What Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl Poems Reveal About Travis Kelce and Fame

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THE RUNDOWN

• Taylor Swift included original poems in each vinyl variant of her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.
• Swift writes about her life as a performer, fiancé Travis Kelce’s impact on her, and the thought of facing backlash again.
• Swifties have combined all of them to reveal the album’s full prologue.

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Just as she did with The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift wrote poems to accompany her new album, The Life of a Showgirl.

Each vinyl variant (a few of which are subtitled “The Tiny Bubbles in Champagne” and “The Shiny Bug”) includes a unique poem. Although each variant was only available to shop for 48 hours, fans who received them have pieced together each one to create the album’s prologue.

In one of the poems, Swift seemingly writes about the experience of rehearsing in locker rooms during her Eras Tour. (The singer wrote the album while doing her European shows.) “Coffee stretch / Piano keys / Vocal warm ups in a locker room shower / Eyelash glue / A photo of him on the mirror.”

Swift’s fiancé, Travis Kelce, spoke in 2023 about how she prepared for her Arrowhead Stadium concert near his locker in Kansas City, Missouri. “She’ll probably hate me for saying this, but…when she came to Arrowhead, they gave her the big locker room as a dressing room, and her little cousins were taking pictures…in front of my locker,” he recalled.

In her “The Fate of Ophelia” music video, Swift includes a photo of Kelce on her dressing room mirror as an Easter egg:

Swift focuses more on Kelce in “The Tiny Bubbles in Champagne” poem, writing about him traveling to watch her perform and how she feels like he is the one who is “reckless, but never with your heart / If he’s in, you are too / You’ve begun to feel that / Every song before was just a prayer / A wish list / He is not what you’ve been waiting for / He is more / Why you held out / Why you left / And nothing aches suddenly / He has that effect.” Swift has a track called “Wi$h Li$t” on the album where she sings about her hopes for her future with Kelce.

In another, she writes about getting older: “Remember this city? / You’ve been here before in another life / On another tour / Remember her? / She’s got a mortgage now.”

She also reflected on the idea of facing backlash again, alluding to her Reputation era and recovery from that: “Perhaps someday they will despise you again / Perhaps it is not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when?’” She adds, “But you live by a strict code / Never believe your own mythology / Never type your name into the search bar / Let the wolves howl all they want / So you keep yourself too busy to ever learn what’s-their-name’s name.”

Swift spoke in her Official Release Party of a Showgirl film about how she copes with people “canceling” her and others:

“[Being canceled is] something everyone goes through now. It’s not just like a public figure type whatever, it’s like people gossiping about you in your town, negative comments you read on your Instagram. You can literally feel canceled by any sort of social backlash that you get. And I’ve been through a lot of discussion about everything that happens in my life and everything I do and everything I say and so I tend to like—first of all, anytime people get backlash, I tend to be the person they reach out to so it’s very funny because it’s just sort of like, ‘Oh yeah, OK, somebody told me that you got in trouble for making that joke. Hey, yeah, how are you doing? It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. Do you want to go to lunch? Yeah, it’s fine.’ And I don’t know, I kind of wanted to write a song about how you can become wiser for it and you can become sharper, and I definitely judge people a lot less now that I’ve been kind of under the microscope for so long. I just judge people based on who I know them to be, their actions, not like some kind of general consensus where people are like, ‘Step away! They’re radioactive.’ I’m just not going to do that. I’m going to do that if somebody proves that they’re not a good person.”

Swift purposely wrote all the poems to give her fans a special experience. She explained, “I really spent a lot of time figuring out how I could make the best vinyl product and the best packaging and the best CD experience that they could have. So the CDs all have photo cards in them, the vinyls each have a poem inside of them, a unique poem. They’ve got more images than we ever planned to put in there.”

Read all of the poems in full below, courtesy of Genius, which offer a intimate portrait of Swift’s life on tour:

You wake up branded with the lines of pillow creases
Thunderbolted tree roots across your cheek
In turn, last night’s mascara stains the ivory hotel pillowcase
Each one leaving their mark on the other
Looks like you’re even
You say “good morning” to them when you walk in and they don’t correct you
As they spray vodka on the armpits of the dancer’s costumes
We learn these tricks along the way
The flesh toned bandage wrap
Covered by skin colored fishnets
Because you will cover the wound, no matter how deep it is
No one ever knew
And baby, that’s show business for you

Coffee stretch
Piano keys
Vocal warm ups in a locker room shower
Eyelash glue
A photo of him on the mirror
Sweat and vanilla perfume
The cracking of joints and the distant beat of a drum
The curtain call
The monotonous thrill of it all
Plan it out so it doesn’t look planned
Ten different backup plans
If your red bottomed heel breaks
You will keep strutting
Balancing on the walls of your blistered feet
Know your exits
Shoulders back
Eyes up
Hit your marks
Your winks
Sparks
Tell them a story like it’s an intimate dinner party
The looks on their wondrous faces
Their expressions like mood rings
Isn’t it all so majestic?
Of course it is
It’s a lot of other things too

Remember this city?
You’ve been here before in another life
On another tour
Remember her?
She’s got a mortgage now
Straight teeth where there’d been metal brackets
Standing with her 8-year-old daughter
You mouth “I know you”
In the millisecond gap in your choreography
To you, she will look exactly the same age as when you first saw her
She will always be 14-and-a-half
Remember
Lock right back into the footwork
Any missed step is a misstep
You must remember everything
But mostly this: the crowd is your king who has ruled over you for centuries
Benevolently for the most part

Perhaps someday they will despise you again
Perhaps it is not a matter of “if,” but “when?”
They’ll re-assess your merits and then take a magnifying glass to the shiny bug
Deflate all the heroes they had decided she was
And maybe they’ll do it just because
But you live by a strict code
Never believe your own mythology
Never type your name into the search bar
Let the wolves howl all they want
So you keep yourself too busy to ever learn what’s-their-name’s name

He ran to his car from work to catch the flight
Missed the first act but somehow it’s better this way
It’s just right because you get to watch him make his way through the masses
Parting the crowd like some neon Moses in a sequin sea
He is a magnet and a trampoline
The tiny bubbles in champagne
Haphazard but precise, he crash-landed next to you
Reckless, but never with your heart
If he’s in, you are too
You’ve begun to feel that
Every song before was just a prayer
A wish list
He is not what you’ve been waiting for
He is more
Why you held out
Why you left
And nothing aches suddenly
He has that effect

Tonight all these lives converge here
The mosaics of laughter and cocktails of tears
Where fraternal souls sing identical things
And it’s beautiful, it’s rapturous, it is frightening
It’s worth everything it has cost you
And even at your darkest or drunkest
You wouldn’t say any different
Would you?
You would choose all of it again
No matter how the story ends
With the ugliest boos or the loveliest bouquet
They say that love is a choice you make every single day
And that is how you love the life of a showgirl