The Swiftie and The Scholar - BONUS: Ramblings on The Life of A Showgirl

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

In this bonus episode, Uncle Jerry and Angela discuss the excitement of the last week, including the cryptic Taylor Nation and New Heights posts, the countdowns, the new album announcement, and the two hour podcast episode heard 'round the world.Uncle Jerry teaches us a little bit about Ophelia and Hamlet to give some context around the album's opening track title, The Fate of Ophelia, and they discuss how Uncle Jerry got just a lilllll excited about the news.

I'm Anna Mena. And, like my music, my my baby is change with me. And it's a part of my rhythm. For so, Potion 9, of Sebastian Professional, has all what my

cabo needs. Nutrition Profunda. Protection against the encrespaid. 99% less of rotura and Puntas abirtas under control. New Potion 9

of Sebastian Professional, the secreto professional of who not are not they're doing tendences,

but of who can do you a business with Shopify and debate records of the rents of

the form of the form of the money. Has I heard the best of

the world. The incredible system of the Shopify facilita the services on your

social and the social and in the world. That is music for your ears.

No, you do you make a good your business and you

start your period of a year for a year on Shopify point

on shopify records. Welcome to the Swiftie and the Scholar

The podcast where we examine the lyrics, lore and literary legacy of Taylor Swift. I am Angela McDowell the Swiftie. And I am Dr. Jerry Coates, the scholar, also known as Uncle Jerry. Oh, yes. We have been a couple Uncle Jerry's and Dr. Uncle Jerry's, which I do appreciate. Hi. Hi. This is going to be, I don't know when this is going to come out, but early in the week,

this will be a little bonus episode because we got some big Swifty news this week. So exciting. And I felt like you needed to be included in the excitement. Thank you very much. As a Swift Curious. Certified Swift Curious. I am Swift Curious. Okay.

So this week, let's just roll it back. Okay. So there were lots of rumors from like industry people being like their seismic rumblings of new Taylor music coming. But people kind of always say that. And I try not to get too excited about things. Yes, she does. When there's no proof, I try not to get too excited. And I've hung up.

We call it clowning. Swip just call it clowning. Like, we're clowning for this. We're clowning for something to come. I'm familiar with the term. And so, you know, I say I've retired my red nose. It's put away. It's back out again.

I've unretired. So we back up and to last week. We had no idea anything was coming. and then all of a sudden on Monday we get a couple of things. We get a post from Taylor Nation. So Taylor Nation is,

I have so much to explain. I did not receive a post from Taylor Nation. So we get a post from Taylor Nation. Taylor Nation is, Taylor's like official social media. It's her team posting. So all of the stuff that comes from there is official. We get a 12 post,

or sorry, a 12 picture post on Instagram. Every picture she's wearing a different orange outfit from the Aeros Tour. And it says, so, okay, back up even further. So you recently learned there's an Ares Tour movie. There's also an Ares Tour book. Okay, I just found out about the movie and now there's a book. So there's a book. It's like a nice, pretty, I probably should be.

bring that here to you. It's a nice, pretty, you know, coffee table book just of images from the ERA's tour, and it's got a couple of, you know, little descriptions in it and stuff. And you have a copy of this book. Of course. And you pay... I don't remember. I got, I had to go into Target to buy it one day. I think it was Black Friday, actually. Okay. So that was interesting. But I bought one for your granddaughter as well. I gave that to her for her birthday. Or Christmas? I'm not sure. They're the same week. So at the very end of the book, it says, see you next era.

Dot, dot, dot. And so this Taylor Nation post that happened on Monday said, we're just thinking about that time. She said, see you next era. I'm so shocked, so she's not going to give up recording? Never. Okay. Everybody wants her to retire, I think. They're like, she's going to be gone. No, she's going to do this forever.

She'll be a pari-coma. I need, sure. Yeah. He's an old guy who's Well, I mean, you passed away. Yeah, I know Perry Como because Christmas songs, right? Oh, yes. Yeah. So there's 12 pictures in this post.

Is Lady Gaga? Yes. Okay. Yes. Had to get my girl in there. We're going to talk about Lady Gaga a little bit more, too. Okay. So we know that the next album is her 12th album. So when there's, it's going to be TS12.

So when there's 12 pictures and it was orange, everyone's like, okay, so her 12th album is coming. It's going to be orange. Because all of her albums so far kind of have a different color theme, color story. And then later that night, so everybody's really excited. And then like just a couple of hours later, maybe it wasn't even hours, new hikes, which is the Kelsey Brothers podcast posts like special episode. And it has the two of them and then a silhouette in the middle with orange glitter in the background of the picture. And they're like special episode coming out Wednesday night.

