swifties gotta dream bigger we don't want all the concert films on disney+ we want them on blu ray!!!!!!

roma★
hello vonnie
occasionally subtle
Cosimo Galluzzi
NASA
One Nice Bug Per Day
taylor price
Three Goblin Art
d e v o n
Game of Thrones Daily
noise dept.

★
Keni

Discoholic 🪩

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Show & Tell

Andulka

#extradirty

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Misplaced Lens Cap

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@fearlessandless
swifties gotta dream bigger we don't want all the concert films on disney+ we want them on blu ray!!!!!!
One year of owning the best things that have ever been hers. Show us how you are celebrating today 💚💛💜♥️🩵🖤
this shot is insane
Hey! I wanted to ask you about your Elizabeth Taylor thoughts since you did the deep dive into her bio before the album came out. Im digging the song so much but I genuinely dont know what to make of the lyrics!
Hey bestie thank you so much for a chance to chat about this song because I really love it
So I still haven't finished the biography I've been reading since it is truly huge and Elizabeth lead such an interesting life there is a lot of stuff to write about! But from the context I do have it makes so much sense why Elizabeth's son compared the two woman and why Taylor sees Elizabeth as a role model.
Elizabeth Taylor is the second song in Taylor's discography (as far as I'm aware!) heavily inspired by Elizabeth Taylor and her romantic life, the first being Ready For It?, so I really see Elizabeth Taylor (the song) as a sequel to Ready For It, and I am gonna link to my further thoughts on Ready For it and Elizabeth here. All the things I mention in the posts linked and in this ask I learned from Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Andersen Brower.
But to summarise the post I linked above Elizabeth's most famous romantic relationship was with fellow actor Richard Burton. Both Elizabeth and Richard left their spouses to be together after being caught together during the filming of Cleopatra in Italy. The media frenzy that followed is credited with the invention of the paparazzi as we know the term today, photographers stalked and harassed both actors and Elizabeth's children to the point that the Italian police put armed guards outside the house they were all staying in during filming.
So with that context I think Ready For It is inspired by Taylor's knowledge of this time in Elizabeth's life and her desire to someone who will withstand that level of attention and privacy violation. Elizabeth and Richard at one point played pretend that they were in a cops and robbers type situation while in that house in Italy to deal with the stress of the harassment and I think that heavily inspired the imagery of Ready For It?.
With all of that context let's get to the lyrics of Elizabeth Taylor!
"Elizabeth Taylor / Do you think it's forever?"
So Elizabeth Taylor was infamously married 8 times in her lifetime which brought her a lot of (misogynist) criticism and quite frankly hatred amongst some people. Reading between the lines I think one of the things Taylor finds inspiring about Elizabeth is that even though her marriages ended she kept looking for a great love despite the press and the judgement, that she kept looking for a forever love. In my head Taylor is kind of looking up at the sky and asking Elizabeth if she thinks her and her muse will be together forever.
"That view of Portofino was on my mind when you called me at the Plaza Athénée"
Portofino is an area in Italy in which Elizabeth apparently spent a lot of time vacationing and is reportedly also where Richard Burton proposed to her for the first time. The couple also lived in Plaza Athénée, a hotel in Paris, for a period of time in 1971.
So how I understand these lyrics is that the muse has called the narrator while staying at Plaza Athénée in Paris and the connection between that hotel and Elizabeth brings up the image of Richard proposing to Elizabeth in Portofino.
(This is pure speculation but I am imagining that the narrator has at this point already visited Portofino with this muse so the imagery is blurring between their time in Italy and what Elizabeth experienced in Italy. While it was where she seemed to have many happy times it was also where they were while filming Cleopatra and all the trauma that came with that happened, which I think informs the next line.)
"Ooh, oftentimes it doesn't feel so glamorous to be me / All the right guys / Promised they'd stay / Under bright lights / They withered away / But you bloom"
Like I said above I think the glamorous line is both referencing Taylor's experiences of fame and Elizabeth's. Both women who experienced previously unknown levels of success for women in their respective fields but that success came with levels of scrutiny and threats of violence that most people would struggle to survive under.
