Background
On August 12, 2025, Swift announced The Life of a Showgirl in her official website and in an episode from the podcast New Heights , hosted by her fiancé and NFL player Travis Kelce. The same day, Swift also released exclusive and limited pre-orders of the new album in her shop while displaying a blurred version of the cover artwork. [2]
On August 13, 2025, Swift revealed the cover artwork and the official track listing, as well as the release date of October 3. One of the tracks revealed was "The Life of a Showgirl", in which Carpenter would be featured. [3]
Composition
"The Life of a Showgirl" is a mid-tempo country pop song, instrumented with slide guitars and strings. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Lyrically, the song begins in narration of the life a showgirl named "Kitty", who "made her money being pretty and witty". It delves into Kitty's backstory, then shifts to a recount of an interaction between Kitty and the narrator. [9] The song shifts perspective in the bridge, with the narrator experiencing the struggles of their own fame as a showgirl. [10] The song ends with a spoken outro, which depicts Swift and Carpenter closing a show together, with crowd noise sampled from the Eras Tour concert in Vancouver. [11]
Critical reception
The song received mixed reviews from critics. Pitchfork described the song as "a little schmaltzy", but also "proactive about introducing an independent personality with a story to tell", calling it "one of the moments when, musically, The Life of a Showgirl brushes up against a much better idea", further describing it as "a big, glorious pageant that inspires organic passion and camaraderie". [4] The Independent said that the song "serves as a grand finale, pairing the two singers’ voices in shimmering harmony as Swift symbolically takes a bow and hands the spotlight to the next generation." [8] Clash wrote that the song "doesn’t quite bring clarity to a scattered collection of songs", [12] and Consequence called the song "surprisingly limp". [13]
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