And their episodes come out Wednesday mornings. So everybody's like, this is suspicious. They have forewarning about this. I know they did. Yeah. So every, so then of course, Swifties are like figuring out finding the exact Taylor picture that fit into this silhouette that they post. Like, Swifties should work for the FBI, first of all. So everybody's like, okay, something's really coming.

And that's when I started texting you. I was just trying to look at and see. Okay, I received my first notice on husband. Oh, gosh. Yeah, what, two days ago? Three days ago. Yeah, you started sending me texts about that. Yes, I'm like, something's happening, something's coming.

Like, there's a big announcement coming. We don't know what it is. And you texted back hours later. Yes, I did. Like, you're in my head. What are we waiting for? I know. Well, it's crazy because I'm thinking, oh, new lyrics.

Okay. Well, we'll take a look at them. And then I started thinking, oh, new lyrics. I got to have them. It's like the next Harry Potter book just came out. I got to read it. You know, I mean, I don't know. So, yes, I texted back saying, are you staying up to midnight?

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a countdown on the website. Yeah. When that countdown ended at 11 p.m. our time, I was. still awake. I actually did. My brain is, my Swifty brain is so powerful. I do not stay up that late. I'm an early to bed kind of girl. And I laid in bed trying to stay awake, which I should have just like gone to the couch, but I just didn't, I wanted to sleep honestly. And I was like, I'm just going to like lay down.

I'm going to put my phone right here and I'm going to let myself sleep for like an hour and I'm going to wake up in time. And I woke up at like 11.09 p.m. And this, this was in. ending at like 1112 p.m. Well, I'm glad I didn't wake you when I texted you at 1118. No. My brain woke me up in time to like see the, it was a podcast promo where she actually reveals her album cover. The album cover was still blurred out, but she said the title of the album and that's all

we found out at 11, 12 p.m. was the title, which is the life of a showgirl, which I did then wake up to a text from you because I, I heard that and then I immediately went back to sleep. Yeah. And I forgot to text you because I was so tired. But you heard it. You found it. And you texted me the title.

I know. Is that crazy? Who knew, you know, two months ago? I know, I had no idea, you know. And which funny is, I mean, forgive me, forgive me Swift Nation or whatever you do. All Swifties everywhere. but I wasn't excited about the music. I just thought, oh, I want to see the lyrics.

I want to see what she's written. Of course. I mean, that's what I get excited about too, so it's fair. I mean, I'm excited about all of it, but the storytelling that what she's going to tell us through the songs is what I get most excited about. And I've told you, you know, I'm holding off on like the folklore album because I'm so intensely interested in folklore, you know, from reading all the songs, lyrics, and, you know, until. you send it to me and say, okay, read this book, until I have permission from you. Angela, by the way, does everything. I mean, she sends me the list of songs.

She produces the podcast. She edits it all. Listen, we're having fun. I know. So it's like, I can't wait to see the next lyrics. I'm swift curious. Yes, very curious. Very curious.

So I do want to talk a little bit about the track list because that, is the most interesting part of all of this to me. Absolutely. The cover is beautiful. There has been a lot of theories on the cover, but I think we'll get into that with the track, the title, the, not the title track,

the first track on this album, which when I saw, I got very excited about it. And then in the podcast the next night, when we heard, we got to hear Taylor talk for two hours, which is insane. We've never heard her talk that long.

she described the fate of Ophelia and started talking about Hamlet and how Lion King is based off of Hamlet Because that's, you know, where Travis and Jason are in this, you know, in this journey But, okay, so what do you think, with what little you know about Taylor and what now you know of her songwriting? Do you have theories on the fate of Ophelia? I, okay, I mean, what I can say about Ophelia. Yeah, teach us about Ophelia.

Okay, so, you know, having taught Hamlet any number of times in the classroom, you know, Ophelia was Hamlet's girlfriend, Hamlet's father was murdered, he comes back as a ghost, we assume, although there's a theme of madness, which may indicate that he doesn't see the ghost. Hamill's just insane, but that's all another discussion. Okay, okay. And so he wants to distance himself from Ophelia. He doesn't feel like he can engage in a relationship at that time. You know, her father uses her, Polonius, says, go and find out everything you can about Hamlet. Then he says, oh, no, wait, don't talk with her. And he's terribly manipulative of her.