And that leads us right into the rest of these lyrics. There are two sets of lyrics from TTPD that I think these lyrics are invoking;
"We hereby conduct this post-mortem / He was a hothouse flower to my outdoorsman / Our maladies were such we could not cure them" from How Did It End?
"And all of those best laid plans / You said I needed a brave man / Then proceeded to play him / Until I believed it too" from The Black Dog
So she's saying there were these men who swore they could handle the levels of attention and danger that comes with being my public long term partner but in the end they could not. But this new muse instead of withering under that pressure and leaving is blooming instead.
"Portofino was on my mind / And I think you know why"
To me this reads as a reference to I Think He Knows. She has been here before, where she thought she knew a proposal was incoming but she was wrong. Something I also think this line is suggesting is that she has told the muse all about Elizabeth and her relationship with Richard and even the detail of him proposing in Portofino. Between the lines this suggests to me the couple are already discussing their own engagement.
"And if your letters ever said, "Goodbye" / I'd cry my eyes violet"
Now these two lines I think in the context of the Swiftian universe are actually a really freaking big deal.
So the Elizabeth Taylor context is that Elizabeth's eyes were a shade of blue that often looked almost violet. But I think Taylor is using that as a way to play with words, since Taylor's eyes are blue if she cried so much her eyes were rely red, the red and the blue would make purple, hence violet.
But the reason I think these lyrics are a big deal is because since reputation Taylor's lyrics about her lover leaving her have only grown in intensity and impact.
"If you walk away / I'd beg you on my knees to stay" -> "I was riding in a getaway car / I was crying in a getaway car / I was dying in a getaway car / Said 'goodbye' in a getaway car" -> "And I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends / I'd never walk Cornelia Street again / That's the kinda heartbreak time could never mend / I'd never walk Cornelia Street again" -> "I wake up screaming from dreaming / One day, I'll watch as you're leaving / 'Cause you got tired of my scheming / (For the last time)" -> "Sometimes I wonder if you're gonna screw this up with me / But you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave / And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen"
In that context I personally think the narrator of this song saying she'd.... Cry a lot if her lover were to leave is kind of mind blowing to me. Like she's gone from literally saying she'd kill herself to saying she's cry so much her eyes are red!!!! Like that's such a shift in internal worth it truly hasn't really sunk in for me like it really seems like such a huge deal to me.
"Elizabeth Taylor / Tell me for real / Do you think it's forever? / Been number one, but I never had two"
Again I think she is kind of talking to Elizabeth Taylor in her head, this time asking both if this relationship is for real and if this shift in perspective is real.
She goes on to say she has been number one but never had two. To me this is her saying she has never had a lover who was able to match her ability to withstand the pressure and attention that being number one comes with.
"Be my NY when Hollywood hates me / You're only as hot as your last hit, baby"
If I started to go into what NY and LA represent in Taylor's catalogue I would be here all day so to keep this brief I think with this lyric she's saying she wants someone who will always be home for her even if the public turns on her again.
"Been number one, but I never had two /And I can't have fun if I can't have you"
I think the second line is a reference to "But it would've been fun / If you would've been the one" from the 1. I think she is saying I want to have fun and I want this to last, and I want both of those things with this muse specifically.
"Hey, what could you possibly get for the girl who has everything and nothing all at once? / Babe, I would trade the Cartier for someone to trust (Just kidding)"
So to me this is a flip of the sentiment of Paper Rings. While there is a material nature to both the sentiment of these lyrics and of Paper Rings, what's more interesting to me is the metaphorical ideas behind them. In my reading of the lyrics of Rep and Lover in those relationships the narrator felt like she bad to pick between her fame and her relationship. While the (Just kidding) is a successfull attempt at humour I think there is also a sentiment of her rejecting the idea that she has to be either in a happy relationship or at the top of her career. She can have the Cartier and someone to trust.
"We hit the best booth at Musso and Frank's / They say I'm bad news, I just say, "Thanks" / And you look at me like you're hypnotized / And I think you know why"
So I did not know this before I googled but Musso and Frank is a restraint in Hollywood that is credited with bringing the Italian dish fettuccine alfredo to LA, so again these lyrics are I think referencing Italy and it's importance as a place to Elizabeth.
