“Elizabeth Taylor” is the second track on Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” record. It’s probably my fifth favorite on the album, partly because it feels a bit more generic pop than most Taylor Swift tracks of recent years. Even while I feel like all this high-gloss and the highly referential nature of this track’s lyrics are intentional. I still don’t like this song as much as I feel like I should. When production is this polished, it risks becoming ilike a diamond too smooth to grip. But that smoothness, in this case, may be the point. Is she being deliciously camp as a deliberate stylistic choice, or is the gloss covering up one of Swift’s more generic, even if popular, musical works? 

The best way to have a critical conversation around “Elizabeth Taylor” is to focus primarily on the concept of celebrity as performance art. There are a few specific location references that most modern listening audiences probably wouldn’t get. I’ve had to look up a few of them myself to fully appreciate their inclusion. An apologetic for this track may claim that the audience doesn’t need to get the references, because we’re just meant to feel the vibe of luxury and the obscurity and specificity of the reference is the point. The on-the-nose references to moments from Elzaibeth Taylor’s life and career makes us as listeners feel like we’re peeking behind the velvet rope. Or, it’s just Taylor doing what a lot of C-level songwriters tend to do, use references to prop up what would otherwise be very generic lyrics. That seems very unlike Taylor, and it makes me think just how much input Max Martin had on the lyrical composition of this particular track.

Of course, given the subject matter, this song feels destined to sound a bit like a paparazzi flashbulb. One could even suggest that a track about Elizabeth Taylor could serve as a spiritual successor to “The Lucky One” and “The Last Great American Dynasty,” but without the mournful tone. We could frame this as a celebration of the public woman, something Taylor and her definitely have in common. But again, this track seems to get by on feel rather than true substance. In any case, Elizabeth Taylor (the person) was the definition of Hollywood glamour. She was high-gloss to a T. 

Critics have noted that Swift is drawing a parallel between her own serialized dating life and Taylor’s eight marriages. This is an accurate assessment. But the references aren’t just trivia. By aligning herself with Elizabeth Taylor—a woman herself who was constantly judged for her romantic choices yet remained an icon—Swift is declaring that she, too, is untouchable. The references create a lineage. She isn’t mimicking Elizabeth Taylor, but rather claiming her inheritance in the public consciousness. Kind of bold, but this is Taylor Swift we’re talking about here.

So, yes, while I admit that while the track feels overburdened with references, it seems fair to argue that such weight is the point. It’s primarily a song about the burden of being a public icon.  It’s not meant to be “deep” in a folklore sense; it’s meant to be spectacular in a very surface-level way. If the first track on the record, ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ was reframing tragedy, ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ is about long-term survival in the public eye, realizing that if the public is going to watch you, you might as well give them a show.

I’ll also add that this track has one of my favorite lines from the entire record: “Hey, what could you possibly get for the girl who has everything and nothing all at once?” That line alone causes me to still like this song despite it being more of a feelie than one of Taylor’s more carefully crafted lyrical masterpieces. The chorus is also extremely catchy. It’s a fun track that, as you listen to it, you can picture Taylor Swift putting on the purple contact lenses and winking at the camera. It’s a well-deserved hit (peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100), even if there are at least four other tracks I rank ahead of it on the same record.