The opening track from Taylor Swift’s twelfth studio album, “The Fate of Ophelia”, debuted with a record-shattering streaming week with 30 million Spotify streams on day one and a rapid rise to the #1 placements across the globe, readily becoming Swift’s 13th US Billboard Hot 100 number one. “The Fate of Ophelia” also ended up breaking Spotify’s all-time single-day streaming record (30 million plays), to then move forward to become the fastest song to hit 100 million streams.
The track alongside the album has achieved unprecedented success and love from Swifties as well as other melophiles all over the world. However, just as a showgirl’s essence reaches beyond the shimmer of her sequins and lace, the album, too, unveils a stirring odyssey of storytelling and emotional depth that transcends being just a musical milestone.
Starting from the very first track, The Fate of Ophelia, Swift takes the Shakespearean classic and presents Hamlet’s doomed lead as someone capable of transformation rather than tragedy. She recasts Ophelia’s character as an agent of her own deliverance, thus drawing comparisons between Ophelia’s drowning and her own journey with heartbreak and media scrutiny, further connecting her fiancé, Travis Kelce, to her emotional salvation.
The song introduces themes of self-destruction versus salvation, referencing Hamlet’s themes of madness, betrayal, and drowning, but chooses to show the lead as an embodiment of hope and liberation instead of a victim of madness and male caprice.
The lyrics, various scenes in the music video, as well as the standard album cover, which depicts Swift partially submerged in a jeweled bralette artwork, reference and aim to recreate John Everett Millais’ “Ophelia” (1851–52) and Friedrich Heyser’s “Ophelia” (c. 1900) paintings, deepening the literary and art-historical resonance. The artwork shows Swift confronting the gaze head-on rather than succumbing to it, achieving a layered visual connection between Victorian art, Shakespeare, and 21st-century pop.
The official music video, released on October 5, also holds numerous visuals, numerology, and lyric references for the fans to fetch. The video discreetly mentions Swift’s fiancé, Travis Kelce, through appearances of his jersey number, “87”, a football caught mid-choreography, and even the number “100” (Kelce’s 87 + Swift’s 13).
In one scene, the portrait of Swift’s grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, an opera singer, can also be seen, further mirroring Taylor’s “showgirl” lineage.
At the end of the video, Taylor depicts Ophelia’s character avoiding drowning by holding onto a buoy, hence rewriting the Shakespearean tragedy into a story of survival, mirroring what she did for Juliet in “Love Story”. The imagery sets the stage for a narrative of rebirth rather than drowning, visually reconstructing history in reverse.
From Taylor’s love life to the literary significance, the song lyrics also weave dozens of easter eggs into the music.
“I heard you calling on the megaphone.”
The lyric is said to refer to Kelce’s public declarations on his podcast, from his first mentioning the friendship bracelets he made for Taylor to her discussing them. It also reframes the ‘siren song’ not as a deceptive lure but as a call for genuine connection.
“And if you’d never come for me / I might’ve drowned in the melancholy / I swore my loyalty to me, myself, and I / Right before you lit my sky up”
Here, Taylor directly invokes Ophelia’s fate, a life taken over by melancholy and drowning, and embarks on a journey from female defensibility to sudden romantic redemption.
“All that time I sat alone in my tower”
Swift’s imagery recalls both the tale of Rapunzel as well as the historical isolation of women seen in fairy tales and literature.
“You dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.”
This part of the chorus alludes to the grave digger scene from Hamlet while also presenting the broader theme of reviving the female spirit from the death sentence of patriarchal stories. Ophelia is rescued not just from the clutches of literal death but also from a life of anguish.
“Keep it one hundred 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”
In this verse, Taylor uses Kelce’s catchphrase ‘keep it 100’ and the idea of ‘pledging allegiance’ to contrast Ophelia’s lack of control against modern liberty and mutual commitment.
“The eldest daughter of a nobleman / Ophelia lived in fantasy / But love was a cold bed full of scorpions / The venom stole her sanity”
Taylor strengthens the Shakespearean metaphor by mentioning Ophelia’s status as a nobleman’s daughter and presenting it as a world of fantasy and privilege, which is nevertheless filled with emotional deprivation.
“‘Tis locked inside my memory / And only you possess the key / No longer drowning and deceived / All because you came for me”
In the bridge, she quotes a knowing paraphrase from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3 (“‘Tis in my memory locked, And you yourself shall keep the key of it.”) and turns a historic moment of silencing into an occasion of freedom and infectious love.
Taylor has excelled in using her artful storytelling and lyric-writing skills to create a modern resurrection of Ophelia in a dazzling pop context. Her song not only manages to tell a tale of salvation through the power of love but also subverts archetypes like Ophelia and Marilyn Monroe.
In the final shot of the song, Swift is shown submerged in the water, with only her head above the surface, and her eyes wide open. This “melodious lay” is a sign of deliberate survival, showing that where Victorian art and Hamlet left the protagonist passive and damned, Swift’s Ophelia is vivid and in control.