The lyrics from the second one here I really love. It feels to me like the song The Albatross condensed down to a couple of lines.
And I also love the detail of this muse being hypontised by her ability to deal with the judgement from strangers. Again it feels like a contrast to past muses perhaps not seeing how amazing her ability to deal with public scrunity was because they were perhaps focused on how it was affecting them? It makes me think of the TTPD poem
"Lovers spend years denying what’s ill fated / Resentment rotting away galaxies we created / Stars placed and glued meticulously by hand next to the ceiling fan / Tried wishing on comets / Tried dimming the shine / Tried to orbit his planet / Some stars never align / And in one conversation, I tore down the whole sky"
I am perhaps reading to deeply into all this but yeah I think she is saying that rather than being scared of the attention this relationship brings this new muse instead is just looking at her dealing with the attention so expertly.
"All my white diamonds and lovers are forever / In the papers, on the screen, and in their minds / All my white diamonds and lovers are forever / Don't you ever end up anything but mine"
This bridge is one of my favourites on this album! I love the melodies but I also love how much is said with so few lyrics.
So white diamonds is a perfume from Elizabeth's perfume brand, I believe the original fragrance. She was in my understanding the creator of the first hugely successful celebrity perfume line, with 16 of her fragrances being made today.
(Diamonds are forever is also a James Bond movie, I don't really see any way Elizabeth or Taylor tie to this movie so it may just be a coincidence based in the saying diamonds are forever but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone else sees a connection I'm missing!)
ANYWAY I think Taylor is again talking about both herself and Elizabeth in these lyrics. Both of their relationships are 'forever' as they are documented and followed so closely by the public and the press, and are literally documented forever in photography and film.
This again to me is quite a switch of perspective from earlier Taylor songs. I'm thinking of Wildest Dreams specifically and how the narrator in that songs is almost begging the muse to remember her when the relationship inevitably ends.
Whereas here she is asserting both that all her lovers will remember her forever and that she wants to this love to last forever.
My gosh if you read all of this well done A+ gold star for you I did not mean to say all that much but here we are!!!! I hope I answered your question <3
drew talks to me i laugh 'cause it's just so funny / no one could touch the way we laughed in the dark / i realize your laugh is the best sound i have ever heard / she doesn't get your humor like i do / i think about summer all the beautiful times i watched you laughing from the passenger side / the playful conversation stars counter all your quick remarks like passing notes in secrecy / if you were here we'd laugh about their vacant stares / you laughed at my dreams rolled your eyes at my jokes / and i was never good at telling jokes but the punchline goes "i'll get older but your lovers stay my age" / i left a note on the door with a joke we'd made / you throw your head back laughing like a little kid / i think it's strange that you think i'm funny 'cause he never did / you should take it as a compliment that i got drunk and made fun of the way you talk / i'm laughing with my lover making forts under covers / please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh i could recognize anywhere / you'll save all your dirtiest jokes for me / i'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me / laughing with my feet in your lap like you were my closest friend / you would break your back to make me break a smile / the jokes weren't funny i took the money / stopped trying to make him laugh stopped trying to drill the safe / is it a wonder i broke let's hear one more joke / the jokes that he told across the bar were revolting and far too loud / were you making fun of me with some esoteric joke? / first they're off to the races and she's laughing drawing aces but none of it is changing that the chariot is waiting / he jokes that it's heroin but this time with an "E" / i'll drink what you think and i'm high from smoking your jokes all damn night / i can't have fun if i can't have you / you know the last time i laughed this hard was on the trampoline in somebody's backyard
i think part of her self assurance comes from doing the eras tour, seeing how her legacy is forming and realizing that the art she has done is cemented in history. also just doing that show and getting through the whole tour was such a feat that that alone would make me realize im that bitch
definitely think this is a huge part of it, seeing the rerecordings through and getting her desired result was part of it, figuring out who she is and what she wants is part of it, taking good care of herself is part of it, a supportive partner is part of it, etc
Taylor Swift's 2018 label contract provision tied to Spotify stock sales is triggering payouts, marking a major win in her fight for artists
Taylor Swift has spent years fighting for artists — first over streaming economics, then over ownership rights. One of the most consequential clauses she ever negotiated is now paying off.
