Back in 2017, in the opening track of her sixth studio album, Taylor Swift mentions an old Hollywood icon while nodding to an unnamed partner in the lyric “Burton to my Taylor.” Eight years later, the second track of her twelfth studio album is titled after the same Hollywood diva, Elizabeth Taylor, examining celebrity mythology and self-image. “Elizabeth Taylor” draws a direct parallel between Taylor Swift and the late film icon, invoking luxury, romance, and the invasive pressures of public attention.

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s, who began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s, to then become the world's highest-paid movie star in the 1960s, remaining a well-known public figure for the rest of her life. Being a philanthropist, she helped found the American Foundation for AIDS Research and raised about $100 million for patients with other illnesses, while also battling many illnesses of her own: skin cancer, a (benign) brain tumor, injuries and fractures to her hips and back. Having been married eight times to seven different men made her popular not just for her professional life but also for her private one. Elizabeth was scrutinized by the media, earning her the tag of a ‘homewrecker’ after her affair with Eddie Fisher, and having calls made to the US Congress to bar her from entering the country after her involvement with Richard Burton the first time around.

Having had her own life dissected under the microscope of the paparazzi, it is evident why Swift chose to name the song after Taylor. She highlights how Taylor’s personal life often overtook the narrative of her actual career. Swift herself has been subject to similar media surveillance, her songs judged more for what men they’re about than for their lyrics and deeper meaning. She has never been shy to comment on the media’s fascination with her romantic life and their audacity to belittle her music for focusing on relationships.

Swift’s comparison of herself to the legendary woman mirrors the 20th-century Hollywood icon’s role as both goddess and scapegoat. She draws from her own experiences and those of Taylor’s and expertly weaves the starlet’s life into the song, dropping references to strengthen her aim of drawing attention to the perils and pleasures of being both the myth and the maker.

“That view of Portofino was on my mind.” Mentioned twice, the lyric refers to the Italian village where Burton proposed to Taylor in 1964. “When you called me at the Plaza Athénée.” Swift here mentions the Parisian hotel where Taylor had stayed with Burton. “We hit the best booth at Musso & Frank’s.” Taylor was known to frequently dine at the Los Angeles restaurant that Swift cites in her song. “All my white diamonds and lovers are forever.” The lyric is a reference to Elizabeth Taylor’s fragrance line, called ‘White Diamonds.’

Through the track, Taylor explores the opulence and pitfalls of mid-century stardom, likening her own journey to that of a starlet perpetually scrutinized and misunderstood. Her mention of the Portofino, Plaza Athénée, Cartier, and White Diamonds perfume adds depth to the track to express her longing for trust over trinkets. Swift’s reference to Taylor’s fame was perhaps the clearest meditation on the exhaustion of both performing and being performed upon. She uses the line, “You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby,” to portray a starlet’s oscillation between adoration and disposability.

With the song, Swift calls to a love that would not fall prey to the media scrutiny but instead would maneuver it by her side; a love that she has succeeded in finding. She adds layers to her idea of media being tangled with personal life by depicting the allure and cost of fame through the lens of Elizabeth Taylor, a woman whose life and marriages were subject to continuous media dissection.

The song explores a soft rock/AOR genre, its lush orchestration, along with Taylor's mention, reminding fans of the music on one of Swift’s previous albums, Reputation. The track’s strings and programmed piano mirror the glamour of its subject while highlighting the loneliness of having to be under the spotlight forever. Swift calls the track “one of [her] favourite songs,” describing it as a song about anxiety provoked by fickle fame at the premiere of The Official Release Party of a Showgirl. We can identify this feeling of anxiety mirrored through several lyrics in the song: “If your letter ever said goodbye,” “if you ever leave me high and dry,” “don’t you ever end up anything but mine.”

She follows the theme of her album, showing how the artists, constantly performing for others’ entertainment, are often sexualized and considered relevant only in the context of their relationships with men. Swift’s masterful combination of love, anxiety, fame, judgment, and uncertainty, along with Elizabeth Taylor’s life history, has managed to orchestrate a truly exceptional song, succeeding in creating an album both celebrating and critiquing the labor of feminine spectacle.

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