He calls her a whore. Her own father, you know, suggests that she has been. having sex behind his back with Hamlet, that she's a wanton woman. You know, then when she and Hamlet talk, Hamlet pretends his insanity thing, you know, she is surrounded, she is embedded in a world of men

and the men are horrifically unkind to her. Interesting. And controlling of her, you know. And so knowing what I know about Taylor Swiss, I do wonder, is that the direction we're going to take? You know, Ophelia is also entangled in a romantic relationship. She writes a lot about romance, about failed romance. This is a classic failed romance.

You know, Ophelia has a, there's this beautiful moment in the play where she brings back her things to Hamlet, these things that he gave her. And he says, she says, I have some remembrances of you, you know. And she says that their perfume now lost, you know, that take them back, you know. Interesting. Yeah, when he gave them to her, he breathed into them such words as made them valuable to her. But now that he has taken all those words back, they're nothing. Interesting.

Okay. And he, again, plays this crazy thing where he goes off and says, what, I never gave you such. Oh, no. Gaslighting. And, yeah, it's just, it's a terrible. scene. You know, I mean, it does rend your heart when you see the scene and you think about from her perspective, you know, what she must be feeling. Interesting. Ultimately, she, I hope I'm not giving anything away for those of you have to rent, Hamlet. She commits suicide. Okay, and that's

in the water. Yes, she drowns herself. Okay. And so that's where I think people are thinking this cover is coming from. Oh, is that right. Okay. Because she here, she's, she said on the podcast, she said she's in a bathtub. Okay. But, I mean, it's just like only this part of her, you know, is out of the water. Right. And the rest of her is under. So I think people are thinking she pulled from that a little bit.

She did say that this was chosen as the cover because this album is not about the showgirl. It's about what happens to the showgirl when she's off stage behind the curtain. Okay. And so I think that she's just going to be. super interesting. I'm so interested in how she's going to tie Ophelia in. Elizabeth Taylor. She...

Let me go back to... One more thing about Ophelia is that she was very popular in the 19th century in the Victorian period. Okay. And as were women who were distressed, beset, and otherwise suicidal. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty common.

I think I like that. Yeah, I don't know what you just said. Distressed, beset, and otherwise suicidal. And so there are a number of painters who paint her, especially there's a very famous pre-Raphaelite painting. Where there's like flowers in like a river. Yes, where she's lying in the water and there are flowers all over there. I've seen people sharing that. So, yeah, if you haven't seen that, take a look at it.

That's the pre-Raphaelites, you know, Melas and John Singer-Sargeant and American who satire under the pre-Raphaelites, Frederick Alitin, certainly Dante Gabriel Rosetti. Rosetti is like one of the heads of the pre-Raphaelites. And they paint, they thought that Raphael, the painter, the Renaissance painter, Raphael, was the height of beauty and form. Okay. And so they attempt to emulate that. Their paintings are also highly allegorical. So they tend to tell stories.

Okay. The Ophelia painting, you might interpret allegorically. So take a look at it. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Okay. Um, I don't, a lot of people love to look at the track, the track listing and like, decide what they think those songs are going to be about.

I don't love that because we're never right. You know, she always surprises us. We never really get it correct. But I do, I've heard, I've heard so much chatter about track five. We love track five. It's called eldest daughter. The eldest daughter trope is like a really big thing on the internet right now. Do you hear people talk, have you, do you have you heard this?

I know you're not hearing it on the internet. No, I know. So the eldest, your eldest daughter, is kind of the eldest daughter trope, like very, um, take charge, you know, Taipei, going to get it done, going to do it. Right. Going to take, take control of situations, going to make whatever needs to happen, happen, you know. Taylor is the eldest daughter.

She's a younger brother. But, and people are trying to say that what they think this is going to be about her family. But in the podcast, she also said that, um, she was talking about reclaiming her masters. And that whole process and the behind the scenes of that and how she found out she got them back. And she also talked about how younger artists are all coming up to her now and telling her like, I had no idea about any of this. I had no idea.

This is something I should be fighting for owning my masters. You know, I've negotiated my contract in a way that I've learned from you that I should. And so I'm almost wondering, I know I just said I don't like when people. will do this, but this is the one, I'm going to do it. My thought was that this is about her being the eldest daughter of all of these, like the elder, elder sister, basically, of all of these new artists that she's kind of raised with her, the ones that she's inspired. And I don't know, I know nothing.

