Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” is sprinkled with nods to her fiancé, her family, and, of course, her adversaries — but the album’s most overt homage is to a Hollywood icon with no apparent personal connection to the author.
The second song on “Showgirl” is named “Elizabeth Taylor” after the famous actor, who died in 2011 at 79 of congestive heart failure. Taylor became a box-office sensation in the ’50s and is often cited as the highest-paid movie star of the ’60s, largely thanks to a historic multi-million payday for 1963’s “Cleopatra.”
Today, Swift is likewise renowned as a commercial force; last year, the Eras Tour became the first to gross over $2 billion, and “Showgirl” just scored the biggest album sales week in history.
The two women also share a knack for captivating critics, casual onlookers, and tabloids with their romantic exploits. Taylor’s name is synonymous with her eight marriages and seven husbands, which earned her a reputation as a dangerous seductress. The producers and distributors of “Cleopatra” even sued Taylor and her costar-turned-husband, Richard Burton, for “depreciating the commercial value of the movie by their ‘scandalous’ conduct,” The New York Times reported. (Both Taylor and Burton were married to other people when they began filming.)
Swift has sparked similar moral outrage and mockery for her “string of high-profile romances” and “super intense relationship patterns.” Swift has repeatedly rejected this narrative: While promoting her 2017 album “Reputation,” she observed that analysis of her music is often reduced to a “paternity test.”
“My mistakes have been used against me, my heartbreaks have been used as entertainment, and my songwriting has been trivialized as ‘oversharing,'” Swift wrote.
Taylor’s son, Chris Wilding, even said in an interview last year that he admires Swift’s defiance, specifically citing Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for president, which she signed, “Childless Cat Lady.”
“Huge props to her,” Wilding told The Guardian. “That reminds me a little bit of the same spirit my mom had.”
Swift described the song ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ as a combination of cosplay and personal perspective
In a clip from “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” a theatrical event paired with the album’s release, Swift said “Elizabeth Taylor” explores themes of love, notoriety, and anxiety.
Swift also said the lyrics are woven with biographical details about Taylor, “but the feelings of what it conveys are things that I’ve absolutely experienced.”
Indeed, Swift sings to open the song, “Elizabeth Taylor, do you think it’s forever?” She uses the starlet’s name to evoke a sense of public scrutiny, posing a question like a cynical reporter (or, in Swift’s case, a gossip blogger). The lyric reads like an attention-grabbing headline.
During an interview with Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show,” Swift described Taylor as a role model for handling “immense pressure” and scrutiny.
“She kept making more and more daring art,” Swift said. “It’s almost like the more polarizing people were about her, the more she just kept doing even more challenging roles, taking bigger risks.”
Swift added that she admired how Taylor continued working diligently at the height of her fame and used humor to deflect attention from her detractors.
“I’ve done that with songs like ‘Blank Space,'” Swift said, referring to the No. 1 hit single she wrote as a satire of her serial-dater reputation. “I think you have to be able to combat negativity with humor.”
Swift’s song includes a reference to Portofino, where Taylor and Burton got engaged
In the first verse of “Elizabeth Taylor,” Swift sings, “That view of Portofino was on my mind when you called me at the Plaza Athénée.”
According to Taylor’s website, which is run by the trustees of her estate, Burton proposed to her in Portofino, Italy, in 1964, on a “wisteria-covered balcony” at the Hotel Splendido. Taylor’s website also states that she and Burton lived at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris for six months in 1971.
For her part, Swift was in Paris in May of last year, when she performed four shows at the La Défense Arena. Swift previously revealed that she wrote and recorded “Showgirl” during her downtime on the European leg of the Eras Tour — so it’s possible these lyrics were inspired by that stopover.
The reference also suggests that Swift was daydreaming about a romantic engagement, à la Burton’s proposal to Taylor, over a year before Kelce proposed in Missouri.
Swift also references Taylor’s eyes and her reputation
In the song’s hook, Swift sings, “If your letters ever said, ‘Goodbye’ / I’d cry my eyes violet, Elizabeth Taylor.”
Taylor was known for her striking eyes, which came across as blueish-purple onscreen.
In the second verse, Swift sings, “We hit the best booth at Musso and Frank’s / They say I’m bad news, I just say, ‘Thanks.'”
This lyric nods to a Hollywood hot spot, Musso & Frank Grill, which Taylor reportedly frequented in the ’50s. It also nods to Taylor’s reputation, both as an outspoken woman in a male-dominated industry and as a serial heartbreaker — in short, as “bad news.”
Confronted with the same accusation, Swift’s semi-autobiographical narrator responds with dry sarcasm.
In the song’s bridge, Swift reasserts the power of her legacy
Like many of the tracks on “Showgirl,” “Elizabeth Taylor” is ostensibly a love song.
Swift has frequently expressed anxiety about making love last, as in 2019’s “The Archer” (“Who could ever leave me, darling, but who could stay?”), 2020’s “Peace” (“Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?”), and 2024’s “The Prophecy” (“I’m so afraid I sealed my fate, no sign of soulmates”).
Swift’s romantic anxiety is reinforced by her past experiences with dating in the public eye, as she observes in the first verse of “Elizabeth Taylor” (“All the right guys promised they’d stay / Under bright lights, they withered away”).
However, in the song’s bridge, Swift takes pride in the body of work she has built off those disappointments: “All my white diamonds and lovers are forever / In the papers, on the screen, and in their minds.”
Not only is this a reference to Taylor’s famous collection of jewels and her signature fragrance, “White Diamonds,” but Swift seems to compare her own songs to precious gems or historical artifacts. Swift’s lovers and experiences are immortalized in her discography, much like the enduring legacy of Taylor’s filmography.
This isn’t the first time Swift has name-dropped Taylor in a song
Swift previously referenced Taylor in “…Ready For It?” in 2017. The opening track on “Reputation” is about the thrills and fantasies sparked by a budding romance.
“He can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor / Every love I’ve known in comparison is a failure,” Swift sings. “I forget their names now / I’m so very tame now / Never be the same now.”
Taylor was famously married twice to Burton. As husband and wife, they costarred in classic films like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966) and “The Taming of the Shrew” (1967).
In keeping with the core theme of Swift’s sixth album “Reputation” — love and tenderness coexisting with scandal and notoriety — Wilding told The Guardian that his mother was the “dominant figure” in her relationship with Burton: “He’s sitting there quietly, and she’s protecting him, fending off reporters and taking charge.”
Wilding also said he never questioned his mother’s cycle of marriage and divorce, despite the media frenzy it inspired.
“It seemed normal,” Wilding said. “She was the anchor and the constant factor.”
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