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TAS Rights Management* When Taylor Swift announced her new single “Patient Zero” earlier this week, no one really knew what was happening. Then, a day later, the superstar unveiled The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore and people were still confused. What happened to “12 songs” for her 12th album?
According to Swift, the four new songs were made during a celebratory trip to Sweden where she and Showgirl producers Max Martin and Shellback relished in the commercial success of the album. (It not only topped the Billboard 200 chart, but did so with a shocking 4 million sales).
Fans have been split over the bonus tracks, “Patient Zero,” “Cleveland,” “Pink Clouding,” and “Babylon.” Below, we break down the songs to try and get a better idea of why the show had to go on.
“Patient Zero”
Of the four tracks on The Encore, “Patient Zero” probably has the most compelling angle: What if an ex’s new girl calls you up for advice? Over the piercing melody of a mandolin and synth-pop beat that recalls “Anti-Hero,” Swift paints that picture “from the perspective and the side of the phone call of the ex who’s been through it before,” as she told Capital FM. The singer compares being let down by a man to having a disease. The track’s spoken-word-y bridge will get most of the attention — and not because Swift is known for her expertly written bridges — but because of the clear-cut jabs at a narcissistic ex. “He’s bathing in your reflected light/On a free solo social climb,” Swift says, and some will undoubtedly connect the lyric to her former partner Joe Alwyn, whom she dated for six years. But the true cut-to-the-bone line here is “When the fever turns the dreamer into a pathetic ghost.” —Maya Georgi
“Pink Clouding”
Before her final bow, Swift can’t help but open the old wounds from 2017’s “Getaway Car,” long-rumored to be about Tom Hiddleston. Over swelling synths that sound more Midnights-coded than Showgirl-esque, she uses yet another medical term as a metaphor for her role in that cursed, shotgun in the dark romance. This time, it’s “pink clouding,” the term used to describe the superficial euphoria when someone is freshly sober from drugs to compare her fleeting feelings in that rebound relationship — and why she left her ex high and dry. It’s not something she’s proud of as she admits that, “Years later, I still wonder how to tell you sorry.” Despite the regretful lyrics, Martin and Shellback’s production evoke the image of Swift skipping along in a fuchsia sky without a care in the world.—M.G.
