In a corner of Taylor Swift’s official website, Swift lists her eras in order: Taylor Swift, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), 1989 (Taylor’s Version), REPUTATION, Lover, folklore, evermore, Midnights, THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, and the culmination that was THE ERAS TOUR.

Historians realize that this isn't chronologically accurate. But we fans understand the role of albums designated with Taylor’s Version. “Taylor’s Version” of albums, so far released between 2021 and 2023, were expanded versions of the original albums that featured mature vocals and previously unreleased songs “From The Vault.” The pioneer of transforming pain into art, Swift dived into her re-recording project after the unwarranted sale of the masters of her first six albums. (Starting with her seventh album, she owned her work outright with Universal Music Group.)

Importantly, all Taylor’s Version music effectively assumed the place of its original counterpart. The singer’s adherence to this doctrine involved attentively replicating every syllable of the work of her youth. Swifties’ adamant investment in it entailed not only listening to re-recorded versions, but altogether refusing to stream the original versions, dubbing them “stolen.” Four re-recordings later, with the devaluation of the “stolen” versions and the billionaire status earned via the Eras Tour, Swift bought her master recordings. “Stolen” versions became “reclaimed” versions. As of May 30th, 2025—a newfound Independence Day for Swift and her fans—everything was, by definition, “Taylor’s Version.”

In joyous celebration, listeners flocked to Swift’s catalog. Within a week, eleven Swift albums were charting on the Billboard 200 simultaneously, including reclaimed albums, re-recorded albums, and albums released with Universal Music Group. Evidently, original albums and their re-recorded equivalents were more fraternal than identical twins.

The difference lies in how the nostalgia of music operates. Music creates sentiment through two avenues. What I call “material nostalgia” of music arises from timing and physical placement. In the material sense, people attach memories to songs that happen to be popular during those periods or played during those moments. What I call “attributive nostalgia” of music arises from lyrical descriptions or melodic feelings. In the attributive sense, people attach memories to songs whose meanings semantically encapsulate those moments. These avenues can be separate or they can overlap in either direction. My first semester of college was materially marked by “Lover” (August 2019) and attributively defined by “Never Grow Up” (a coming-of-age ballad). “Dress” materially transports me to its surprise guitar performance at the Eras Tour Amsterdam (July 2024) and attributively reminds me of a former paramour’s witty twist on it.

Although the re-recordings are no longer needed as outshining understudies, they still serve a distinct purpose. Taylor’s Version releases carved out fascinating liminal spaces. They didn’t only add vault tracks, but they also changed material nostalgia while retaining much of the attributive nostalgia of the original versions.

The tracklist of any version of Red, for instance, reigns as the mosaic of a heartbroken person, but Red (2012) revolved around the breakout “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” while Red (Taylor’s Version) (2021) centered around the poignant “All Too Well.” The tracklist of any version of 1989, Red’'s successor, champions freedom and independence. But the two records differ materially: the first 1989 (2014) surfaced as Swift’s introduction to the pop landscape, while 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (2023) has Swift singing from her longstanding position atop the pop charts. The former takes me back to being 12 years old, buying a full album on iTunes for the first time. The latter brings me back to painting seagulls during a work break in my new office, having just started my post-graduation job. To me, the songs of either edition represent the fizzling, unfulfilled promises that underscore womanhood.

Offering multiple channels of self-discovery through music, Swift’s re-recordings de-linearized the human lifetime. She took ownership not only legally and financially, but emotionally, signaling to listeners that they deserved to revisit, rewrite, and reinterpret their experiences at any given moment. Swift’s music has always been a path of doing that, and this re-recording endeavor solidified that, as its initial intent of erasure evolved into a journey of enhancement.

Emerging as distinct bodies of work, the reclaimed versions and the Taylor’s Versions each have their own places within Swift’s storied career and the hearts of Swifties. More than just a stepping stone on the way back to Swift’s original work, and even beyond the fundamental impact on artist contract conversations, Swift’s re-recordings aren’t just principle—they’re comprehensive eras in their own right.

We Don't Know the Life of a Showgirl (Babe) and We're Never, Ever Gonna: The Illusion of The Life of a Showgirl | October 2025

Taylor Swift’s artistic integrity has never been more in question than it is right now.

The title track of Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl is the newest member of a household of songs that inspect fame with a generational microscope. The unnamed predecessor in “The Lucky One” (2012) escaped the public eye. The moneymakers in “Clara Bow” (2024) traced the lineage of entertainers Clara Bow, Stevie Nicks, Swift, and an unnamed successor. For now, that successor materializes as Sabrina Carpenter, fellow narrator on “The Life of a Showgirl,” where a young Swift is warned by fictional showgirl Kitty (who bears some familial resemblance to Carpenter) that the glittering stage masks a grueling life. The predecessor Kitty represents may very well be Britney Spears, the pop princess who has weathered many a storm and whose song “Lucky” (2000) sketches the underside of the industry.

