Taylor Swift Breaks Down The Life of a Showgirl's "Wood," "Father Figure" and "The Fate of Ophelia"

-Welcome back, everybody. Taylor Swift is joining us.

Her new album, "The Life of a Showgirl," is out now.

I thought it'd be fun to maybe go through some of the tracks here on the album of "Life of a Showgirl" and maybe share the inspiration behind each one.

-Yeah, I would love this. -Is that fun?

-So this is our, like, podcast. -It kind of feels like -- Yeah.

-I love this. -It's kind of like a loose -- -So the second podcast interview I've ever done.

I'm very excited. -I'm honored. -I loved your first one. -Yeah. This is good. Okay, good.

I'm very excited. And whoever the other person's podcast you did, don't get mad at me, okay?

Because there's room for two of us. Yeah, to have podcasts. Alright.

Okay, "Opalite." Let's start with that one. -Alright. -Okay. Let's start.

I'm just gonna play it first, and then we'll talk about it. Let's give it a taste.

-♪ But my mama told me it's alright ♪ ♪ You were dancing through the lightning strikes ♪ -You know the words already? -♪ Sleepless in the onyx night ♪ -Yeah. You can sing along. Go ahead.

-♪ Now the sky is opalite ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, my lord ♪ -Oh, my God.

-♪ Never made no one like you before ♪ -The way they know every word. -Dude, already.

-♪ You had to make your own sunshine ♪ -You're the best. -♪ But now the sky is opalite ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ -Oh, my God! -Come on! Wow! [ Cheers and applause ] How do they know?

-You had, like -- You had like, six minutes to learn all the words and you've done it.

That's unbelievable. -That's kind of amazing. -Oh, that felt -- -Everyone in the audience knew every lyric to that song that's not even really on the radio yet.

That's wild. -This is beautiful. -Let's talk about "Opalite."

I don't even know if I know what "Opalite" is. -Opalite is man-made opal. -Okay.

-So, like, just like they can do man-made diamonds, they can do man-made opal.

And I thought it was kind of a cool -- It was, like, interesting imagery and a cool metaphor for life isn't always going to give you what you want.

You're not always going to get your way. You're going to get your heart broken.

Things are going to happen to you. Chaos will ensue. But you have to pick your own happiness.

You choose it. Like, it doesn't always choose you.

It doesn't always just show up knocking on your door.

You have to sometimes make your own happiness, just like... -Yes! -...man-made opal.

-Wow. -But it's like -- But also there's also, like, you know, like gemstones in the chorus, like "onyx night."

"Now the sky is opalite," just trying to kind of put gemstones in the chorus too.

-How do you come up with this? Do you just wake up in the middle of the night and go, "Opalite"? -Yeah. That's literally how it happens. -And you write it down? -Yeah.

I mean, it's like -- it's in the night. It's in the day as well as the afternoon and the evening.

All the times... -All the times. -...that I am here. -Have you written something earlier today?

-No, no, I am just -- I'm just vibing. This is the release week of this album.

Like, I'm just riding this wave. It's like -- It's like this song is exactly how I feel right now.

And it's just kind of like amazing to hear you guys sing it like that. That was pretty... -Alright.

-Pretty great. [ Cheers and applause ] -How about this? Alright, how about "Wi$h Li$t"?

Let's do -- [ Cheers and applause ] -♪ I just want you, huh ♪ ♪ Have a couple kids, got the whole block looking like you ♪ ♪ We tell the world to leave us the...alone, and they do, wow ♪ ♪ Got me dreaming about a driveway ♪

♪ With a basketball hoop ♪ ♪ Boss up, settle down, got a wish list ♪ ♪ I just want you ♪ -Alright. Come on. -Ah! [ Cheers and applause ] By the way, I love it. Sing every song.

-Alright. Come on. -Ah! [ Cheers and applause ] By the way, I love it. Sing every song.

You guys sound fantastic. -You really do. It's not just that you know the words. You actually sound gorgeous. [ Laughter ] -That -- Tell me what the song is about, and I'll tell you what sticks out in my head.

-Um, okay. So this song, the chorus, I kind of designed the chorus to be...

And you got to just, like, go with me here. You know in "Happy Gilmore" when he -- When he has his happy place. -Yes. -And that's where he goes when he's really stressed out or the world's really getting him down and he's really -- And he's, like, really like going through it. And he just goes to this place in his mind

and he -- and he -- and that's his happy place. Like, that chorus, I just wanted a chorus like that basically shows you what mine is and sounds exactly how mine would sound.

