Amongst the subtle beginnings of an oft-forgotten track, Taylor Swift buries one of the most honest lyrics of her discography: “Suddenly this summer it’s clear,” she confesses over a simple guitar line on “peace,” “I never had the courage of my convictions / As long as danger is near.” Sonically understated, with an emotional climax built solely on the strength of its earnest lyricism, the track fits right in towards the end of folklore, Swift’s elegant alternative folk release which surprised fans at the height of the pandemic. “peace” ruminates on what have since become some of Swift’s favorite themes: love, fame, and whether either, or both, can end happily. “You got a friend in me,” she promises the object of her affections, but worries, “would it be enough if I could never give you peace?”

Five years after folklore and Taylor Swift seems to have found peace, or at least a version of it, in her post-Eras Tour career high, her football star of a fiance, and the completely expected commercial success of her October release, The Life of a Showgirl. As she sings on “Opalite,” one of Showgirl’s numerous boring love songs, “You had to make your own sunshine / But now the sky is opalite.” 

Showgirl, as an album, is largely a disappointment from an artist who tops every chart — a skill that, according to her fans, is based entirely on the strength of her songwriting, and not her stack of limited-release vinyls bolstering her sales numbers. Though its production is crisp, its lyrics are graceless at best and at worst, embarrassing and immature. With glitzy, manicured aesthetics but a sonic profile belonging in a Target commercial, the album lacks enough of a vision to justify its own synths. 

Conceptually, Showgirl is redundant, telling the same love-saved-me fairytale over and over. On the piano pop ballad “Eldest Daughter,” remarkable only for its cringe-inducing lyrics, Swift remembers, “So many traitors / Smooth operators / But I’m never gonna break that vow / I’m never gonna leave you now.” On “Elizabeth Taylor,” which hides a lack of genuine meaning under the cover of Old Hollywood imagery, Swift reiterates, “All the right guys promised they’d stay / Under bright lights, they withered away / But you bloom.” And on the album’s opening track and only single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift bastardizes Shakespeare references to regale the listener about being saved not only by love, but by a lover — by a man. “No longer drowning and deceived,” Swift sings, “All because you came for me.” The sentiment feels outdated in a world where even Vogue decries having a boyfriend — almost as outdated as Swift referring unironically to other women as bitches twice on the album. But Swift’s feminism has always been shoddy and self-serving, and any other political statements from her are few and far between. 

It was two years into the first Trump presidency when Swift broke her political silence for the first time, on October 8, 2018. Ahead of the midterm elections, Swift wrote in an Instagram post, “In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.” After staying quiet throughout Trump’s election in 2016, which coincided with the year she “disappeared” from the public eye, Swift seemed to have reached her political breaking point, endorsing Democratic congressional candidates Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper and citing her “Tennessee values.” 

Swift faced backlash from an alt-right contingent that had, in the absence of any contradiction, claimed her as their own. But for many fans, the post was a relief — the beginning of a brief uptick in Swift’s political engagement. 2019’s Lover unleashed a barrage of pseudo-political songs. “You Need to Calm Down” was the flashy single, proclaiming, “Shade never made anybody less gay,” complete with a rainbow-washed music video featuring what appears to be every queer celebrity in Swift’s contact list. “The Man,” an upbeat Girlboss anthem, lamented the gendered double standards imposed on her career, and “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” told a dystopian love story with Swift reciting, “American stories burning before me / I’m feeling helpless, the damsels are depressed / Boys will be boys then, where are the wise men?” Though Swift dips into politics in the verses, however, the chorus is sappy and self-absorbed: “It’s been a long time coming, but / It’s you and me, that’s my whole world.”

“Miss Americana” exposes an ugly truth: more often than not, Swift’s moments of political assertion are not a manifestation of fierce principles. Rather, current events provide a compelling context for her personal dramas. Now, while a second Trump presidency is in full nightmarish swing, The Life of a Showgirl sees Swift crooning about Travis Kelce’s sexual prowess and her suburban housewife fantasies: “Got me drеaming ‘bout a driveway with a basketball hoop,” she sings on “Wi$h Li$t,” “I just want you.”

Eerily silent amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza, tight-lipped through ICE raids, economic devastation and attacks on trans rights, Swift’s political convictions have never been less convincing. Usually a big fan of copyright law (see: Taylor’s Version), Swift has opted not to publicly comment on the Trump administration’s use of her music in three videos on social media, even when peers like Olivia Rodrigo and Beyonce have spoken out in the same situation.

“I never had the courage of my convictions,” Swift sang in July 2020 as COVID raged, just months after the police killing of George Floyd had ignited Black Lives Matter protests across the country. It’s awfully regular, in a time of great political unrest, to wonder if you’re not doing enough — if your workday, your organic produce, your ballot and your recycling bins are not enough of a down payment for the world you want to live in. But as a billionaire with a captive audience of millions — proven by the tens of thousands of whom registered to vote after she shared a link to Vote.org on Instagram in 2023 — Taylor Swift has the responsibility to put down a higher deposit.

But The Life of a Showgirl is a Taylor Swift album fit for the post-woke era. Stale and shimmeringly out of touch, it disproves the existence of any political backbone Swift might have been squirreling away, choosing instead to keep singing as the Titanic sinks.

The Indypendent is reader-funded. We publish a free monthly newspaper, a website, a weekly radio show on WBAI-99.5 FM and more. To make a one-time or recurring monthly donation, click here.