One week until Showgirl eve, and we're already discussing the highly anticipated track 5! I'm very excited to hear what Eldest Daughter is like, and here are some of my thoughts.
Now, I know some of you may be thinking "there's no way it can be that sad, Taylor herself has said that The Life Of A Showgirl is a happy album". No one's saying that every song on a "happy" album has to be pure fun and joy - this is actually very uncommon because... well, it's just not how the human brain works. 1989 is considered a "happy" and upbeat pop album, and that album still has a few slow ballads like Wildest Dreams, This Love and Clean, and a lot of uptempo songs with sad lyrics, like All You Had To Do Was Stay (that album's track 5... and probably my least favorite track 5 of Taylor's discography), I Wish You Would, Bad Blood, and pretty much all the vault tracks fitting into that category. This song could fit either category, but I'm thinking it's more likely to be the latter category - a song with sad lyrics but relatively upbeat production.
Taylor herself is an eldest daughter, so it's possible that this song could be about her brother Austin Swift. Taylor doesn't sing about him much, and there's really only one song I think is entirely about him - I'm Only Me When I'm With You (my favorite song on Debut) and even that one is ambiguous. His only direct mentions in songs were brief - The Best Day contains a rare occurrence of a line explicitly about him ("God smiles on my little brother, inside and out he's better than I am"), and seeing someone else like a brother is a trope that appears in Call It What You Want and Peace. As a track 5, it could be a sort of bittersweet reflection on Taylor chasing her dreams, while Austin - who has a fairly obscure acting career and helps with some of Taylor's production and business management - ends up being relatively overshadowed by his sister, in a similar manner to the Tis The Damn Season/Dorothea storyline, Laufey - Forget-Me-Not, and Finneas - Family Feud but from the other perspective. Based on what I've seen however, it does seem like Austin sort of prefers to keep a low profile. The theme could still work regardless.
Another theory I've seen is that it won't be about biological siblings but rather Taylor being a metaphorical "eldest daughter" in the music industry and feeling protective (and sometimes even overshadowed) with the newer, younger stars she takes under her wing, like Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams. In my parallel songs post, I mentioned Billie Eilish's song Goldwing, which was written about being protective over Olivia Rodrigo. I could definitely imagine this song being about a similar theme and it would work as a track 5, and fit the showgirl theme.
Alright, it's time for songwriting! Again, there are no leaks and no AI assistance used for songwriting here.
"She's gorgeous, she's iconic
In wintergreen and onyx
Eldest daughter keeping us on the ground
Is she on her own now?"
Predicting how The Life Of A Showgirl tracks will rank saddest to happiest
Welcome to the second double-post of the series, and in celebration of track 5, I'm predicting where each song will fall from saddest to happiest. I can't wait to see how wrong I am.
#12: Eldest Daughter (saddest) - track 5 is usually the saddest
#11: Elizabeth Taylor - might touch on darker side of fame
#10: Wi$h Li$t - same as above
#9: CANCELLED! - probably the angriest
#8: Ruin The Friendship - either of the common interpretations have sad undertones
#7: Father Figure - likely thematic similarity to George Michael
#6: The Fate Of Ophelia - probably a love song with slight fearful undertone
#5: Wood - I don't really know...
#4: The Life Of A Showgirl - seems fun to me
#3: Opalite - probably a love song
#2: Actually Romantic - same as above
#1: Honey - same as above
That's all for now! Byeeeeeeeeee!
