“In My Mind, I Had the Perfect Album” Taylor Swift | The Life of a Showgirl

Yes! This is why I do music! Like, in my mind I had, like, the perfect album. Good morning, it's Magic Radio Breakfast. We are so excited. I can barely contain myself right now. We are delighted to have the iconic Taylor Swift with us in the studio this morning. Good morning! It's lovely to have you here. Welcome. It's lovely that you're excited about it. This is so nice. We're very grateful for the heads up, because sometimes you like to surprise drop albums. Yeah. And you've done that in the past. Yeah. But, you know, we had time to roll out the red carpet. We dressed up smart, and we knew. Yeah, you guys are great. Let's have showers and clean our teeth, because Taylor Swift is coming in. I'm so honoured. So, release parties for this incredible album are going to be out in cinemas everywhere. What can the fans expect to see in that film? So, really, it's kind of a combination of what I... I used to do these things called secret sessions, where I would invite fans to my house, play them the record before it came out, and I'd explain sort of inspirations behind different parts of songs, or why I wrote things a certain way before I would play each song. So I kind of give them an inside scoop into what went into writing this particular song, then I'd play it. So it's a combination of that, and it's a music video debut. So it's a premiere of a brand new music video that you can only see in theatres. It's not going to go online immediately. So it's like, I don't know, I was shooting the video, and I was directing it, and my camera operator, Colin, said like, it's a shame that this isn't going to be seen on a big screen. It's such a massive production. And I just was like, you're right. And so we kind of took that moment, and I was like, we've got to figure out something that's more illuminating into the album process, because a music video lasts for three and a half minutes, right? So I was like, let's do, let's build it out, and create sort of like a secret session, slash like making of the music video. And it's kind of like an opportunity for fans to get together, listen through to the new music, like have me explain what I wrote it about. And also you see a brand new music video, and behind the scenes content of how we made the music video. It's brilliant. I mean, everyone's going to love that. And also what's exciting about the new album is you're back together working with Max Martin. Yes. Who you worked with on the incredible 1989 album, one of my favourite albums of all time. Oh, thank you. Has it got a similar vibe? And we have been lucky enough to listen to some tracks already before we met you. Yeah, I mean, what do you think? I think it's pretty different from 1989. Yes, I thought some of the tracks do have a slight 80s vibe to them. Would that be fair to say? Yeah, some of the synths that we use for sure. I mean, sorry, I'm interrupting. No, no, you're right. I was agreeing with you. I loved the songs. I thought also, because you're very famous, of course, for writing from the heart, things like Wishlist I found very emotional. It's amazing. Oh, thank you. That one literally got me. I'm really happy that you liked that one, because that was like the one that made me know we were done with the record. Oh, really? As soon as we finished that song, I was like, boys, we're done. I was desperate to ask you a question, which is how do you know when you're done with an album? How do you know? Well, with this album, I was very specific about the vision for it being a short, concise, like almost like in my mind, I had like the perfect album as a idea, right? Like perfection is unattainable. We know that conceptually, it's like a problematic thing to think about perfect. But I meant perfect in the idea of like, each song has a place. It can't be swapped out with anything else. It fits perfectly together, right? So that's when I knew that we had made, in my mind, the perfect album for this moment in my life was when we wrote Wishlist, because it really does get me too. Like, it's really emotional. It's a very accurate stance on where I'm at in life. And like, so I just, it was a feeling. It was a feeling of like, we're done now. Sometimes I've written very sprawling albums before where I just couldn't stop writing. And there's something to that too, if that's the project you're making, but this was not that. You are unstoppable. I mean, when do you find the time? You've had the Errors Tour, which broke all kinds of records. And then you come out with this. When do you write? So this was happening at the same time as the Errors Tour. When I was on tour in Europe last summer. It was the point in the tour where we had so many shows so frequently. I was getting sick a lot. I was always like physically sore, but I had reached the point in the show where I could do it muscle memory. So I needed something to wake my brain back up. I was like, I need something that like- So you'll write an album. Just gonna write an album. Honestly, yeah. It felt like I was so physically exhausted from the shows, but being mentally and emotionally stimulated by making this music got me to the point where I was so excited to step back on stage because I knew I had this little secret project that I was working on. Is there a standout lyric on... I mean, we've been privy to a few of the songs. They're incredible, by the way. Oh, thank you. Is there a standout lyric in this entire album that you can think of in that you go, actually, that's where I am. That's what I'm most proud of. That's what I love. That's my messaging. Weirdly, there are lines that I think represent the way I write songs. It's not something that I think represents who I am as a person because this is very much a song that's written in character. There's a song called Father Figure where the first line of the second verse says, I pay the check before it kisses the mahogany grain. And I'm like, that's my favorite type of writing, right, where you have to think about, wait, what do those words mean? Oh, somebody got the bill before it hit the table, but you say, kisses the mahogany grain. I'm like, okay, that's my favorite type of stuff to write. But there are some lines in the song, The Life of a Showgirl, that are very much sort of like the manifesto of how I've had to operate within this industry. It's a song about meeting one of your sort of idols. And they, instead of being what you thought they would be, they warn you against following in their footsteps because they just want to be honest with you about how hard this industry is. And you do it anyway. I think that's sort of like the manifesto of how I approached this tour. There wasn't the option of, if I'm sick, I'm not going on stage. There wasn't an option of, I'm feeling terrible, I'm not doing the show tonight. And so every one of us on that tour operated from that standpoint of the crowd is your king. It's not the other way around. We're going to play Fate of Ophelia now. It's a first play for us on Magic. Well, can you tell us about this song and we'll play it? I think that this song has some of my favorite moments in it. Like there's this post-hook section that goes, keep it 100 on the land, the sea, the sky, pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes. And when we wrote that in studio, I was like, yes, this is why I do music. The way I feel when this part of the song happens. But this is a song about feeling for a long time, like you might've met a similar fate to Ophelia, who was driven mad over the years slowly by love. And instead, I kind of give her a little bit of a, we reference her fate, but you talk about sort of someone saving you from that fate and like how euphoric that feels to look at maybe your past experiences with heartbreak and feel that you've been rescued from that by this fortuitous turn of events where you ended up finding a person that changed that for you. What an insight. Thank you so, so much. We've loved having you on The Breakfast Show. Thank you so much.