of unrequited love and regret, telling the story of a high school crush with a tragic ending. Though she hasn’t commented on who the inspiration is behind the song, there are parallels pointing to her late high school friend, Jeffrey Lang, who died at 21 years old on Nov. 10, 2010.

“It was not an invitation / But should have kissed you anyway,’ she sings. “And it was not convenient / But your girlfriend was away / Should have kissed you anyway.”

Swift continues, “My advice is to always ruin the friendship / Better that than regret it for all time.”

Swift also reveals she “lost track” of the song’s subject after graduation before her best friend Abigail Anderson called “with the bad news.”

One day after Lang’s funeral, Swift paid tribute to him as she accepted the country songwriter of the year honor at the 2010 BMI Country Awards.

“It’s been a really emotional week for me,” Swift said in the speech, going on to open up about Lang’s death. “He was 21, and I used to play my songs for him first. So I would like to thank Jeff Lang.”

Track 7: “Actually Romantic”

Perhaps one of the buzziest on the album is “Actually Romantic,” which many believe is a diss track pointed at British pop star Charli xcx, who also has a song titled “Everything Is Romantic” on Brat.

Swift sings of a fellow songwriter of calling her “boring Barbie,” adding that they “High-fived my ex and then said you’re glad he ghosted me.”

Notably, Charli is now married to George Daniel, drummer for The 1975, while Swift previously dated the band’s frontman Matty Healy. Charli is also close friends with Healy and his fiancée Gabbriette Bechtel.

Elsewhere in the track, Swift says the subject wrote her a song “sayin’ it makes you sick to see my face,” which fans think is a nod to Charli’s track “Sympathy Is a Knife,” which many believe pointed to a rumored feud between the singers.

In the Track by Track version of the album, Swift says the song is about “realizing that someone else has kind of had a one-sided, adversarial relationship with you that you didn’t know about.”

She continued, “You’ve been living in their head rent-free and you had no idea. It’s presenting itself as them sort of resenting you or having a problem with you but you take that and just accept it as love and you accept it as attention and affection, and how flattering that somebody has made you such a big part of their reality when you didn’t even think about this.”

Track 8: “Wi$h Li$t”

Adding to the list of love songs on the album is “Wi$h Li$t,” which is seemingly about the Grammy winner being willing to trade in her riches for a simple life with the football star.

Swift sings about wanting to “have a couple kids” and for the world to leave them “alone,” going on to say that she “made wishes on all the stores” for God to bring her a “best friend / Who I think is hot.”

Track 9: “Wood”

Though it is perhaps the raunchiest track of the album, Swift shared during the Track by Track version of the album that “Wood” is a “very, very sentimental love song.”

The track hears Swift sing about finding a life partner after being lucky in love, so it makes sense for it to be about her fiancé, Kelce.

While she sings about knowing a “hard rock is on the way” and a “curse being broken” by the subject’s “magic wand,” she also directly references her future husband’s podcast, New Heights.

“New Heights (New Heights) of manhood (Manhood) / I ain’t gotta knock on wood,” Swift sings.

Track 10: “CANCELLED!”

Swift shared in the Track by Track version that “CANCELLED!” is about having her “own experiences with mass judgement” and being at the center of “dramatic” scandalous moments in her career, leading her to move through the world differently when she sees other people go through it.

Fans are speculating that it might be about Lively, who has received a flood of backlash in the wake of her legal saga with Baldoni, as a way of showing the world that she is standing by her friend. Meanwhile, others are theorizing it was written about her friendship with Brittany Mahomes, who was criticized on social media in August 2024 after she reportedly liked an Instagram post shared by President Donald Trump.

“I don’t naturally just cast people aside just because other people decide they don’t like them,” Swift said in the Track by Track version. “I make my own decisions about people based on how they treat me within my life, and their actions.”

Track 11: “Honey”

Track 11, “Honey,” seems to be another song dedicated to her future husband. Swift opens up the track singing, “You can call me honey if you want because I’m the one you want.”

In the Track by Track version of the album, Swift shared that the song is about how “words that have been meant to hurt you in the past can be repurposed by someone who loves you in a way that feels totally different.”

She continued that someone calling you “honey” in a condescending way is very different from it being used in a “sincere” and “lovely way.”

During her appearance on New Heights, Kelce revealed that “sweetie” is one of his pet names for Swift, so it’s likely that she is referring to her beau’s twist on the term of endearment.

Track 12: “The Life of a Showgirl” (ft. Sabrina Carpenter)

The album closes with “The Life of a Showgirl,” a duet featuring Sabrina Carpenter, a fitting choice given the pop star opened for Swift on the Eras Tour.

Swift and Carpenter bring to life the story of Kitty, a seasoned (though fictional) showgirl passing her wisdom to the next generation of performers. The pop stars sing of sisterhood, sharing the spotlight and the challenges that come with life on stage and behind the scenes.

In the Track by Track version, she says her character in the song is “inspired” by Kitty, who “tells it like it is” and warns of the life of a showgirl beyond the “glitter and the glamour.”

“It’s kind of an ode to show business and the women who move through those pitfalls and obstacle courses,” she said. “I thought, who better to ask to be a part of this song than the ultimate showgirl, Sabrina Carpenter?”

For more on Taylor Swift, pick up PEOPLE’s newly updated special edition Taylor Swift A to Z: A Showgirl’s Life, out now.