From March 17, 2023, to Dec. 8, 2024, singer and songwriter Taylor Swift captivated audiences at “The Eras Tour” in rhinestone-studded costumes, performed choreographed routines in heels and sang her heart out to screaming fans — all while living the life of a showgirl.

On Aug. 13, Swift made a guest appearance on Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, announcing her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl” and its Oct. 3 release date. This album was created during the European leg of “The Eras Tour.”

During that same episode, Swift says the color orange, which is the new album’s designated color, is very energetic to her and represents the intense energy she felt behind the scenes of the tour.

“She’s dancing in her garters and fishnets/ Fifty in the cast, zero missteps/ Looking back, I guess it was kismet,” Swift sings in the album’s title song.

From lyrics promising to protect her family to the intoxicatingly sweet feeling of being called “honey,” Swift’s new collaboration with producers Max Martin and Shellback might be her best yet — is it too good to be true?

“Wood” it kill her to be sexual?

With steamy alternative album covers featuring Swift in lingerie, the album seemed to promise an exploration of sexuality. However, in the album itself, Swift plays more on the safe side, focusing on the simplicities of a relationship as sung in “Wi$h Li$t.”

“I just want you/ Have a couple kids, got the whole block lookin’ like you,” Swift sings.

Yet, the implication of a long Redwood tree in “Wood” has garnered some attention, with Page Six labeling it her “raunchiest track yet.”

However, this attempt to be “raunchy” comes off as an attempt to use sexual innuendos like singer-songwriter Sabrina Carpenter, who is most known for embracing her sexuality.

The lyrics, “He ah-matized me and opened my eyes/ Redwood tree, it ain’t hard to see/ His love was they key that opened my thighs” seem too obvious of innuendo compared to Carpenter’s “I get wet at the thought of you/ Being a responsible guy/ Treating me like you’re supposed to do/ Tears run down my thighs” from her song “Tears.” 

The tree analog just seems too common, especially when Swift is known for her lyricism.

The life of a millennial and their cringe

In her songs “The Fate of Ophelia” — I consider “keep it one hundred” classic millennial cringe — and “CANCELLED!” Swift uses terms that Gen Z and other generations have labeled “Millennial cringe.”

The words “girlboss,” “basic,” “on fleek” and “bae” call back the 2010s, when Millennials were sporting business casual blazers everywhere, insisting “coffee first” and viewing the addition of a mustache anywhere as peak humor, causing everyone to embarrassingly remember this period and its choices.

Although the lyrics “Did you girlboss too close to the sun” from “CANCELLED!” seem millenial cringe-coded at first listen, I can’t help but think of actress Blake Lively and her relationship with Swift.

Following Lively’s movie “It Ends With Us,” both she and the film’s director and co-star Justin Baldoni took legal actions against each other’s on-set behavior.

This led to both stars being scrutinized in the court of public opinion, and Lively was ultimately temporarily “cancelled” ​​— but don’t be surprised if everyone loves her in a couple of months. 

Owning her own hair care line, Blake Brown, and a ready-to-drink cocktail company, Betty Booze (which is named after her child, Betty, who Swift also named a song after), Lively is living the millennial girlboss dream of being a successful business owner.

The song and its cringey language match perfectly with Lively and Swift’s friendship narrative — because last I checked, they’re still friends?

The fate of Shakespeare

Another album, another Shakespearean reference: this time, it’s of “Hamlet.”

The song “The Fate of Ophelia” has me wondering if Swift had the same 12th-grade English class I did — my class read “Macbeth” instead of “Hamlet.”

In an interview, Swift says she doesn’t like how Shakespeare plays often have tragic endings — guess she didn’t read any of his comedies — and changes the endings to happy ones for her songs, like she did in “Love Story.”

This change does and doesn’t make sense for “The Fate of Ophelia.” 

Yes, Ophelia has a tragic ending of drowning after the death of her father and watching her lover, Hamlet, become progressively more violent and aggressive towards her. 

However, the complexities of her character and her fate are just too complex to reference in a song. 

At the same time, knowing Swift’s history of taking creative liberties with Shakespeare plays, I can’t fault her because what else should we expect besides a happy ending?

Actually good

Is the album lyrically advanced? No — its lyrics are fairly simple, but the album did what Swift sought to do: Create a time capsule from “The Eras Tour.”

It’s hard to resist the urge to sing along to the catchy lyrics of “Actually Romantic:” “But it’s actually sweet/ All the time you spent on me/ It’s honestly wild/ All the effort you’ve put in/ It’s actually romantic.”

Given her past relationships and how they ended, it’s refreshing listening to Swift be happy, and I can’t help but want to relish in the happiness with her. 

With that being said, don’t mind me listening to “The Life of a Showgirl” on repeat.

Adriana Gasiwski is editor-in-chief. Contact her at [email protected].