Like, this is utopia for me. That's where I go when I'm stressed out, is that fantasy.

-And basically all you want is you. That's one of your -- That's your wish.

-It's like, yeah, you're saying that to the person that you're with, like -- -Yes.

-And you're -- And you're saying, you know, that you want like this -- You want to build a life with them, and you want it to feel like home and -- and like -- -That's what you do with your lyrics. You're such a great artist and a writer.

-Thanks. That's so sweet. No, thank you. -I can't believe I'm that person. But I don't -- -No.

-I don't mean to be that person. -Are you kidding me? I love hearing that. -But basketball hoop.

Basketball hoop in the dr-- -Yeah, yeah. -That's the one that gets me. I know exactly where we are.

-Yeah, like, I learned about sports for this man. [ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ] -Ah! Ha!

-And I love him. I love him. I don't want to do them, but I love watching them.

I can -- I could see, you know. -Yeah. [ Laughter ] Someone doing them, yes. -Yeah, people do them.

And it's great and I'll watch them. -You'll watch them, yes, but you go for it. You do it.

-I love it. Do them. -Yes. Do that. -Do that. -Should we transition to "Wood"?

[ Cheers and applause ] This is "Wood." W-O-O-D, by the way, if anyone's watching.

-Yeah -W-O-O-D, like, wooden. Yes. Wood. Here we go. This is "Wood."

-♪ All of that bitchin', wishing on a falling star ♪ ♪ Never did me any good ♪ ♪ I ain't got to knock on wood ♪ ♪ It's you and me forever dancing in the dark ♪ ♪ All over me, it's understood ♪ ♪ I ain't got to knock on wood ♪ -Alright, now, this is great.

All these are great tunes. [ Cheers and applause ] -Thanks. -Do you come up with tunes before?

For this exact song, did you go [ Vocalizing ] -No. So I brought this into the studio and I was like,

-No. So I brought this into the studio and I was like, I want to do sort of like a -- I want to, like, do a throwback kind of timeless sounding song.

And I have this idea about, like, I ain't got to knock on wood and we would knock on wood and it would be all these superstitions. And it really started out in a very innocent place.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ You know, it started out like... I don't know what happened, man. I -- [ Laughter ] -It went off the rails. -I got in there. We started vibing and -- and I don't know.

I don't know how we got here, but I love the song so much. [ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ] -It's perfect.

It's perfect the way it is. Let's go into "The Life of a Showgirl."

-♪ Hey, thank you for the lovely bouquet ♪ ♪ You're sweeter than a peach ♪ ♪ But you don't know the life of a showgirl, babe ♪ ♪ And you're never, ever gonna wait ♪ ♪ The more you play, the more that you pay ♪ ♪ You're softer than a kitten ♪

♪ So you don't know the life of a showgirl, girl, baby ♪ ♪ And you're never gonna wanna ♪ -Ooh! Ooh!

[ Cheers and applause ] You got it. Like, when you do that, you go, "That's the ending. That's the ending." Like ♪ Never gonna wanna ♪ -Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Um, because I'd been writing this album to be around the themes of show business and a public life.

And because, honestly, we all have a public life now. We all are mandating our relationship with social media and social circles and gossip and -- and so I was like, I want to focus on sort of like the playful, fun, funny, humorous sides of that.

Um, and so we'd been dealing with kind of themes like that and sprinkling those throughout the record, but I had it in my notes just "you don't know the life of a showgirl." I just had that in my notes written down, and I was just like, "I got to figure out how this fits in."

And all of a sudden this song comes together. And the first thought I had was Sabrina Carpenter.

You know? [ Cheers and applause ] She's like -- -She knows how to -- She knows maybe. -Quintessential showgirls. -Yes. -She is such a funny person.

She is so tough in the right ways and soft and vulnerable in the right ways to be an artist that is dealing with the kind of just absolute mayhem that gets kind of -- these artists get subjected to when you're putting out art publicly. And I was so happy that she wanted to sing that second verse

because I kind of wrote it for her, the sort of like she's just this like, sort of like "she was a menace, the baby of the family in Lenox, her father whored around like all men did, her mother took pills and played tennis."

I was like, "I just know she's going to have fun singing this." It's kind of her type of lyric.

She just loves to write like a clever little, uh, little jab at... Yeah. -...men. [ Laughter ] So...

-Is there many people -- There's not that many people that you can actually relate to on this level.