While Swift doesn’t heed Kitty’s advice—she’s “married to the hustle” by track’s end—her 12th record is a physical manifestation, rather than a creative exploration, of the life of a showgirl. It sparkles with promise, only to deliver on something different. For a body of work dedicated to the Tour of the Century, nothing is revealed about Swift’s labor of love for the Eras Tour nor the elaborate efforts of her crew and fans. The album dwells instead on her fiancé and feuds. It seems implausible, given how meaningful the Eras Tour was to Swift, that she wouldn’t reflect on it through music, her favorite way of expressing love. Certainly, Swift hasn’t forgotten about it. The Eras dancers reunite for the video of “The Fate of Ophelia,” a stunning display of working showgirls in various forms, and are featured on the “Baby, That’s Show Business” vinyl. The album’s visuals commit to the aesthetic, with striking images of Swift in costume. The tracklist is shrewdly designed to be the shape of the Eras Tour stage. Swift has always built cohesive worlds that expand from her music—spaces that immerse fans in her lyrics and coax consumers to continuously find ways to develop buy-ins to them. These worlds are what elevate her albums to the beloved eras we’ve grown accustomed to, which constitute the aesthetic and theme of a musical collection. Speak Now’s confessional monologues spin off from the titular concept; The Tortured Poets Department’s fatalistic threats appear to be exactly what Swift is contemplating in the companion photoshoot.

With Showgirl, for the first time in Swift’s illustrious career, the album has little to do with the era. Its disorientation isn’t, as listeners have suggested, the quality of the lyricism, but it’s the misplacement of the substance. The substance in question is tucked into vinyl sleeves, lurking in Swift’s exclusive poems that detail warmup and post-show routines, audience members she recognized from years past, and mental and physical tolls. Even romance is thematically embedded as a photo taped on her dressing room mirror. Such candids boast an anthology of material, yet she opts to simplify on the music, almost undermining her claim in a 2019 ELLE essay that pop benefits from hyperspecificity.

Bypassing her usual nuanced grappling, Swift offers contradictions that perplex rather than provoke. Although she “wouldn’t have [her life as a showgirl] any other way” per the title track, she brushes that aside for domesticity in “Wi$h Li$t,” where she catalogs undesired items. These items feel familiar—history shows that she has craved commercial success, complex femininity, pets considered as children, and “that video taken off the internet,” the last of which brings to mind the infamous edited phone call from the pre-Reputation media storm. She wishes to be alone with her beau, even though she pursues fame and shimmery attention on Midnights. A reconciler might be Showgirl’s opulent “Elizabeth Taylor,” as Swift says she “would trade the Cartier for someone to trust” and follows it with a blink-and-you-miss-it “just kidding.” Whether she favors Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds or Travis Kelce’s driveway hoop becomes ambiguous, and the idea of aspiring to both, which seemed feasible and motivating in prior eras, is now a myth, immortalized only “in the papers, on the screen, and in their minds” (“Elizabeth Taylor”). Adding to this obscurity is Swift’s strong response to an innocent question raised of the possibility of her settling down as she croons about on “Wi$h Li$t”: “That’s…shockingly offensive.” For listeners, the shock isn’t Swift’s impulses of traditionality, which are more than welcome; it’s that they are laid bare on a project centered on entertaining an audience (see “The Crowd Is Your King” vinyl).

This isn’t to say Swift shouldn’t make room for tenderness. “Ruin The Friendship” is a vessel of nostalgia, possibly uncorked by time travel through her youthful eras, with a wrenching connection realized instantly by dearest fans. “Honey,” an ode to pet names, glows as Swift exhibits her tried-and-true craftsmanship: she transforms societal connotations into personal ones, invokes a double meaning with a nightstand, and uses a single word (“lovely”) to cross-reference another Showgirl song (“Actually Romantic”). Her touring life, though, deserves to be memorialized with a similar precision. While “Father Figure” compellingly delves into loyalty dynamics and “CANCELLED!” triumphs over a culture that can’t be won over, both paint the portrait of celebrity, not showgirl. “The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter)” dances nearest to the pledged theme and incorporates audio from the Vancouver crowd of the concluding Eras night. It’s a charming closer with a bridge reminiscent of quick-witted Broadway tunes, but its punch would’ve landed sharper had Swift traversed the Eras Tour dreamscape on the album itself. Swift was and is uniquely positioned to write about what it felt like to impact entire economies; to witness crowd-initiated traditions set to her lyrics; to jump through quick changes beneath the stage, follow cues on the stage, and decompress off the stage; and do it all again the next day.

Kitty’s words—“you don’t know the life of a showgirl”—ring truer than Swift may have intended. The showgirl is seen, not heard, with a covert lifestyle whispered along from one performer to the next. Even Swift, an artist who broke grounds for personal storytelling, can’t break showgirl code. The curtain remains closed, the facade intact. We accept only what we observe, looping our analyses and applause around an untouchable presence whose job it is to stay that way. Diaristic Swift is eager to share hopes and fears; showgirl Swift abstains. In doing so, her most divisive era is enacting the showgirl’s dazzling yet distant role, inviting intense dialogue without inviting us in. The album might be divorced from its point, but perhaps that is the point.

Same Album, Different Era: Why Taylor Swift’s Re-Recordings Still Matter | June 2025