October 3, 2025 • 11 mins
Taylor Swift calls in to reveal her inspiration and the meaning behind her brand-new album, "The Life of a Showgirl"! From sourdough theories to "complicated joy", she dives deep into the life of a true showgirl.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Live from the Mercedes Benz Interview Lounge.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
So unless you're living in a cave, and caves are
great living by the way, the Life of a Showgirl,
Taylor Swift's album is back.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
We caught up with her on the road. She's on
the phone, Taylor. Oh hi, oh hello.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Look who had time in the busiest day of the
year to give us a phone Callay?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm so good. I'm so excited for this record. I'm
still very like uncomplicated joy about it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You know, well, I have to tell you I sat
in a room full of adults and watch them cry
while listening to some of these tracks.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I want to go over these with you because I
loved it too.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Oh really, this is going to be something special when
everyone gets a hold of it. And it looks like
everyone is going to get a hold of it.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I'm so happy. I'm really happy to hear that. It's
so nice to have feedback from this. It's like it's
been such a secret for such a long time.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
We let's talk about that. Tell me the story now.
On the most crazy two year tour and you're going
to football games and you're baking sourdough bread and you
were writing, producing, and recording an album at the same time.
Tell me the story of how that happened. It didn't
(01:16):
drive you a little nuts, Well, it was actually kind.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Of the opposite of going nuts, because I think if
I hadn't started to create a process of making this
album while I was on tour, I think I was
way more exhausted than I was, because like this album.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Started to happen in the European.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Like of the Eras tour, like last summer, and it
was during a time in the tour I.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Was so physically exhausted that like my feet were sore,
my legs were sore.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
My hits, my net right back, everything was like in
pain all the time.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
And it was also like almost two.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Years into the tour, so I was starting to get
muscle memory. I was starting to be able to do
the show without thinking about it. So I knew I
needed to like stimulate my brain and my creativity and
like figure out a way to like be excited every day.
And so I would do three shows, I'd fly to
Sweden and record, do three more shows, fly back to Sweden.
And it was actually that stimulation of the creative process
(02:23):
of making this record that made me finish out that
tour without like without ever like hitting a wall.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
You know, look at all those Sweden stamps in that passport.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I don't even know where to start here. I'll start
with the crying in the Room and I'm going to
play it in a minute. The Fate of Ophelia. Of course,
I add to the list of things you were doing.
You're restudying Hamlet again, so we'll get into that.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
But yeah, you know, that story never leaves you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
There is something about the way the music sonically hits
the words and it really kind of grabs you by
the heart.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's beautiful. We're gonna play that in just a second.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh, I'm so happy you'd like that one. That one
just like as soon as we wrote it, I had
a feeling it would be the one that we would
go with first, and the one I'd get to make
a music video for because it's just so visual and
also just like so infectious.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I love it. And I want to talk about your
Easter eggs.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
Like so many of your fans, you know, hear these
Easter eggs or see these Easter eggs.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Are they really always there?
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Or is there times where you go Yeah, that's not
really a hint.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
That's not really an easter egg.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, there are definitely some theories that are based in
absolutely nothing close to reality, but you know what, like
there are some that are so fun when they figure
them out. Like, like just yesterday, somebody figured out that
if you line up the titles of all the tracks
of this album in order and you line them up
(03:54):
in the center of the frame, the shape of the
track list makes the same in shape at the Eras
tour stage. Wow. So that was a real one. That
was one that it took a while for them to
discover and then finally they figured it out and it
was really fun. But then there's somewhere like people thought
(04:14):
that somehow sour though bread was a part of the
whole thing, when actually that's I bake. I love baking.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
It's completely aside from my music.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
It's just a hobby.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I'm obsessed to it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
There's a track on this album about sourdough. I know
there is, I.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Know there's not, there's not. But yeah, it's been really
funny to like to have people care that much, you know,
because ultimately easter bites are always leading towards more art.
They're leading towards lyrics or art that's coming in the future.
So I wouldn't be able to do that if the
fans didn't care so much about the music itself, which
(04:51):
I'm very honored by.
Speaker 5 (04:52):
So we always say that your albums are really like
a diary, and then you just open it up and
you share your diary with the world. And you've done
this twelve so twelve different diaries. But in doing it,
are there lyrics that you can think of right now
that were just incredibly difficult for you to write and
then open up and share with people.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Not really, I don't really operate that way. Like my
music is a way of like it's the art of Catharsis,
Like there will be times where I'll write the most
gut wrenching song of torment and heartbreak, and then as
soon as I'm done writing it, I'm done with that emotion.