The "Spotify deal" Swift secured as part of her 2018 contract with Universal Music Group (UMG) is coming through, according to the singer's team, triggering payouts to artists tied to profits from UMG's sale of its Spotify shares.
When Swift signed with UMG's Republic Records after leaving Big Machine Records in November 2018, she made one condition non-negotiable.
"As part of my new contract with Universal Music Group, I asked that any sale of their Spotify shares result in a distribution of money to their artists, non-recoupable," she posted back then in a handwritten-style note on her social media channels.
That final word — "non-recoupable" — is what makes the provision so significant.
In standard recording contracts, many artists are considered "unrecouped," meaning they have yet to pay back advances, recording budgets and other label expenses. In many cases, additional income streams are applied toward those balances instead of being paid directly.
Swift's clause prevents that.
By requiring Spotify equity proceeds to be distributed on a non-recoupable basis, the agreement ensures artists receive actual payouts regardless of whether they still owe money to the label. The funds cannot be used to offset existing balances. As UMG prepares to sell roughly half of its stake in Spotify, according to the company's first quarter earnings report in April 2026, artists will benefit from that deal.
This development is the latest chapter in Swift's evolving relationship with Spotify and the broader music industry.
She famously pulled her catalog from Spotify in 2014, criticizing low payouts and the impact of free, ad-supported tiers. In 2015, she publicly challenged Apple Music over its decision not to pay artists during free trial periods, prompting the company to reverse course within days. By 2017, she returned her catalog to Spotify as streaming became the industry's dominant force.
The once-rocky relationship has since transformed into one of the platform's biggest success stories. On April 23, 2026, Spotify named Taylor Swift its most globally streamed artist of all time as part of the platform's 20th anniversary celebration. She was also Spotify's Global Top Artist in both 2023 and 2024.
Her advocacy has extended beyond streaming and into ownership. On May 29, 2025, Swift published an almost 700-word letter announcing she had finally regained control of her first six master recordings. The singer-songwriter reflected on the broader industry impact of her yearslong fight.
"I'm extremely heartened by the conversations this saga reignited within my industry among artists and fans," she said. "Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I'm reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen."
Today is April 29th.
show of hands if you’re a proud member of the never slept on reputation club
i think what i love about taylor swift so much is that, at her core, she is a decent and warm human being, almost in spite of the fact that people refuse to treat her like a human being period
“But then, in lyricism, I was the most intensely impacted by emo music, right? Dashboard Confessional, Chris Carrabba, Fall Out Boy, Pete Wentz’s lyrics—how they take a common phrase and then they just twist the knife of it, right? Like, ‘I’m just a notch in your bedpost, but you’re just a line in a song. Drop a heart, break a name,’ right? Like, it’s ‘drop a name, break a heart,’ but they switched it and I, like, those are the kind of lyrics where I would read the lyrics to those songs—or the specificity of Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional, where I’d be reading those lyrics and I’d just finish reading a line and just go, ‘Oh my god.’”
— Taylor to The New York Times on how emo music inspired her as a young artist (x)
to me the mental picture i associate with fots (bc i am nothing if not a silly goose) is like those cartoons where a character has finally managed to escape whatever they’re running from, and then suddenly there’s a giant hole in the ground they didn’t see coming which they immediately fall into lol.
lmfaooo that's hilarious anon, thank you for sharing that
it's funny when people criticize the love songs on tloas because they don't "say enough about travis" when I'd argue there's more said about him in the few songs on tloas then there really is about joe in 5 love albums about him. If we really look at the songs, they focus a lot more on taylors vision for him then actions. Like Honey says sooo much about travis and his *actions* that it's quite a shocking comparison. (And that's not to hate on those other songs because those albums contiain some of my favorite love songs of all time, but if we look at it from her life and a muse perspective...)
omg i was just talking about this with some friends offline because @wavesoutbeingtossed sent a clip of florence's recent zane lowe interview where she said one of the most joever coded things i have ever heard:
"why is the person who creates the most space and gives you nothing the most appealing person? and really that's 'cause if you're a songwriter they give you the most enormous space for fantasy and you can write anything you want because they don’t really exist."
