About a year ago, you guys did a truly unfathomable thing. Something that completely blew my mind… You gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history. I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album. Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs. I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made. The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore including four new songs is out on Friday and available to pre-order and save now at https://t.co/bWaNOQ6OmT ❤️🔥
📸: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott
My favorite part about writing is that first spark of an idea. It can happen at any time, for any reason. The idea for the Opalite music video crash landed into my imagination when I was doing promo for The Life of a Showgirl. I was a guest on one of my favorite shows, @TheGNShow. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a UK late night show where Graham Norton (the insanely charismatic and lovable host) invites a random group of actors, entertainers, musicians, etc to be on his show and we all sit there and chat like it’s a dinner party. They even serve wine. Anyway. I remember thinking I got ridiculously lucky with the group I was paired with. Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, and @LewisCapaldi. All people whose work I’ve admired from afar. When we were all talking during the broadcast, Domhnall made a light hearted joke about wanting to be in one of my music videos. He’s Irish! He was joking! Except that in that moment during the interview, I was instantly struck with an *idea*. And so a week later he received an email script I’d written for the Opalite video, where he was playing the starring role. I had this thought that it would be wild if all of our fellow guests on the Graham Norton show that night, including Graham himself, could be a part of it too. Like a school group project but for adults and it isn’t mandatory. To my delight, everyone from the show made the effort to time travel back to the 90’s with us and help with this video. You might even recognize some friendly faces from The Eras Tour. I got to work with one of my favorite people in the world, Rodrigo Prieto, again! I had more fun than I ever imagined - Made new friends, metaphors, and fashion choices. It was an absolute thrill to create this story and these characters. Shot on film. The Opalite video is out now on Spotify & Apple Music.
https://t.co/ZOi4zNuyTD
It was the End of an Era and we knew it. We wanted to remember every moment leading up to the culmination of the most important and intense chapter of our lives, so we allowed filmmakers to capture this tour and all the stories woven throughout it as it wound down. And to film the final show in its entirety.
The Eras Tour | The Final Show, featuring the entire Tortured Poets Department set, and the first two episodes of The End of an Era, a 6-episode behind-the-scenes docuseries will be yours December 12th on @DisneyPlus
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.
———
I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right. A forever thank you goes out to my mentors and friends Max and Shellback for helping me paint this self portrait.
If you thought the big show was wild, perhaps you should come and take a look behind the curtain...
The Life of a Showgirl is out now.
https://t.co/VetltwlcoJ
Album Producers: Max Martin, Shellback and Taylor Swift
📸: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott
And, baby, that’s show business for you. New album The Life of a Showgirl. Out October 3 ❤️🔥
https://t.co/rIaG2Ezo7Z
Album Producers: Max Martin, Shellback and Taylor Swift
📸: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott
things i need answered in the eras tour documentary:
1. how did she choose the setlist
2. how in advance does she choose surprise songs and does she have a notebook with all her possible mashups
3. how did she decide the order of the eras
4. what the day of a show looks like