Like it's almost been a way of just sort of
like you say the thing and then you can move
(05:32):
on from the thing.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
But I just have like kind of learned as kind has.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Gone by to sort of deal with writing in terms
of from the character or story, arts or fiction or
in this record, like there's a song called Elizabeth Taylor,
which is.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Sort of like my emotions and my issues.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
With same through the lens of cause playing the life
of Elizabeth Taylor, so you kind of meld the two
experiences together because she's always someone that I've looked up
to as being this very very glamorous, very beloved but
for some reason a polarizing figure, which I've found myself
in that place too.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
So it's been really fun, right, Yeah, I love writing.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I've always been a massive fan because I guess it's
the you know, the old gay thing. But uh, I mean,
she would just navigate through life just looking flawless at
all times. But you know, as soon as the door closed,
she was throwing.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
She was funny, She was hilarious, but she was funny.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And I think she's just a fabulous role model and
like person that I hope my fans will look her
up and see how much she went through and how
she was making her best art, like even at the
midst of people's outrage over something in her life, like
she continued being at the top of her game in
terms of her artistic output.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Well good, I mean, a whole new audience needs to
learn a lot more about Elizabeth Taylor. And so I
was listening to the song, I was thinking, this is
definitely an homage to her, but it's actually a homage
to yourself as well.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
And I love that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And also opal Light talking the experiences talk about opal Light,
Is that is that the one that has the lyric
It's my favorite lyric on the album You're dancing through
the Lightning strikes?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Is that that's from that? The song?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, I'm glad you liked that one. That's one of
my favorite songs on the record.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
But you can actually see choreography, you can see someone
dancing through the lightning strikes. What a powerful line that is.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Love that. And also it's about it's about.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Choosing happiness in your own life, you know, like Opal
Light isn't is a man made opal It's just like
you know how they have man made diamonds now like.
And so I love that sort of reference and metaphor.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Between making your own.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Like gemstone and then manufacturing your own happiness even when
things aren't going your way.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Also, if you're a size queen, father figure is a
nice selection.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh father figures a girl.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Right, So I love that one. I love that one.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
No one's going to ask you who that's about, but
it's sure is applavable to all of our lives.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
It's a song. It's a song about power, and it's
a it's got a really good metaphor about the way
that men moved through the world in a sense of power.
And it's kind of like you kind of can't tell
if I'm singing from the perspective of the angenou or
of the father figure mentor character, and that's by design.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Wow, awesome, you know, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
You mentioned earlier you just talked about making your own happiness,
and when we started this call, you said that you're
feeling uncomplicated joy. What to you is complicated joy? Because
that made me really think about, huh, what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I think I want some of that.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
That's a good question. Complicated joy around a record release
is when you wrote the album a year ago, when
you were in a very different place emotionally than you
are when you wrote it. Let's say you wrote a
heartbreak album and now you're very happy, or let's say
you wrote a happy album and now you're very heartbroken,
like or any kind of variation on that. When you
feel that you're in a different place and now you're
(09:10):
putting out art that you're proud of, but you don't
relate to anymore. I really relate to this record because
I'm in the same exact place as I was when
I wrote it.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Wow, we're about to play the Fate of Ophelia, the
one that makes people in the room cry. But first
before you have one more second to talk about Life
of a Showgirl. I mean this track, I'm trying to
figure out where it's from. I mean, it's it is
it so simple, it is exactly what it is. You
out there on the road doing your thing.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Talk to me about that.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The song the Life of a show Girls the song
that I did with Sabrina Carpenter, because it's about it's
a story about meeting one of your idols and telling
them you want to do this too, you want to
follow those footsteps. And I think a lot of people
in the entertainment industry have had this happen. Your idol
warns you not to do it, not to follow in
(10:04):
their footsteps because of how hard this industry is. And
it's about taking that advice and completely disregarding it and
doing it. Anyway, and I wanted the brain it to
be the person who did the duet with me on
it because I just think she's so smart and like
cut out for this job, if you want to call
it a job. It's really a all encompassing life path.
(10:27):
And I think she's like just so brilliant and tough
in a way. She's very sensitive in terms of being
an artist, but she can handle herself. So I just
thought that she would be kind of a great person
to collaborate with on that song in particular. And it's
the last song on the record, so it really ends
out the story of the album.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
This is what you do, Elvis.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
If someone wants to be in radio, you tell them
run the other run, run from your life.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Live to tell others the life of a showgirl. It's
out today. There's so many great stories, and you were
the best story teller. Let me give you the fatal ophilia. Congratulations, Taylor.