-I mean, I -- That sounds sad. Um, but it's actually like you just kind of find your people.

And even if it's not about relating to people, like, I can't really relate to the pressure that -- that Travis is under out there on the field.

Like, I've never had, you know, 300-pound men running at me, trying to hurt me.

You know what I mean? And the same way that I -- with Sabrina, I've -- I've never come up as a new artist in the moment that she's coming up where she's had social media.

Like, I remember when someone told me about Instagram and it was like on my second or third record, like, so I'll never be able to relate to their experience.

We'll never be able to have identical experiences.

But as sort of entertainers, one of our main jobs, I think, is to be a mirror for people.

You look into the art we make, you see yourself back. The way you feel about our art has a lot to do with the life experience that you're having at this point in time, and that's why I'm so happy I have so many different albums. Like, people will come up to me and be like, "I didn't get 'reputation.'

I didn't understand what that was like. Now, five years later, it's my favorite record" or, you know, "evermore" or something like that. And it is like the fun of it for us to create a mirror for people to look into. I definitely think that Sabrina and every other artist out there doing this can relate to that.

So in that way, I do feel like we all can relate to each other. -Yeah. Interesting. That's good.

[ Cheers and applause ] "Father Figure" -- another well-written -- You're good. Alright, here's a little of this.

-♪ I pay the check before it kisses the mahogany grain ♪ ♪ Said, "They wanna see you rise ♪ "They don't want you to reign" ♪ ♪ I showed you all the tricks of the trade ♪

♪ All I ask for is your loyalty ♪ ♪ My dear protégé ♪ ♪ I'll be your father figure ♪ ♪ I drink that brown liquor ♪ ♪ I can make deals with the devil ♪ ♪ Because my...bigger ♪

♪ This love is pure profit ♪ ♪ Just step into my office ♪ ♪ They'll know your name in the streets ♪ ♪ Leave it with me ♪ ♪ I protect the family ♪ -Oh, come on! [ Cheers and applause ]

-♪ I protect the ♪ Yes. -Man, like, that song was so much fun to write. So it's like, uh, you know, protégé, mentor, and the relationship between the two.

Right? And the power dynamics and sort of the idea that the power could flip and somebody could betray somebody. That's so fun to write.

And this is written from the perspective of, like, of the mentor, you know, to the protégé.

But because I kept thinking about that scene in "Succession" where Logan looks at his kids and says, "I love you, but you are not serious people." [ Laughter ] And I think about that scene constantly. I just think it's one of the coolest scenes ever.

And I was like, "I want to write a song that has that energy of sort of Logan Roy being like, you bit the hand that fed you and you do not have -- you do not possess the vernacular to be doing this." But I also really have completely related

to the protégé perspective in so many of these situations. Right? Like, I relate to the younger one, like when I'm listening to this song. Like, even though it's from the perspective of the father-figure character. That's why I like this song so much.

-And you always find a way to go like, "Wait, did she just say that?" [ Laughter ] "Did she -- Rewind that for a second. Did she just say deal with the devil and...?" -Yes. -Yeah.

-Yes. You know, it's entertainment. -Yes. -It's my one job. -It's -- Yeah. [ Laughter ] -You know, the spice level on this album is high. -Yeah. It is. [ Cheers and applause ] It is. I think it's the spiciest yet. -Yeah. It is what it is, you know? -It is what it is.

It is. I think it's the spiciest yet. -Yeah. It is what it is, you know? -It is what it is.

This one is "Elizabeth Taylor," who -- -Ah. [ Cheers and applause ] -I love "Elizabeth Taylor."

But let's just play a little bit of "Elizabeth Taylor." -♪ I'd cry my eyes violet ♪ ♪ Elizabeth Taylor ♪ ♪ Tell me for real ♪ ♪ Do you think it's forever? ♪

♪ Been number one but I never had two ♪ ♪ And I can't have fun if I can't have ♪ ♪ Be my N.Y. when Hollywood hates me ♪ ♪ Only as hot as your last hit, baby ♪ ♪ Been number one but I never had two ♪ ♪ And I can't have fun if I can't have you ♪ -Alright.

[ Cheers and applause ] Another one. Another banger! -Thanks. -"Elizabeth Taylor."

Why Elizabeth Taylor? What is the connection? -I love Elizabeth Taylor.

I love her so much. She is like, I think, the ultimate sort of icon role model that I look to when I look at somebody who had, like, immense pressure on them, was like extremely like scrutinized, everything she ever did.