But that's just kind of what I thought that she's acting as the eldest daughter in that situation, you know, where the music industry is the dad, you know, or the, parents and and she's like ushering these people in but that's kind of the only thing that the only one I had thoughts on also opalite we know she wears a lot of opal jewelry it's also Travis Kelsey's birthstone but opalite opalite and she's always won a lot of opal that's not like a sentence Travis thing but opalite is like man made a manmade gemstone almost exclusively it rarely occurs in nature yeah so that's an interesting sorry I took a quarter in mineralogy. Of course you did.

In my undergraduate, yeah, I just had to throw out another course and I thought, oh, this would be fun, you know. Yeah, that does sound fun, really. I became absolutely passionate about it. I've actually taken vacations to go and look to be a rock hound. Fun. Yeah. Where? So, to Arizona and to Mississippi. Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean, so, so yes, Opelite. One of my friends when they like live text me

when they're listening to this was in a group chat and one of them was like I feel like Uncle Jerry has degrees in like seven different things and I was like I think you might

you know I took a lot of coursework I'm just going to say yeah so yeah when I saw Opelite I did wonder

it's I mean it's a particularly soft stone you know it's low on the Moes scale of hardness. I do know about that. Do you the Moe scale? Yeah.

So like quartz is about a seven on the Moes scale. So yeah, I mean it's interesting. I wondered, because it has this, you know, that pearl-less and inner glow, which is interesting, usually man-made. So I wondered if it's going to be something about falsity. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

We don't know. We'll never know. You did say something about in, when you're talking about Ophelia, you said something about perfume. So we have four. So she always does like variants of the vials and the CDs. So they're different colors. They have different covers.

And they always have a different name. So this is a variant cover here of tortured. Right. Yes. The tortured poet, actually all of these. I never buy the original. I don't know why. Oh, I know.

Why would you? This is the black dog version. So. I had no idea. She's been sitting on my desk for two weeks. now inspiring me. Angela left this just to inspire me. I just want you to have her surrounding you, you know.

Really embody the journey we're on. But one of the variants or the, I think it's the main one, is called sweat and vanilla perfume. Oh, okay. So that's interesting. Yeah, that's fine. Don't know what to make of that. Elizabeth Taylor is famous for perfume.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, who do we know? Yeah, so that's kind of all I wanted to cover. today. I think probably once this album comes out on October 3rd, we'll cover the fate of Ophelia first, just because I feel like, why not, you know? You know, I will follow up and say something you said about eldest, the eldest daughter was interesting because your speculation is that she is an inspiration to younger artists now that she is an elder in the recording industry. And it does remind me how there is a level of a

apprenticeship and what I do, you know what I mean. I'll never forget being a 21-year-old going into a classroom for the very first time. Yeah, terrifying. Well, I mean, I had my bachelor's degree. I'd gotten another major. I'd gotten my education hours. I was working on a master's. But I had never had to have control of a class except for student teaching.

And I had a really terrific department chair who taught me how to be a teacher. Mm-hmm. You know, and I mean, I had the mental equipment, but I didn't know that I had the managerial skills. Right. And she was the one who taught me managerial skills. She was pretty great. Yeah. And Taylor talks about learning from other, maybe not learning from other women, but seeing these other.

So she's a song on tortured poets called Clara Bow. Oh, yeah, sure. Because she's taught, and she also mentioned Stevie Nix in that song. So she's like, Clara Bo was this it girl. then Stevie Nick's was the it girl and now I'm the it girl kind of thing

and like learning from those journeys she also was a song that people think is based on Joni Mitchell called the Lucky One talking about how she like was the lucky one because she she made it she got to make her art

and make her music and then she got out you know she traded the she traded the rose garden for Madison Square like she got out of Madison Square garden and went and made a rose garden away from all of the you know um and so i do think there's like a lot of that themes where she sees herself in these people that these women that have come before her so that's just kind of a thing that i think of um and maybe something with the elizabeth

taylor there of it all we we've talked about lizzaa taylor on this podcast now i can't even remember why i don't remember what song that was but she also she's called out elizabeth taylor before she's has a lyric where she says uh you're the burden to this Taylor. Iconics are troubled romantic relationships. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of, a lot of synergy there.

So, yeah, so that's kind of all I want to talk about. I just wanted to get your thoughts on your first Taylor Swift album announcement week. Yep. I'm a little embarrassed by my behavior. I do think you need to watch the podcast, though. Okay, I'll watch. You said it was two hours? Two hours of her chatting.

