Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl: America Is BACK, Baby!

This weekend Taylor Swift released her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl (TLOAS). The album has 12 tracks, is 40 minutes and mostly upbeat pop songs. Along with Swift herself, it was produced by Max Martin and Shellback who worked on her 2017 album, Reputation.

The album is a sensation. By the time the first chorus on the very first song hits, I’m dancing around the room and I don’t stop until the album concludes. 

Back in 2022 I wrote a review of Swift’s album of the time, Midnights, which was titled “I Miss Taylor Swift.” The article was about how Taylor Swift’s musical decline (in my esteem) with the albums Lover, Folklore, Evermore and Midnights coincided directly with the paradise lost of America. It coincided with the COVID lockdowns and the 2020 elections. It mirrored a time in my life, in the American life, where my and our collective faith in our country was almost completely lost. 

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, it hasn’t been totally restored. But there is a sense of change. There is a sense of people waking up to violent progressive ideology which does far more harm than good. I see the writing on the wall, I see a chance that America can be saved. And maybe its already back. 

TLOAS musically sounds a lot more like Swift’s earlier albums than the past five. The last time she partnered with these producers was in President Trump’s first term. The songs are joyful. They celebrate beautiful things which we should all applaud like family. There is one song in particular, “Wi$h Li$t,” that is about how Taylor Swift’s greatest wish is to be married and have a bunch of Travis Kelce’s babies and live in a suburban neighborhood. 

Taylor Swift is a liberal voter. She is a democrat. Most artists are. But it’s beautiful to hear that the most famous woman in the world, no matter her chosen politics, knows that love and family and community are the things that will bring the most joy. 

Some liberals in her industry are criticizing her for these themes. The evil that is out in our world right now, the demons who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death, cannot stand the sun. They cannot stand love and joy. Its the same evil responsible for the depression epidemic and for the deterioration of interconnection. We have to stand up against these evils. You don’t have to like Taylor Swift’s music, the act of not liking it isn’t evil that would be an absurd assertion. But now is the time to lift up this and any album which celebrates every single universal value the right purports to place even higher than our politics. Family. Love. Joy. 

I missed Taylor Swift and America in 2022. And now in 2025, with Taylor Swift’s new album that is nothing but upbeat songs about love and a happy life, and President Trump shaking us all awake from our slow death, I feel like I have both back. 

Check out the album here, I beg you. Let America come back to life.