<\/p>\n
A new Taylor Swift era is upon us.<\/p>\n
Like smoke billowing up through the chimney at the Christmas tree farm, the signs were there throughout Monday. Yes, they were numerologically coded. Yes, they were quickly solved with the intensity and devotion of Charles Babbage breaking the Vigen\u00e8re cipher<\/a>. The state-sanctioned social account Taylor Nation posted a 12-photo carousel on Instagram with the caption: \u201cThinking about when she said \u2018See you next era\u2026\u2019\u201d A countdown to 12 minutes past midnight appeared on Swift\u2019s website. The podcasting community also got involved. Travis and Jason Kelce previewed an upcoming episode of their New Heights<\/em> show featuring a special guest, whose silhouette was blacked out but whose wavy hairline was immediately recognizable to anyone who has watched footage of an Eras Tour show performed in more than 50 percent humidity.\u00a0<\/p>\n At 12:12 a.m. Tuesday on the dot, the suspicions were confirmed. Swift\u2019s website updated with preorder links for her upcoming 12th album. And in joint posts from her own and the New Heights<\/em> social media accounts, Swift shared a clip of her interview on the show revealing its title, The Life of a Showgirl.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n The full interview will be out on Wednesday. But we already know a bit about this new era. Its color is orange. Not the rustic orange<\/a> that accented the Evermore<\/em> era, but bright, glittery orange, paired with a contrasting, shiny mint green. The album should be out by October 13, the date by which Swift\u2019s website promises to ship vinyls. Travis Kelce is already very involved in the promotion.<\/p>\n Also\u2014apparently, <\/em>if you believe the leaked lyrics\u2014Swift says the words \u201cmy dick.\u201d<\/p>\n Please stop reading now if you\u2019d like to avoid any mention of alleged leaks about the album, of which there have been many. Images of what look like the vinyl\u2019s liner notes\u2014containing track titles, the producer and writer credits, and half-blurry lyrics\u2014have made the rounds on the internet, especially on X, TikTok, and Reddit. I have no foolproof way of verifying whether any of this is real, but based on how quickly many of these leaks were taken down for copyright infringement, I\u2019m inclined to think they are. The leaked track list includes 12 songs, and their titles seem to match up with clues from the 12 photos in the Taylor Nation Instagram carousel; for example (according to the leaks), the 12th track includes a feature by Sabrina Carpenter, who is in the 12th photo, and the fourth song is called \u201cFather Figure,\u201d while the fourth photo is of Swift performing \u201cThe Man.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The leaked liner notes also contain what would be a major revelation about The Life of a Showgirl<\/em>, which is that Swift wrote the songs for this album exclusively with pop producers Max Martin and Shellback. And sure enough, Swift has added a playlist to her Spotify page<\/a>, branded in the aesthetics of this new era, of all the songs she\u2019s made with Martin and Shellback, from Red <\/em>to Reputation<\/em>. (By the way, she\u2019s back to using the original versions.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Martin doesn\u2019t own<\/em> pop production like he did six, 10, or even 25 years ago, but he\u2019s still a master craftsman, and his taut precision is something that\u2019s been missing from Swift\u2019s last few projects, which have mostly been collaborations with Jack Antonoff and the National\u2019s Aaron Dessner that have been a bit looser. Neither Antonoff\u2019s nor Dessner\u2019s name appears on the leaked vinyl. That\u2019s particularly notable in the case of Antonoff, who has been part of every Swift album for over a decade, though he could easily show up as a collaborator on bonus tracks. This recent post from the Electric Lady Studios IG account of him at work was conspicuous, and Swift loves a deluxe album.\u00a0<\/p>\n But back to \u201cmy dick.\u201d The lyric, allegedly<\/em>, comes from \u201cFather Figure.\u201d The full stanza is this:<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be your father figure<\/em> Crotch comparisons over a Max Martin dance beat? I know someone who\u2019s been streaming Babygirl<\/em>!<\/p>\n Is it a threat? A come-on? Is Taylor trying to find the words to say Daddy\u2019s home<\/em><\/a>? I love a Taylor Swift song that could be about Kelce or Scooter Braun or Olivia Rodrigo. I love a Taylor Swift song that says \u201cmy dick\u201d! Swift has gotten more freewheeling lyrically<\/a> as her career has progressed, and she\u2019s taken on a man\u2019s point of view for a song before, but I still did not see this one coming. It\u2019s a treat that an artist as obsessed over as Swift can still genuinely surprise us. And if that surprise comes in the form of a metaphorical penis, so be it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Plus, given that so much of Swift\u2019s public life these days (including the rollout of The Life of a Showgirl <\/em>thus far) is about her relationship with Kelce, it\u2019s compelling and refreshing to get a hint that she\u2019s interested in embodying a kind of masculine power on this album. I must confess that a Taylor Swift who is centrally interested in being the girlfriend of a football player leaves me a bit cold. Do the lyrics to \u201cFifteen\u201d mean nothing anymore? But a Taylor Swift who wants everyone to listen to her say \u201cmy dick\u2019s bigger\u201d? Let\u2019s hear what she has to say.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll drink that brown liquor<\/em>
I can make deals with the devil<\/em>
Because my dick\u2019s bigger<\/em><\/p>\n