Thanks for being on with us today.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Thank you so much, Thanks for listening to music, and
I hope you guys have a great to day.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
K you too. Take care,
Live from the Mercedes Benz Interview Lounge.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
So unless you're living in a cave, and caves are
great living by the way, the Life of a Showgirl,
Taylor Swift's album is back.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
We caught up with her on the road. She's on
the phone, Taylor. Oh hi, oh hello.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Look who had time in the busiest day of the
year to give us a phone Callay?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm so good. I'm so excited for this record. I'm
still very like uncomplicated joy about it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You know, well, I have to tell you I sat
in a room full of adults and watch them cry
while listening to some of these tracks.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I want to go over these with you because I
loved it too.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Oh really, this is going to be something special when
everyone gets a hold of it. And it looks like
everyone is going to get a hold of it.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I'm so happy. I'm really happy to hear that. It's
so nice to have feedback from this. It's like it's
been such a secret for such a long time.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
We let's talk about that. Tell me the story now.
On the most crazy two year tour and you're going
to football games and you're baking sourdough bread and you
were writing, producing, and recording an album at the same time.
Tell me the story of how that happened. It didn't
(01:16):
drive you a little nuts, Well, it was actually kind.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Of the opposite of going nuts, because I think if
I hadn't started to create a process of making this
album while I was on tour, I think I was
way more exhausted than I was, because like this album.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Started to happen in the European.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Like of the Eras tour, like last summer, and it
was during a time in the tour I.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Was so physically exhausted that like my feet were sore,
my legs were sore.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
My hits, my net right back, everything was like in
pain all the time.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
And it was also like almost two.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Years into the tour, so I was starting to get
muscle memory. I was starting to be able to do
the show without thinking about it. So I knew I
needed to like stimulate my brain and my creativity and
like figure out a way to like be excited every day.
And so I would do three shows, I'd fly to
Sweden and record, do three more shows, fly back to Sweden.
And it was actually that stimulation of the creative process
(02:23):
of making this record that made me finish out that
tour without like without ever like hitting a wall.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
You know, look at all those Sweden stamps in that passport.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I don't even know where to start here. I'll start
with the crying in the Room and I'm going to
play it in a minute. The Fate of Ophelia. Of course,
I add to the list of things you were doing.
You're restudying Hamlet again, so we'll get into that.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
But yeah, you know, that story never leaves you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
There is something about the way the music sonically hits
the words and it really kind of grabs you by
the heart.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's beautiful. We're gonna play that in just a second.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh, I'm so happy you'd like that one. That one
just like as soon as we wrote it, I had
a feeling it would be the one that we would
go with first, and the one I'd get to make
a music video for because it's just so visual and
also just like so infectious.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I love it. And I want to talk about your
Easter eggs.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
Like so many of your fans, you know, hear these
Easter eggs or see these Easter eggs.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Are they really always there?
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Or is there times where you go Yeah, that's not
really a hint.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
That's not really an easter egg.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, there are definitely some theories that are based in
absolutely nothing close to reality, but you know what, like
there are some that are so fun when they figure
them out. Like, like just yesterday, somebody figured out that
if you line up the titles of all the tracks
of this album in order and you line them up
(03:54):
in the center of the frame, the shape of the
track list makes the same in shape at the Eras
tour stage. Wow. So that was a real one. That
was one that it took a while for them to
discover and then finally they figured it out and it
was really fun. But then there's somewhere like people thought
(04:14):
that somehow sour though bread was a part of the
whole thing, when actually that's I bake. I love baking.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
It's completely aside from my music.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
It's just a hobby.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I'm obsessed to it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
There's a track on this album about sourdough. I know
there is, I.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Know there's not, there's not. But yeah, it's been really
funny to like to have people care that much, you know,
because ultimately easter bites are always leading towards more art.
They're leading towards lyrics or art that's coming in the future.
So I wouldn't be able to do that if the
fans didn't care so much about the music itself, which
(04:51):
I'm very honored by.
Speaker 5 (04:52):
So we always say that your albums are really like
a diary, and then you just open it up and
you share your diary with the world. And you've done
this twelve so twelve different diaries. But in doing it,
are there lyrics that you can think of right now
that were just incredibly difficult for you to write and
then open up and share with people.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Not really, I don't really operate that way. Like my
music is a way of like it's the art of Catharsis,
Like there will be times where I'll write the most
gut wrenching song of torment and heartbreak, and then as
soon as I'm done writing it, I'm done with that emotion.
