Read Taylor Swift's 'The Life of a Showgirl' prologue poem in full here

6 October 2025, 10:19

By Sam Prance

In the vinyl and CD booklet of 'The Life of a Showgirl', Taylor Swift explains the meaning behind the album in a poem.

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If you're wondering what inspired Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl album, she explains it all in the prologue poem.

Longterm Swifties will already be well aware that Taylor Swift includes prologues in all of her physical album booklets. Taylor uses these prologues to open up about the meanings behind her projects and the context behind them. Most recently, The Tortured Poets Department include two introductory poems - one by Taylor and one by Stevie Nicks.

Now, Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl is officially out and fans are living for the prologue poem in the official vinyl.

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What is Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl poem about?

The main edition of Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl vinyls and CDs include an album booklet with the official The Life of a Showgirl prologue poem included in them. In the poem, Taylor appears to allude to her routine while on The Eras Tour and hints that she had a picture of her fiancé Travis Kelce on her mirror in her dressing room.

She writes: Coffee. Stretch. Piano keys. / Vocal warm ups in a locker room shower. / Eyelash glue. A photo of him on the mirror. / Sweat and vanilla perfume.

Addressing the stress and discipline that comes with performing, Taylor adds: Plan it out so it doesn't look planned / 10 different backup plans / If your red bottomed heel breaks / you will keep strutting / Balancing on the balls of your blistered feet / Know your exits. Shoulders back. Eyes up.

Taylor also references the dark side of fame and how she's drawn to the showgirl lifestyle in spite of its drawbacks.

She says: You would choose all of it again / No matter how the story ends / With the ugliest boos or the loveliest bouquet.

Check out Taylor's full The Life of a Showgirl prologue poem below.

Coffee. Stretch. Piano keys.
Vocal warm ups in a locker room shower.
Eyelash glue. A photo of him on the mirror.
Sweat and vanilla perfume.
The cracking of joints
and the distant beat of a drum.
The curtain call.
The monstrous thrill of it all.
Plan it out so it doesn't look planned
10 different backup plans
If your red bottomed heel breaks
you will keep strutting
Balancing on the balls of your blistered feet
Know your exits. Shoulders back. Eyes up.
Hit your marks. Your winks. Sparks.
Tell them a story like it's an intimate dinner party.
The looks on their wonderous faces
Their expressions like mood rings
Isn't it all so majestic? Of course it is
It's a lot of other things too

Tonight all these lives converge here
The mosaics of laughter and cocktails of tears
Where fraternal souls sing identical things
And it's beautiful
It's rapturous
It is frightening

It's worth everything it has cast you
And even at your darkest or drunketst,
You wouldn't say any different
Would you?
You would choose all of it again
No matter how the story ends
With the ugliest boos or the loveliest bouquet
They say that love is a choice you make every
single
day
And that is how love.
The life
of
A showgirl