All’s fair in love and poetry… Happy ✌️ years of TS TTPD! 🤍
thinking about "is it cool that i said all that?" and "it's cool, that's what i tell 'em, no rules in breakable heaven" and "it's cool, baby, with me" and "you're so cool, it makes me hate you so much" and "I play it cool with the best of them" and "a greater woman stays cool, but i howl like a wolf at the moon" and "cooler in theory, but not if you force it to be" and "i've been dying just from trying to seem cool"
taylor in 2017 🤝 jesus almost two millennia ago:
i’m actually so fascinated by the elizabeth taylor video, not just by how the scenes were selected to align with each lyric but by taylor’s choice to do it this way.
there’s something so beautiful about watching a compilation of someone’s life, and i see a lot of taylor in her (as someone that has never really known elizabeth taylor as a public figure or thought about her experience as a person). it makes me want to seek out these movies and the feelings expressed through them. i love that it feels like watching a whole lifetime. 🥺
i also think it’s respectful and kind to honor the legacy of a person and their humanness, instead of just their “image”/persona as a character you can emulate. i think the choice to use clips from movies (her work) and irl videos (her life) helps the viewer to see this whole person who is glamorous and sparkly and magical but it is also a real person experiencing these things (the crowds, flashing lights).
sorry for the long ask, i would love to hear your thoughts!!
it's such food for thought!
I said it in a post yesterday that the really interesting thing about the video to me in doing it this way is that it ends up centring on Elizabeth Taylor's humanity instead of (just) her persona.
It shows that her public image was inextricably tied with her personal life, but that each of those fuelled the other. The charisma and charm she demonstrated as a person shone through in her performances, and the grandeur of her artistic feats were reflected in the stature (and infamy) she commanded behind the scenes.
Not only is that a really respectful way to honour the person who inspired the song, but it's also reflective of the themes of Life of a Showgirl as an album. She showed Elizabeth Taylor as a full person, and that's what Showgirl asks of its audience about its narrator, too. And it's a theme that's found its way in her writing in the past, e.g. Clara Bow, The Lucky One, Nothing New, etc.
There were some brilliant notes hit in the video too. I've only watched it once so I'd have to go back and parse them out, but like I said last night, that first minute in particular I think really fleshes out a "story," both as a character and a person. The transition from the (happy) bridal gown scene (iirc from Father of the Bride) for "all the right guys promised they'd stay," into the (sad) longing scene (from... I want to say it was A Place in the Sun? doesn't matter haha) for “but under bright lights, they withered away,” was SUPER on the nose, in a great way.
Like, yes, this is a fan edit! But it's well done! We all conjure images of books or shows or movies we've seen when we listen to music, and who among us hasn't watched or read or made fan vids/fanfic/fan art/etc. based on that? What Taylor has done here is use those existing images to hit the emotional beats of the song, and imo also demonstrating what it is about Elizabeth Taylor's story that she connects so deeply with as well.
And the other thing is that Taylor is such a film buff herself, and I think this is such a lovely use of archival footage, especially in an age where like, the movie-going experience is deeply threatened. And I'm not saying that's her goal with this video at all, but it IS a really cool byproduct of it all that she's introducing these classic films that are lush and detailed to new audiences who never would have sought them out (like you!).
My mom is a huge film buff, with the caveat that she only likes movies made before like 1969 lol. So all that to say, I was introduced to a lot of these movies in my youth, especially once we got cable when I was 16ish lol. It used to be SO hard to find some of these movies 10 or 20 years ago, and it's so cool that they're now getting a little bit of a spotlight.
Another note is that funnily enough, a lot of the archival footage of Elizabeth Taylor reminded me of some of the footage we've seen of Taylor's grandmother, in lyric videos and in the Eras docuseries. And I would not be surprised if Taylor felt some kinship there too, since I think both women kind of embodied that 1960s glam and larger-than-life artistic sensibility.