Like it's almost been a way of just sort of
like you say the thing and then you can move
(05:32):
on from the thing.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
But I just have like kind of learned as kind has.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Gone by to sort of deal with writing in terms
of from the character or story, arts or fiction or
in this record, like there's a song called Elizabeth Taylor,
which is.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Sort of like my emotions and my issues.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
With same through the lens of cause playing the life
of Elizabeth Taylor, so you kind of meld the two
experiences together because she's always someone that I've looked up
to as being this very very glamorous, very beloved but
for some reason a polarizing figure, which I've found myself
in that place too.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
So it's been really fun, right, Yeah, I love writing.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I've always been a massive fan because I guess it's
the you know, the old gay thing. But uh, I mean,
she would just navigate through life just looking flawless at
all times. But you know, as soon as the door closed,
she was throwing.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
She was funny, She was hilarious, but she was funny.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And I think she's just a fabulous role model and
like person that I hope my fans will look her
up and see how much she went through and how
she was making her best art, like even at the
midst of people's outrage over something in her life, like
she continued being at the top of her game in
terms of her artistic output.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Well good, I mean, a whole new audience needs to
learn a lot more about Elizabeth Taylor. And so I
was listening to the song, I was thinking, this is
definitely an homage to her, but it's actually a homage
to yourself as well.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
And I love that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And also opal Light talking the experiences talk about opal Light,
Is that is that the one that has the lyric
It's my favorite lyric on the album You're dancing through
the Lightning strikes?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Is that that's from that? The song?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, I'm glad you liked that one. That's one of
my favorite songs on the record.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
But you can actually see choreography, you can see someone
dancing through the lightning strikes. What a powerful line that is.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Love that. And also it's about it's about.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Choosing happiness in your own life, you know, like Opal
Light isn't is a man made opal It's just like
you know how they have man made diamonds now like.
And so I love that sort of reference and metaphor.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Between making your own.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Like gemstone and then manufacturing your own happiness even when
things aren't going your way.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Also, if you're a size queen, father figure is a
nice selection.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh father figures a girl.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Right, So I love that one. I love that one.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
No one's going to ask you who that's about, but
it's sure is applavable to all of our lives.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
It's a song. It's a song about power, and it's
a it's got a really good metaphor about the way
that men moved through the world in a sense of power.
And it's kind of like you kind of can't tell
if I'm singing from the perspective of the angenou or
of the father figure mentor character, and that's by design.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Wow, awesome, you know, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
You mentioned earlier you just talked about making your own happiness,
and when we started this call, you said that you're
feeling uncomplicated joy. What to you is complicated joy? Because
that made me really think about, huh, what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I think I want some of that.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
That's a good question. Complicated joy around a record release
is when you wrote the album a year ago, when
you were in a very different place emotionally than you
are when you wrote it. Let's say you wrote a
heartbreak album and now you're very happy, or let's say
you wrote a happy album and now you're very heartbroken,
like or any kind of variation on that. When you
feel that you're in a different place and now you're
(09:10):
putting out art that you're proud of, but you don't
relate to anymore. I really relate to this record because
I'm in the same exact place as I was when
I wrote it.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Wow, we're about to play the Fate of Ophelia, the
one that makes people in the room cry. But first
before you have one more second to talk about Life
of a Showgirl. I mean this track, I'm trying to
figure out where it's from. I mean, it's it is
it so simple, it is exactly what it is. You
out there on the road doing your thing.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Talk to me about that.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The song the Life of a show Girls the song
that I did with Sabrina Carpenter, because it's about it's
a story about meeting one of your idols and telling
them you want to do this too, you want to
follow those footsteps. And I think a lot of people
in the entertainment industry have had this happen. Your idol
warns you not to do it, not to follow in
(10:04):
their footsteps because of how hard this industry is. And
it's about taking that advice and completely disregarding it and
doing it. Anyway, and I wanted the brain it to
be the person who did the duet with me on
it because I just think she's so smart and like
cut out for this job, if you want to call
it a job. It's really a all encompassing life path.
(10:27):
And I think she's like just so brilliant and tough
in a way. She's very sensitive in terms of being
an artist, but she can handle herself. So I just
thought that she would be kind of a great person
to collaborate with on that song in particular. And it's
the last song on the record, so it really ends
out the story of the album.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
This is what you do, Elvis.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
If someone wants to be in radio, you tell them
run the other run, run from your life.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Live to tell others the life of a showgirl. It's
out today. There's so many great stories, and you were
the best story teller. Let me give you the fatal ophilia. Congratulations, Taylor.
Thanks for being on with us today.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Thank you so much, Thanks for listening to music, and
I hope you guys have a great to day.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
K you too. Take care,
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