Dang, okay. So, you know, in all your free time. Yeah. That'll be a commitment. She did get emotional talking about getting all her music back and owning her master's. And it instantly made me want to cry. And then I was rewatching again on the way here to just prepare for this a little bit.

And it made me start to cry again. Oh, that's story of her little children. Yeah. Yeah. Our stolen lullivise. Okay. Is it time for a Dickens story? Always.

Okay. Charles Dickens constantly had trouble with. with people wanting to steal his work. And it was particularly bad because he published all 14 of his major novels periodically. Okay, so they were published in installments, like monthly installments. Oh, okay. So he would be halfway through a novel in these month-by-month-by-month installments, and people would be going nuts to know what the end was going to be like.

And so up in Scotland, some hack writer would write the end of the novel and sell it. Or in America, some hack rider would write the end of the novel. Like this happened with Oliver Twist. A guy wrote Oliver Twister. No. Yes, just to avoid copyright and published it. So, yeah, people were always stealing from Dickens. And it just made him nuts.

He was constantly going to court. He had to go to court over Christmas Carol. Yeah, so very famously, he published Christmas Carol. And then other people published similar stories. you know, almost exactly the same stories with a few names slightly changed. And he prosecuted every one of them. And he was angry because it wound up costing him more in legal fees than he made from the group. Yeah, for sure.

You know, and so, yeah, it's always been a problem for artists to retain control of their own material. And it pisses them off. Yeah, and it's probably never going to stop. Yeah, I'm sorry. This was our Dickens moment for the day. Yeah, we got to have them. That's right. But I get it.

I mean, yeah, she wants to control her stuff. It just pisses you off when you can't. Yeah. The only other thing I want to say is that I do think that this is like a completely, this is going to be top to bottom glitter gel pin songs. Oh. But I do think, so she wrote this album with Max Martin and Shelbach. Max Martin has written and produced like a Catrillion pop hits.

So he's worked with. Lady Gaga. Ariana Grande, The Weekend, Katie Perry, in sync, my personal favorite. Backstreet Boys is a cold play. Brittany. Back Street Boys, yeah. Like, he's had dozens of number one hits. Yeah, the cold play.

Yeah, and he's had even, like, hundreds probably of, you know, top 100 hits. Like, he's just very prolific for these, like, pop anthems. and including some of Taylor's own, probably some of Taylor's most popular songs have been produced by Max Martin, like commercially popular, radio, popular. But they haven't worked together since 2017, and she said that while she was on the Aeros tour,

Max Martin came, he's Swedish, and he came to her show in Sweden, and she did a whole, like, Max Martin mashup for the support, songs that night, which was very fun. And then she started working, she was like, we need to work together again, and she started flying to

Sweden while she was on the Eros Tour in Europe, like on her days off making this record. And my favorite part of, probably of the podcast the other night, is she said, you know, whenever she worked with Max Martin and Shelbach before,

Max Martin was kind of the older, the wise, the mentor, and her and Shelback were these like young 20s kind of, you know, new learning from him. And she said they, you know, they went their separate way. She started working with other people. And he, when they came back together, she said it felt like they were all three now like equal collaborators.

And that was really fun for her, I think, to see how much she's grown, like from 2017 to now. And also she said that Max Martin said, we can do this, but I don't want to. you to like I loved the writing and the lyricism that you've like adapted and that you've grown into since folklore and I don't want to lose that and she said I don't think I could if I tried so I do think that these songs will be pop forward very glitter gelpin but with deeper lyricism I hope so me too I personally am a sad song girly and so I love the messy, dramatic 31 songs that are just like pure catharsis and like the drama of what she was going through on tortured poets.

And she said this is the exact opposite. It's super like we are, you know, we're super edited. Everything is very, like everything is very intentional. Everything, like the story is very zipped up. So it's just kind of the opposite of what she did last time. And I'm interested. I'm excited. Okay.

But. Well, when you told me about it one week ago, you said something might be coming. My response was, me. Yeah. But when you texted me, I don't know, somehow I channeled that inner 14-year-old girl we talked about. And I was like, oh, really? Tonight? What's happening?

What are we waiting for? Yeah. So, to be continued. That's right. We'll finish this when we get the record. Yep, as soon as we get the poetry, I'll be happy to take a look. Okay, exciting. Okay, we will see you all later this week for a new episode.

Okay. Bye. Bye.