Magic Radio Breakfast hosts, Gok Wan and Harriet Scott, welcomed Taylor Swift in to the studio this morning to chat Life of a Showgirl, recording an album whilst also being on a world tour and why releasing Life of a Showgirl in cinemas is a tribute to the secret sessions she used to host for fans...
Taylor Swift on the inspiration for releasing Life of a Showgirl in cinemas:
'It’s a combination of these things I used to do called secret sessions where I would invite fans to my house and play them the record before it came out. I'd explain inspirations behind different parts of songs or why I wrote things a certain way before I would play each song. So, I give them an inside scoop into what went in to writing this particular song and then I'd play it so it's a combination of that and it's a music video debut. It's a premiere of a brand new music video that you can only see in theatres its not going to go on line immediately.
I was shooting the video and I was directing it and my camera operator, Colin, said 'it's a shame that this isn't going to be seen on like a big screen, it's such a massive production'. And I just was like, yeah, you're right! So we took that moment...
It's an opportunity for fans to get together, listen through to the new music, have me explain what I wrote it about and also you see a brand new music video and behind the scenes content of how we made the music video.'
Taylor Swift on aiming for 'perfection' with the new album:
'With this album I was very specific about the vision for it being a short, concise, almost in my mind I had the perfect album as an idea. Perfection is unobtainable, we know that conceptually it's a problematic thing to think about perfect. But I meant perfect in the idea that each song has a place, it can't be swapped out with anything else it fits perfectly together. So that's when I knew that we had made, in my mind, the perfect album for this moment in my life was when we wrote Wi$h Li$t because it really does get me , it's really emotional and it's a very accurate stance of where I am in my life and it was a feeling of we're done now.'
Taylor Swift on writing the new album whilst on tour:
'When I was on tour last summer it was the point in the tour where we had so many shows so frequently I was getting sick a lot, I was always like physically sore, but I had reached the point in the show where I could do it muscle memory. So I needed something [writing the album] to wake my brain back up.
It felt like was so physically exhausted from the shows, but being mentally and emotionally stimulated by making this music, got me to the point where I was so excited to step back on stage because I knew I had this little secret project I was working on.
So I'd play my shows, I'd play like three shows on the Eras Tour, I'd fly to Sweden. I'd fly back to the tour, I'd fly to Sweden. And it was a blast. Although that depends on your definition of fun!'
Taylor Swift on the inspiration behind some of the song Life of a Showgirl:
'There are some lines in the song that are very much the manifesto of how I've had to operate within this industry, It's a song about meeting one of your idols and they, instead of being what you thought they would be, they warn you against following in their footsteps because they just want to be honest with you about how hard this industry is and you do it anyway.
I think that's the manifesto of how I approached this tour. There wasn't the option of if I'm sick I'm not going on stage. There wasn't an option of I'm feeling terrible, I'm not doing the show tonight. And so every one of us on that tour operated from that standpoint of like the crowd is your king.'
