Everything We Know About Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ (So Far)

The title of The Life of a Showgirl was the first detail Swift revealed about the project, doing so in the New Heights clip, which was posted after a timer on her website ticked down to 12:12 a.m. ET on Aug. 12. But fans are already starting to come up with theories about what inspired the theatrical name, with some people pointing out that scenes from Gold Diggers of 1933 — a 92-year-old film about showgirls — just so happen to match the aesthetic of her Eras Tour performance of “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”

Swifties have also picked up on the fact that the musician likely wrote most or all of The Life of a Showgirl while putting on her own traveling show for two years straight on the Eras trek. “Okay wait I’m already obsessed with this album concept,” one fan wrote on X. “The Life of a Showgirl potentially being about Taylor’s life during the eras tour, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, the physical and mental toll, the glitz and the glam, the celebrations, the constant travel, the longing and long distance… I am OBSESSED.”

For months, Swifties speculated that her incorporation of more and more orange outfits in the final stages of the Eras Tour meant that the star’s next album would have an orange theme — something that proved to be true when Swift finally announced The Life of a Showgirl, changing her website to have a sparkly clementine wallpaper, and updating her profile pictures on social media to show a similarly hued lock. Taylor Nation had also shared 12 images of Swift wearing orange on stage hours before the album was announced.

Later, on New Heights, Swift explained why she went with orange for this era. “I’ve just always liked it,” she said of the color. “It feels energetically how my life has felt, and this album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during [the Eras Tour].”

A second crucial color of the new era, however, appears to be mint green — and fans think they might have already figured out what it represents. “The colour scheme is copper oxidizing because a showgirl is on a pedestal for the world and over time, in the public eye they lose their shine…,” one person wrote on X, using the Statue of Liberty’s fade from bronze to green over time as an example.

After working almost exclusively with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner for about eight years, Swift has reunited with producers Max Martin and Shellback for The Life of a Showgirl. The pop star confirmed as much in an Instagram announcement, though fans had already figured it out after Swift curated a Spotify playlist for the new era — titled “And baby, that’s show business for you” — that included only songs she with the pop pioneers.

Martin and Shellback’s involvement is definitely exciting, as the pair helped Swift craft some of her biggest hits to date. Their previous collaborations include “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off,” each of which spent multiple weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

On Aug. 13, Swift also shared the cover art for The Life of a Showgirl. In the artwork, she is partially submerged in water while wearing a sparkly, showgirl-esque netting.

The track list for The Life of a Showgirl features 12 songs, as listed in order below.

While on New Heights, Swift emphasized that — unlike The Tortured Poets Department, which had 15 — The Life of a Showgirl will have no bonus tracks. “There’s no other songs coming,” she said on the podcast. “This is 12. There’s not a 13th … there’s not other songs coming.”

The reason behind keeping the album to a tight 12, Swift added, was because she said all she needed to say in the dozen songs she made while hunkered down with Max Martin and Shellback. “This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time,” she said.