She kept making more and more daring art. Like, it's almost like the more polarizing people were about her, the more she just kept, like, doing even more challenging roles, taking bigger risks.

And she's like out here like at the height of whatever, you know, scrutiny she may have been under and the height of her fame, she's, like, winning Oscars and not letting anything kind of stop her from doing it for the reasons she'd always done it. She was so funny.

She used humor as like a device against -- against sort of anybody who had -- like, any of her detractors or whatever. Like, I've done that with songs like "Blank Space" when people are like, [whiny voice] "Oh, you're a man-eating serial dater."

-Yeah, yeah. -[ Normal voice ] And I just would be like, "Oh, let me write a song from that perspective. That's hilarious."

So you -- I think you have to be able to combat negativity with humor.

That's my favorite thing about her. I just wanted to make a song that felt like as luxurious and glamorous as she was in sort of the verses and the bridge.

We had a harp. We have, you know -- We pulled out all the stops for her.

-Harp. I love getting a harp on a track. Come on. Bring it back. -Yeah.

-No, she's just glamour and fun and -- -Yeah. -I just love everything about Elizabeth.

-Everybody should be obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor. -Yes. [ Laughter ] How about we do one more?

Can we do "Fate of Ophelia"? -Yes! Yes. Yes, yes. [ Cheers and applause ] -Alright.

-♪ All that time, I sat alone in my tower ♪ ♪ You were just honing your powers ♪ ♪ Now I can see it all ♪ ♪ See it all ♪ ♪ Late one night, you dug me out of my grave and ♪ ♪ Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia ♪ ♪ Keep it 100 on the land, the sea, the sky ♪

♪ Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes ♪ ♪ Don't care where the hell you've been ♪ ♪ 'Cause now you're mine ♪ ♪ It's 'bout to be the sleepless night ♪ ♪ You've been dreaming of ♪ ♪ The fate of Ophelia ♪ -Ooh! [ Cheers and applause ] -You guys are the best.

Oh, my God. -Alright. "Fate of Ophelia." Do you go -- How did you come with ♪ You're dreaming of ♪ -That was -- -♪ Ophelia ♪ -Let me tell you the rush -- -Let me tell you...

-It's great! -...the rush I felt when I thought of that. -It's great!

-It was the same feeling that I felt when I thought of ♪ Can't you see ♪ ♪ You belong with me? ♪ -Really? -Yes. Sometimes when you like -- -♪ You're dreaming of ♪ It's so good! -It is so fun. It's just like -- Oh! [ Cheers and applause ] -I love it.

-Thank you for acknowledging that melody. Yeah, that was a -- that was a big one for me.

-That's a good belter and it's like -- Yeah, it's just fun to sing along with. -It was so fun.

And it was also just sort of like we wanted to take just like different -- just different tones of speaking like almost different time periods of the way that people used to speak.

Like, there's certain like Shakespearean kind of ways of phrasing things in terminology and like, "tis locked inside my memory and only you possess the key," but there's also, like, "pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes."

Like, we wanted to kind of blend, like, now and then and try to juxtapose those together in a way that hopefully works. But I'm -- I love this song so much.

I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of the video. We had such a blast.

Just this whole process of this song coming out into the world and people -- I see people, like, dancing to it online and they're absolutely crushing it.

-Yes. -It is unbelievable. -I watched like 100 of them this morning trying to learn.

Yeah. -It's amazing. And, like, it just -- it's so fun to have fun.

And I really appreciate you guys having fun with me. [ Cheers and applause ] -We are.

We're totally having fun with you. We're having so much fun with you.

I can't thank you enough for always remembering me and coming back to the show and for keeping it 100... [ Laughter ] ...which I appreciate that.

Is that an Easter egg, by the way? -That's a lyric in the song. -Okay. [ Laughter ] -So -- So yes, so yes. Yes. So it's a lyric. -If it's a lyric, anything could be an Easter egg?

-Well, it's both. It's both. Everything's correct. [ Laughter ] -I'll tell you what it is.

And like you said it, you nailed it already. It's fun and it's fun to be with you and it's fun.

We are lucky to be living in a time with Taylor Swift, you know? [ Cheers and applause ] Thank you. Love you, bud. -You're amazing. -You're the best. Congrats. Number-one album!

Thank you. Love you, bud. -You're amazing. -You're the best. Congrats. Number-one album!

Congrats on your engagement. Thank you for coming to see us. Taylor Swift!

"The Life of a Showgirl" is out now. We'll be right back with more "Tonight Show"!